"No," thundered a voice from a seat in the chimney corner; "the blast of the Lord, that destroyed Sennacherib and his host, will utterly consume the malignants, including Charles Stuart, the son of the enemy of the people of England!" My father sprang to his feet, white with fury. All eyes were centred on the speaker. He was a short, thick-set man of about forty years of age, with a bull-neck, huge ears, small ferrety eyes, close-cropped hair, and a clean-shaven face deeply pitted with smallpox. He wore a buff-coloured jerkin, opened at the neck for comfort’s sake, and frayed and soiled from the wearing of armour, his breast- and back-plates of dull steel having been removed. These, together with a steel helmet with metal guards, and a heavy broadsword, lay on the settle within arm’s length, while a petronel and a well-weighted bandolier hung across the back of a chair on which the man’s feet, encased in long Spanish boots, rested. On my father striding across the room, the stranger leisurely rose from his seat and extended his hand in an attitude of contemptuous reproof. "Tut, man, ’tis time thy grey hairs taught thee wisdom! Wouldst threaten me, Increase Joyce, trooper of Parliamentary Horse?" "Draw, knave, draw!" shouted my father, whipping out his hanger. "Either unsay those words or else swallow them!" Instantly all was confusion. Some of the more timid made towards the door, tables were overturned, tankards clattered on the floor, excited men shouted in unintelligible voices. For my own part, I remained by my father’s side, unable to take my eyes off his antagonist, and, at the same time, knowing that my father in his choler would brook no interference from me. "I fight not with old men," retorted Joyce. "But this I know: ’The axe is laid unto the root of the trees’, an’ if that arch-profligate, Charles Stuart, were to set foot in England----" He was interrupted by a violent knocking at the door, which, being thrown wide open, showed a man fully armed and holding the reins of a steaming and apparently exhausted horse. "Host!" he shouted. "Where or which is the host?" Old Giles Perrin, the innkeeper, came forward and awaited his commands. "Now, sirrah, on thy life, hasten! Provender for my beast; a cup of spiced ale for myself. With all dispatch, man, for I am on the service of the State!" The stranger strode into the room, stooped and replaced one of the overturned stools, seated himself thereon, and, removing a cloth that encircled his neck, wiped his heated brow vigorously. Then he stared haughtily around at the assembled company, seized the cup that old Giles brought, and drained it at one gulp. I remarked that he spoke with an accent totally different from the Southern dialect of our part of Hampshire and Sussex, but my doubts were soon set at rest. "How far down yon road is’t to Petersfield? And is one like to meet aught of footpads, drawlatches, or vagrants of that condition?"