ce sent for
the steward, and a dozen men were summoned in all haste. On their
arrival they set to work to strip the hall of its most valued furniture.
The pictures were taken down from the walls, the silver and plate
tumbled into chests, the arms and armor worn by generations of the
Furnesses removed from the armory, the choicest articles of furniture of
a portable character put into carts, together with some twenty casks of
the choicest wine in the cellars, and in four hours only the heavier
furniture, the chairs and tables, buffets and heavy sideboards remained
in their places.

Just as the carts were filled news came that the enemy had ridden into
Abingdon. Night was now coming on, and the carts at once started with
their contents for distant farms, where the plate and wine were to be
buried in holes dug in copses, and other places little likely to be
searched by the Puritans. The pictures and furniture were stowed away in
lofts and covered deeply with hay.

Having seen the furniture sent off, Harry awaited the arrival of the
Parliament bands, which he doubted not would be dispatched by the
Puritans among the townspeople to the hall. The stables were already
empty except for Rollo, Harry's own horse. This he had at once, the
alarm being given, sent off to a farm a mile distant from the hall, and
with it its saddle, bridle, and his arms, a brace of rare pistols,
breast and back pieces, a steel cap with plumes, and his sword. It cost
him an effort to part with the last, for he now carried it habitually.
But he thought that it might be taken from him, and, moreover, he feared
that he might be driven into drawing it, when the consequences might be
serious, not only for himself, but for the mansion of which his father
had left him in charge.

At nine a servitor came in to say that a party of men were riding up the
drive. Harry seated himself in the colonel's armchair, and repeated to
himself the determination at which he had arrived of being perfectly
calm and collected, and of bearing himself with patience and dignity.
Presently he heard the clatter of horses' hoofs in the courtyard, and
two minutes later, the tramp of feet in the passage. The door opened,
and an officer entered, followed by five or six soldiers.

This man was one of the worst types of Roundhead officers. He was a
London draper, whose violent harangues had brought him into notice, and
secured for him a commission in the raw levies when they were firs