CONVICTION. CHAPTER I. COLONEL DORNFORD at last felt himself settled in his home. The purpose for which the demonstration at Chaveley had been made was perfectly accomplished, and a chain of vidittes had been established, which communicated without interruption with both extremities of the royal army. War had not assumed the scientific chaVOL. II. B racter with which, at the close of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries, it was conducted, and the expeditions which arose out of the contest between Charles and his Parliament, partook more of the nature of the isolated efforts of the age of chivalry, which had preceded than of the mental combination which afterwards, often in fields of the sorest conflict, rendered numbers useless, and physical power a secondary quality. The establishment of these videttes gave opportunity for exhibiting the best quality of both species of warfare, and Colonel Dornford, with that military prescience which experience began to give to men of ability on both sides, made the most of his opportunities. Temporary excursions of the enemy would occasionally interrupt his communications, and the skirmishes to which they led were sometimes not a little severe; but the loss had been trivial, and a great benefit ensued from the confidence of the men in themselves, which they gained by repeated trials, and their experience of all the manœuvres of party compaigning. The opportunities for testing their strength were, by no means, seldon, for Ireton, whom few men exceeded in decision or perseverance, was stationed, in considerable strength, on the borders of the neighbouring county, while Cromwell, who was fast rising into note, had lately joined him with a numerous body of fresh troops, chiefly cavalry, and infused the impetus of his own impetuous courage into proceedings, which, without him, would have been more dilatory, and therefore, less influential, though not less determined. But the men stationed at Chaveley, were fighting on their own ground, and under the eye of their landlord, and in the presence of their own relatives. Every foot for miles round was intimately known to them, and by their knowledge of short cuts, and the peculiarity of the place, they were often enabled to intercept and act |