During the first year of the civil war I was left at home, under the charge of my nurse, and of the events of that period I, of course, remember but little. But shortly after the taking of Birmingham, by Prince Rupert, a party of Gettes's brigade were quartered at our house for three days, swept the whole estate of everything that it produced, carried off all that could tempt their rapacity, and, on their departure, set fire to the house, as that of a notorious malignant. My father's home had by this time become the tented field. Houseless and nearly penniless, the nurse carried me away in search of my only surviving parent, whose regiment was quartered at a few miles distance; and being a woman who loved quiet, and hated to see houses burned over head, she resigned her charge of me as soon as she had conscientiously placed me in the hands of my natural protector. But the addition of a child of four years old to his camp equipage was not by any means desirable in my father's eyes; and for some time he talked of placing me with a relation here, or a friend there, where I might remain in security. Two or three months, however, fled without this plan being executed. We had often during that time to change our quarters; passed through more than one adventure; were involved in more than one severe struggle, and encountered as many hardships as a longer campaign could have inflicted. My father found that I bore up stoutly against them all, that I was not so great an encumbrance, in moments of danger and haste, as he had expected; and that in those lapses of inaction which will break in upon a soldier's life, I afforded him amusement and occupation of the tenderest and most engaging kind. Thus I soon became necessary to his comfort and his happiness; and, though he would often talk still, of having me placed in some situation where I could be properly instructed in arts and sciences, and learned lore, it became evident to every one who saw us together that he would never part with me so long as he could keep me with him. To make up for the want of other knowledge, however, he himself began, from my very earliest years, to teach me everything that might render me successful in that way of life which he himself had so ardently embraced. My hands, almost in infancy, were accustomed to the sword, the dag, and the petronel; and I remember, ere I was six years old, being permitted, as a high favour, to apply the match to the touchhole of a culverin that commanded a road by which the Roundheads were advancing.