icott and his wife had seemed to think it prudent to keep well out of
sight: the former having yielded to Gunning's advance had discreetly
retired amongst the petticoats.

No one, least of all Walterton, who remained the acknowledged leader of
the little party of gamesters, had any idea of the numerical strength of
the patrol whose interference with gentlemanly pastimes was
unwarrantable and passing insolent. In the gloom on the landing beyond,
a knot of men could only be vaguely discerned. Captain Gunning and his
lieutenant, Bradden, had alone advanced into the room.

But now apparently Gunning gave some sign, which Bradden then
interpreted to the men outside. The sign itself must have been very
slight for none of the cavaliers perceived it--certainly no actual word
of command had been spoken, but the next moment--within thirty seconds
of Walterton's defiant speech, the room itself, the doorway and
apparently the landing and staircase too, were filled with men, each one
attired in scarlet and yellow, all wearing leather doublets and steel
caps, and all armed with musketoons which they were even now pointing
straight at the serried ranks of the surprised and wholly unprepared
gamesters.

"I would fain not give an order to fire," said Captain Gunning curtly,
"and if you, gentlemen, will follow me quietly, there need be no
bloodshed."

It may be somewhat unromantic but it is certainly prudent, to listen at
times to the dictates of common sense, and one of wisdom's most cogent
axioms is undoubtedly that it is useless to stand up before a volley of
musketry at a range of less than twelve feet, unless a heroic death is
in contemplation.

It was certainly very humiliating to be ordered about by a close-cropped
Puritan, who spoke in nasal tones, and whose father probably had mended
boots or killed pigs in his day, but the persuasion of twenty-four
musketoons, whose muzzles pointed collectively in one direction, was
bound--in the name of common sense--to prevail ultimately.

Of a truth, none of these gentlemen--who were now content to oppose a
comprehensive vocabulary of English and French oaths to the brand-new
weapons of my Lord Protector's police--were cowards in any sense of the
word. Less than a decade ago they had proved their mettle not only sword
in hand, but in the face of the many privations, sorrows and
humiliations consequent on the failure of their cause and the defeat,
and martyrdom of their king. There was