were dismounted and ordered to take the houses by storm.
With the hilts of their swords they broke in the doors, and there was
fierce lighting within.

Harry, who was rather bewildered with the din and turmoil of the fight,
did as the rest, and followed two or three of the men into one of the
houses, whose door had been broken open. They were assailed as they
entered by a fire of musketry from the Parliament men within. Those in
front fell, and Harry was knocked down by the butt of a pike.

When he recovered he found himself in a boat drifting down the stream, a
prisoner of the Roundheads.

For a long time Harry could hear the sounds of the guns and cannon at
Brentford, and looking round at the quiet villages which they passed on
the banks, could scarce believe that he had been engaged in a battle and
was now a prisoner. But little was said to him. The men were smarting
under their defeat and indulged in the bitterest language at the
treachery with which, after negotiations had been agreed upon, the
advance of the Royalists had been made. They speedily discovered the
youth of their captive, and, after telling him brutally that he would
probably be hung when he got to London, they paid no further attention
to him. The boat was heavily laden, and rowed by two oars, and the
journey down was a long one, for the tide met them when at the village
of Hammersmith, and they were forced to remain tied up to a tree by the
bank until it turned again. This it did not do until far in the night,
and the morning was just breaking when they reached London.

It was perhaps well for Harry that they arrived in the dark, for in the
excited state of the temper of the citizens, and their anger at the
treachery which had been practiced, it might have fared but badly with
him. He was marched along the Strand to the city, and was consigned to a
lock-up in Finsbury, until it could be settled what should be done to
him. In fact, the next day his career was nearly being terminated, for
John Lilburn, a captain of the Train Bands, who had been an apprentice
and imprisoned for contumacy, had been captured at Brentford, and after
being tried for his life, was sentenced to death as a rebel. Essex,
however, sent in word to the Royalist camp that for every one of the
Parliament officers put to death, he would hang three Royalist
prisoners. This threat had its effect, and Harry remained in ignorance
of the danger which had threatened him.

The greates