Then a larger and heavier force, that had been following down the Kymin Hill, Massey's main body, came on at full gallop, over the drawbridge and through the gate. There, taking up the cry, "God and Parliament!" they went rattling on through the streets of the town, clearing them of all hostile opposition, and capturing everybody who showed a rag of Royalist uniform. When the morning's sun rose over Monmouth, from its castle turrets floated a flag very different from that hitherto waving there. The glorious standard of Liberty had displaced the soiled and blood-stained banner of the Stuart Kings. CHAPTER FORTY SIX. AWAITING WAR NEWS. "What a life we've been leading, Sab! Shut up in cities as birds in a cage! Now nearly two years of it, with scarce ever a peep at the dear, delightful country. Oh! it's a wretched existence." "It's not the pleasantest, I admit." "And in this prosaic city, Gloucester." "Ah, Vag, don't speak against Gloucester. Think what her citizens have suffered in the good cause. And how well they have borne themselves! But for their bravery and fidelity, where might we be now? Possibly in Bristol. How would you like that?" "Not at all," returned Vag, with a shrug and grimace, the name of Bristol recalling souvenirs aught but agreeable to her. "Well," resumed Sabrina, "life there is not prosaic, anyhow--if there be poetry in scandal. Very much the reverse, I should say, supposing half of what's reported be true. But I wonder how our foolish aunt, and equally foolish cousin, are comporting themselves under the changed circumstances?" "Oh! they're happy enough, no doubt; everything just as they wished it. Plenty of titled personages flitting and figuring around--at least three princes of the blood royal, with an occasional chance of their seeing the King himself. Won't Madame open wide the doors of Montserrat House. As for Clarisse, I shouldn't be surprised at her making a grand marriage of it, becoming baroness duchess, or something of that sort. Well, I won't envy her." Vaga Powell could afford to speak thus of her Creole cousin, with light heart now, all envy and jealousy having long since gone out of it. "Let us hope nothing worse," rejoined the elder sister, with a doubting look, as though some painful thought were in her mind. "Clarisse is very, very imprudent, to say the least of it." "And very wicked, to say nothing more than the most of it. But what need we care, Sab, since we neither of us ever intend going near the Lalandes again? After the way they behaved to us, well--" "Well, let us cease speaking of them, and turn to some pleasanter subject." "Ay, if that were possible. Alas! there's none very pleasant now--every day new anxieties, new fears. I wish this horrid war were at an end, one way or the other, so that we might get back to dear old Hollymead."