Produced by Sandra Laythorpe UNDER THE STORM or STEADFAST'S CHARGE By Charlotte M. Yonge Author of "The Heir of Redclyffe," &c. [Illustration: Cover] CONTENTS. Chapter I.--The Trust " II.--The Stragglers " III.--Kirk Rapine " IV.--The Good Cause " V.--Desolation " VI.--Left to Themselves " VII.--The Hermit's Gulley " VIII.--Stead in Possession " IX.--Wintry Times " X.--A Terrible Harvest Day " XI.--The Fortunes of War " XII.--Farewell to the Cavaliers " XIII.--Godly Venn's Troop " XIV.--The Question " XV.--A Table of Love in the Wilderness " XVI.--A Fair Offer " XVII.--The Groom in Grey " XVIII.--Jeph's Good Fortune " XIX.--Patience " XX.--Emlyn's Service " XXI.--The Assault of the Cavern " XXII.--Emlyn's Troth " XXIII.--Fulfilment LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Farewell to the Cavaliers The Hiding of the Casket Stead Stirring the Porridge Finding of Emlyn Stead before the Roundheads Emlyn at Market UNDER THE STORM: OR STEADFAST'S CHARGE. CHAPTER I. THE TRUST. "I brought them here as to a sanctuary." SOUTHEY. Most of us have heard of the sad times in the middle of the seventeenth century, when Englishmen were at war with one another and quiet villages became battlefields. We hear a great deal about King and Parliament, great lords and able generals, Cavaliers and Roundheads, but this story is to help us to think how it must have gone in those times with quiet folk in cottages and farmhouses. There had been peace in England for a great many years, ever since the end of the wars of the Roses. So the towns did not want fortifications to keep out the enemy, and their houses spread out beyond the old walls; and the country houses had windows and doors large and wide open, with no thought of keeping out foes, and farms and cottages were freely spread about everywhere, with their fields round them. The farms were very small, mostly held by men who did all the work themselves with the help of their families. Such a farm belonged to John Kenton of Elmwood. It lay at the head of a long green lane, where the bushes overhead almost touched one another in the summer, and the mud and mire were very deep in winter; but that mattered the less as nothing on wheels went up or down it but the hay or harvest carts, creaking under their load, and drawn by the old mare, with a cow to help her.