And these cruel days came upon us but too quickly. In the latter end of June Simon Emmet did one day make off, and we had great fear that he was gone to join the rebel mob that of its friends was flattered with the name of army. On the seventh day of July came the news of the battle fought at Sedgemoor, near the town of Bridgewater; and then of the great slaughter on that field, to be followed day by day with yet more grisly tales of the cruelty of the royal troops, in especial those of wicked Colonel Kirke and his regiment of soldiers from Tangier, as wicked and ruthless as himself. This bad man, whose later service in a nobler cause I can never hold as atoning for his acts at this time among us, began, after some days of butchery in the town of Taunton, to send out small bodies of soldiers to spread his horrid work in the smaller towns and villages in the southern parts of the county. And then there came in a party of the militiamen on their way home, having passed through Taunton, with word that some of Kirke's Lambs would next day visit Drayton, having with them a batch of prisoners belonging to our part, in order to hanging them, with all customary foulness of detail, on their own village-green, the better to encourage the loyalty of those on whom no faintest breath of suspicion could be raised. It is said that when Will Blundell, the young gentleman that had in my father's stead taken our company of the militia to Bridport, had begged Colonel Kirke to give our village at least, as untainted in its loyalty, the go-by, that coarse and evil-minded man had replied, with many foul words and blasphemous oaths: "Are we then so loyal in Drayton? God's blood! I will keep them so, if a few bleeding heads and mouldering quarters may in Somerset do so hard a thing. And if my lads hang a few beyond the number they take with them, why," he said, "'t will but physic the land to a better habit." Now Simon Emmet had in the village a son, Peter, who was by trade a blacksmith, and by custom a prudent fellow that kept to his anvil and never vexed his head in these ill times to fever heat by opening too wide his mouth. And this Peter had a daughter, Prudence, the prettiest maid of the village, and afterward, as you are to hear, my handmaid, and, indeed, my very dear friend. These two (for her mother was dead) had all that day a sore time of it, fearing that Simon was one of those who should be brought and put to death. Well, the party of soldiers came in that night with their three prisoners, but too late of a clouded evening, as the ensign in command did say, with a most vile levity, "for the good and loyal folk of Drayton fitly to enjoy the sight of six traitor legs performing a saraband upon nothing."