"This is worse than civil war," he exclaimed; "and if such a state of things is to be established, we shall have nothing but anarchy from one end of the country to the other. Had you been an armed party, bearing the royal colours, with drum or trumpet, it might have been excusable, considering these lamentable dissensions; but to attack you thus, without cause and without warrant, was the act of a mere marauder. This Captain Batten, whom you have killed, I find, has met with too honourable a fate. He deserved to die by the hands of the hangman and not by those of a gentleman." "Yes, my lord," replied Barecolt, with an air of calm grandeur; "I put him to death, amongst others, and we had no time to consider what sort of fate was meet for them. However, I must do the men justice, and say that I suspect they did not act without a motive, or perhaps without many. In the first place, I believe that I was the unhappy object of their enmity. I had been recognised at the first inn where we stopped by the cornet of this Captain Batten's troop; and though we were speedily joined by the noble earl and a certain Colonel Warren, the latter of whom vowed manfully that I was not the Captain Barecolt of whose little exploits they had heard so much, but one Captain Jersval, an officer employed by Sir John Hotham on the fortifications of Hull--I never heard a man lie so neatly in my life, and he deserves great credit for the same: although, I say, this Colonel Warren delivered me from the first danger, and carried Cornet Stumpborough back with him to Hull, yet I saw clearly that the worthy Roundhead was not convinced, and afterwards, as we were riding along, I caught a glimpse of a man, very like a trumpeter, going at full speed on our left." "But what would that imply?" demanded Lord Walton. "Simply, that Cornet Stumpborough had sent off a messenger to tell his commander, Captain Batten, who knew me well from having seen me with your lordship on the march from Bishop's Merton, that he would catch me on the road if he looked out sharply. In this opinion I am confirmed from having heard in the kitchen of an inn where we stopped to feed the horses, that this same trumpeter had been seen half-an-hour before galloping round on the outside of the village, and taking his way in the direction of Captain Batten's party. This might be one plea for attacking us; and another might be, that we were certainly riding as fast as we could go. Now every beast, my lord, has an inclination to run after another beast which it sees run away. Then again, when they had nearly come up with us, they commanded us to halt, an order which we disobeyed to the best of our ability. The natural consequence was, they charged us immediately, and brought us fighting along the road for half-a-mile. Nevertheless, I am very much afraid that your lordship's humble servant was the great object of the attack."