ursued
by two soldiers of the King's party, then in possession of the town.
Seeing themselves pursued, they quitted their horses, and took to their
heels; but, by reason of their accoutrements, could make little speed.
They came up with my father first; and, though he begged for quarter,
none they would give him, but laid on him with their swords, cutting and
slashing his hands and arms, which he held up to save his head; as the
marks upon them did long after testify. At length it pleased the
Almighty to put it into his mind to fall down on his face; which he did.
Hereupon the soldiers, being on horseback, cried to each other, _Alight,
and cut his throat_! but neither of them did; yet continued to strike and
prick him about the jaws, till they thought him dead. Then they left
him, and pursued his neighbor, whom they presently overtook and killed.
Soon after they had left my father, it was said in his heart, _Rise, and
flee for thy life_! which call he obeyed; and, starting upon his feet,
his enemies espied him in motion, and pursued him again. He ran down a
steep hill, and through a river which ran at the bottom of it; though
with exceeding difficulty, his boots filling with water, and his wounds
bleeding very much. They followed him to the top of the hill; but,
seeing he had got over, pursued him no farther."

The surgeon who attended him was a Royalist, and bluntly told his
bleeding patient that if he had met him in the street he would have
killed him himself, but now he was willing to cure him. On his recovery,
young Roberts again entered the army, and continued in it until the
overthrow, of the Monarchy. On his return, he married "Lydia Tindall,
of the denomination of Puritans." A majestic figure rises before us,
on reading the statement that Sir Matthew Hale, afterwards Lord Chief
Justice of England, the irreproachable jurist and judicial saint, was
"his wife's kinsman, and drew her marriage settlement."

No stronger testimony to the high-toned morality and austere virtue of
the Puritan yeomanry of England can be adduced than the fact that, of the
fifty thousand soldiers who were discharged on the accession of Charles
II., and left to shift for themselves, comparatively few, if any, became
chargeable to their parishes, although at that very time one out of six
of the English population were unable to support themselves. They
carried into their farm-fields and workshops the strict habits of
Cromwell's disci