by using it only as an excuse for every kind of licence. Soldiering under Captain Monk was found to be a very serious thing. The wildest blades were soon tamed by the impassive stare and rough speech of the captain-lieutenant, young as he still was, and many there were who lived to thank him long afterwards for the severity of the lessons he taught. Yet he was no mere soldier of the lecture-room and parade-ground either, for all his science and severity. Those who followed George Monk had to tread in thorny places, as any one who knew it not before found out at the siege of Breda. It was the last piece of service for Monk in the Low Countries, and it was the one in which he crowned his reputation for that absolute intrepidity which afterwards used to terrify the carpet-knights of the Restoration, and even make Prince Rupert hold his breath. In 1637 Frederick found himself strong enough to invest the town with a combined army of Dutch and French, together with his English brigade. The French and English attacks were directed on an important hornwork, and here Goring's regiment had plenty of hard work and hard fighting. Monk soon found himself without a colonel; for Goring here received the wound that gave him the attractive limp the young cavaliers used afterwards so to envy, and he had to give up the active command of his regiment. But in spite of every difficulty, by the night of September 6th the English mines were almost ready. On the morrow they were to be reported complete. Monk was in command of the advanced picket in the trenches. Some attempt of the besieged to destroy the English works was only to be expected, and but for Monk's vigilance the labour of weeks might have been undone in a single night. In discharge of his duty as commander in the trenches he was making the round, and at one point he had to pass close under the hornwork. No sooner had he reached the spot than he saw a number of Spaniards dropping silently from the berme into the trenches. He had but four pikes and a couple of musketeers at his back, but without a moment's hesitation he hurled himself at the dark mass in front of him. A desperate hand-to-hand struggle ensued, till the picket, alarmed by the firing, came up, and the enemy were driven within their own works.