"You were on the way to join the Cornish army. What regiment did you intend serving in?" "In Sir Bevil Granville's." "In Sir Bevil Granville's? But I grieve to say Sir Bevil is dead, and the regiment well-nigh cut to pieces at Cropredy Bridge." "And his son----" "Sir Ralph Granville, as he must now be styled, has joined his sorry remnant to the command of Sir Ralph Hopton." "Then under Sir Ralph Hopton will suit us." "'Tis well. Malpas!" he shouted to a sergeant who was on guard without the tent. "Conduct these gentlemen to the camp of Sir Ralph Hopton, for, methinks, rest and refreshment will not come amiss. Fare ye well." With a salute we left the staff-officer's tent, and, under the guidance of the sergeant, we were taken to a spot where a triple Line of weather-worn tents and rough huts of boughs and bushes marked the temporary camp of the redoubtable Royalist. Here we were hospitably received, for, though in common with most of the cavaliers, there was scarcely a gold piece to be found amongst a score of them, such was their devotion to His Majesty, both in personal service and gifts of money, they gave us plenty to eat and insisted on our going to sleep. When I woke up I found, to my joy, Ralph Granville sitting at my side. A complete change of apparel and a serviceable equipment of armour and weapons were placed at our disposal, which, I afterwards learnt, were contributed from the joint store of this particular company. "How goes it with you, Ralph?" I exclaimed, wringing my friend's hand. "Passably," he replied, "though 'tis but the fortune of war." "I heard of your father's gallant end." "Ay. My father and twenty-two of our tenantry fell before Waller's pikes, and now I have just heard that our house at Tregetty has been burnt to the ground, so nothing remains but my sword." I hardly knew what to reply. For all I knew I might even now be in a similar position. Ashley Castle might be razed to the ground, and my parents dead beneath its ruins. It was, as Ralph had observed, the fortune of war, and we had but to look around and see the devastating effects of this struggle, in which Englishmen were flying at each other's throats. Further conversation was interrupted by the trumpets sounding the assembly, and, mounting our chargers--two passable horses which had belonged to two cavaliers who had fallen in the charge on Lostwithiel Bridge--Firestone and I took our places in the ranks of our new comrades, Granville being my left-hand man. Everyone was in high spirits, for the articles of capitulation had been accepted by the rebels, and we were even now on our way to witness the surrender of the Parliamentary army of the west. Other regiments had preceded us, and by the time we crossed the old bridge once more, this time in the midst of a troop of horse with standards flying, and not as prisoners in the centre of a body of sour-faced Roundheads, the greater part of the King's army was drawn up in a long double line.