"'Nay, then,' said I, 'if I must answer, I will. Children I have not, but one child only, a babe of six months only, who, I warrant you, so careful a mother has he--has never so much as had a pin in his fingers. And as for cards, he knows no more of such things than you yourself, Master Commissioner,' at which speech he reddened, having been not so long since, till he found his account in other ways, a noted card player and gamester. To make a long matter short, they made out no case against me, for all that they brought every good-for-nothing fellow in the whole country side to give testimony against me. But I build not on this; I know right well that sentence was passed on me before ever I came into court." And so indeed it turned out. Two days after my brother was summoned by the Commissioners to appear before them, and received sentence of deprivation, but to have as a _solatium_ one fifth part of the proceeds of the living. This fifth part, I should here say, he never received, for the intruding minister alleged that he had some temporal means of his own, and that he had but one child (which was true, but scarce relevant, seeing that one child must eat as well as two), and that he himself could scarce get anything of tithes; which also I believe, for the farmers, who love not paying tithes at any time, were more especially set against them when they were to be received by the intruding minister. My brother had angered some of the Commissioners by the freedom of his answering, and receiving warning that he had best be absent when the sentence was executed, went into hiding in a neighbour's house. The next day comes the constable, with some soldiers at his back, with a warrant to apprehend his person, and was greatly enraged when he found that the bird was flown. He and his fellows had at the best but little civility in them, and this they had done their best to banish by too plentiful cups, and indeed they behaved themselves more like savages than Christian men. They searched the house through for my brother, the constable running his sword two or three times through the bed from which my sister was but newly risen (for they came before seven o'clock in the forenoon), pretending that he might be there hidden. All the stores in the house they wasted most cruelly, spoiling that which they could not carry away. Indeed, they were bent on insult rather than plunder. Thus the troopers pulled the bridles off their horses, and whipped them round the garden to tread all under foot. After that they brake open the barn door and turned them into the sacks of corn to fill their bellies. Indeed, they would have burned the barn and all the hay and corn, but that the neighbours hindered them, fearing the fire for their own stack-yards. Nor would these suffer them to profane the church, which they would have done under cover of destroying papistical ornaments. Verily, I know not what these savages would have left undone but for the singular affection