Of what here immediately followed I have received no account of that fulness which would enable me to give a narrative in detail. For Prudence was so mortally in fear, she says, that she remembers little but a quarrel and the noise of a great blow, from the moment of her seizure until she found herself coming again to her wits from a fit of fainting, in her father's arms and cottage. And Ned, when at length the occasion for talking of the matter could be had, did show a reluctance so great to speak of that which he has called the most painful spot in his memory, that even for the purpose of this book I forbear to question him with any particularity. But this much is sure, that in the winking of an eye Mr. Royston was off his horse, the frightened and brutal musketeer was stretched in the dust, and Prudence freed from his clutch only to be seized, with a coarse jest, into a lewd embrace by the officer of the party. There is little reason to doubt that he would shortly, in his anger and with his power at the moment so unbridled, have brought my life's joy to an end by the shooting or hanging of the gallant lad for his resistance to the military authority. But poor Ned's passion, so terrible, as I have said, in certain moments of just anger, was in a moment out of the cage where it had slumbered, and, before the vile words were well cooled upon the wicked lips, the handle of a heavy riding-whip had cut short the sentence with the life of the speaker. It must indeed have been a blow of fearful force (for in those days Ned's strength was growing great even beyond his own knowledge of it), and, falling as it did on the right temple, no other was needed. It was more than an hour before they had sure knowledge that the man was dead, and in the meantime all was confusion; for Ned, seeing Prudence borne off in the arms of her father, leapt upon his horse, and clattered down the village street. Three harmless musket-shots were discharged after him, of which indeed we heard the report up at the house, and then followed a babel of questions and oaths. Some demanded horses, others the name of the miscreant and rebel that had stricken their officer. Now "young master of Royston," as they did use to call him, was as well loved as known in Drayton village; yet on this day there was found, of those that saw his deed, no man, woman, or child that could put a name to him. Nay, I am wrong, for two indeed there were did name him, but so diversely both from each other and from the truth that little was gained, even when, for the better convincing the sergeant, they came to blows over the difference. And on this matter of the death of that poor young ensign, hot, as it were, from his sins, I will say at once that you should have searched our west country for ten years and never found a man to blame his slayer. I am no Papist, nor do I know if this be sound in any theology, but certain it is that in our eyes to this day the blood of one of