told Colonel Hammond, the governor, that “it was the worst news that ever came to England.” For the king it was; for there is little doubt that Cromwell’s victory hastened the action of the Republicans, and precipitated that event which the world has ever since condemned. [Note 26: In his despatch to the Speaker of the House of Commons, Cromwell says: “That night quartered the whole army in the field by Stonyhurst Hall, being Mr. Sherburn’s house, a place nine miles distant from Preston;” and Captain Hodgson, an officer who accompanied him, writes: “We pitched our camp at Stanyhares Hall, a Papist’s house, one Sherburn’s.”] [Illustration] But we are wandering from our story, and more peaceful scenes await us. As we approached the Hodder the sun shone full and strong, and flashed and glittered upon its rippling surface, broken at the time into innumerable wavelets where the full-uddered kine were plunging and wading in the shallows to cool themselves after the heat of the bright summer day. Half a mile or so up the river, half hidden among the trees on the hillside, we catch sight of the Hodder Place, or Hodder House, as it is sometimes called—a kind of novitiate or preparatory school in connection with the seminary at Stonyhurst. After crossing the river, our road lay along a wild old wandering lane that winds away to the left, rising and failing in a succession of gentle eminences, filled with quiet nooks, whose vernal shade tempts you to relax your speed and while away the passing hours in listless contemplation of the wealth of beauty that Nature, with lavish hand, has spread around. Then a steep ascent occurs, and as we mount the stony and intricate path we look through the tangled vegetation to the green links of undulating woodland and the distant hills that swell gently into the blue of infinite space, and now and then get a glimpse of the tall towers and dome-crowned cupolas of Stonyhurst shooting above the rich umbrage that environs them. Then another climb, and we are in front of the old mansion of the Sherburns, though, in truth, it now presents a different aspect to that it must have done when Sir Nicholas “set his neighbourhood a spinning of Jersey wool,” and my Lady Sherburn—playing the part of Lady Bountiful—“kept an apothecary’s shop in the house,” and distributed her alms to her poorer neighbours “with her own hands.” Before venturing upon a description of the building, let us refer for a moment to the account which Dr. Whitaker, in his “History of Whalley,” gives of the circumstances that led the disciples of Ignatius Loyola to establish a seminary in this picturesque corner of busy, practical Lancashire:—