ess you, lad, God bless you! Strong of arm and soft of heart, tender
to the weak and stern to the oppressor, you have the prayers and the
love of all who know you.' I pressed his extended hands, and the last
I saw of my native hamlet was the shadowy figure of the carpenter as he
waved his good wishes to me through the darkness.

We made our way across the fields to the house of Whittier, the Whig
farmer, where Saxon got into his war harness. We found our horses ready
saddled and bridled, for my father had at the first alarm sent a message
across that we should need them. By two in the morning we were breasting
Portsdown Hill, armed, mounted, and fairly started on our journey to the
rebel camp.

Chapter VIII. Of our Start for the Wars

All along the ridge of Portsdown Hill we had the lights of Portsmouth
and of the harbour ships twinkling beneath us on the left, while on
the right the Forest of Bere was ablaze with the signal fires which
proclaimed the landing of the invader. One great beacon throbbed upon
the summit of Butser, while beyond that, as far as eye could reach,
twinkling sparks of light showed how the tidings were being carried
north into Berkshire and eastward into Sussex. Of these fires, some were
composed of faggots piled into heaps, and others of tar barrels set upon
poles. We passed one of these last just opposite to Portchester, and the
watchers around it, hearing the tramp of our horses and the clank of
our arms, set up a loud huzza, thinking doubtless that we were King's
officers bound for the West.

Master Decimus Saxon had flung to the winds the precise demeanour which
he had assumed in the presence of my father, and rattled away with many
a jest and scrap of rhyme or song as we galloped through the darkness.

'Gadzooks!' said he frankly, 'it is good to be able to speak freely
without being expected to tag every sentence with a hallelujah or an
amen.'

'You were ever the leader in those pious exercises,' I remarked drily.

'Aye, indeed. You have nicked it there! If a thing must be done, then
take a lead in it, whatever it may be. A plaguy good precept, which has
stood me in excellent stead before now. I cannot bear in mind whether I
told you how I was at one time taken prisoner by the Turks and conveyed
to Stamboul. There were a hundred of us or more, but the others either
perished under the bastinado, or are to this day chained to an oar in
the Imperial Ottoman galleys, where they are like