imagine what was the cause of this special call for his friend; for of late such circumstances had been rare; the portion of the army to which Albert was attached, had, for the last two months, been suffered to rest in a state of idleness, and it was in the anticipation of some new movement that Herbert looked with a little anxiety to the result.

The great civil war between Charles and his parliament had been carried on with sufficient inveteracy of spirit on one side, and superciliousness on the other, but had also generally been unsustained by those detestable cruelties by which such conflicts are too aften disfigured; and though there was perhaps as intense a feeling of party as ever pervaded two masses of men, much of the courtesy which marks the contests between different nations, had been shown to the prisoners on both sides. On the part of the royalists, no doubt greatly from a disposition of natural clemency, but more from a high-minded sense of gentlemanly bearing in their principal leaders, and on

the part of their opponents, from policy, and in some instances from a sense of religious duty.

Herbert Endsleigh had experienced the benefit of this feeling. While passing from the university, to his home, Oxford being at the time the King's head quarters, he had been crossed by a patrol of the army, under Fairfax, then on the banks of the Cherwell, and had been carried before one of his lieutenants, by whom he had been fiercely examined, and subjected to an opprobrium which his spirit could not bear. He had replied, and with a power and eloquence which his enemies could not resist, had retorted their charges upon his accusers with an array of evidence and argument which had fully convinced them that he was too inflammatory a subject to be suffered to goat large, to excite their opponents; the officer therefore before whom he was brought, had determined to detain him as a prisoner of war. This resolution was confirmed and the place of custody decided upon was to

be more safe, and less agreeable, from the fact that a college cap and gown were found to form part of his little baggage. The exhibition of these articles were in themselves sufficient proof of his recusancy, and he was thrust into an inner prison to herd in misery and discomfort, with the vilest of the vile, the only society of which in the eyes of those who condemned him he was worthy.

In the course of an attempt to reach his father, according to the Colonel's instructions, Albert Dornford had fallen, about two years before, into the hands of such another party as that which had taken Herbert. But his fate was of a far different character. Entirely ignorant of the nature of political principles at all, and with a heart full of generous and high enthusiasm he had readily listened to the earnest declamations of his captors, through a couple of months, during which they were detained at a country out station. The thought of a people struggling for their

personal liberty, and the upholding of religious freedom was, to him, a grand and exciting theme. He was easily led to believe the sophistry by which deeds of the grossest violence were justified, and never for a long time suspected the hypocrisy by which private peculation and malice put on the garb of public virtue; and when he did find them out he believed them to be as specks upon the sun, and such as ought not to detract from the claims of the great cause for the sake of which those vicious excesses were said to be perpetrated.

Albert was young, and he little anticipated the extent to which the men, with whom he was about to act, were likely to proceed. Few men at the time did. Very few, indeed, at the commencement of a national disturbance can see to what great steps it may lead, and those who do foretel much alteration in the aspect of things, are looked upon as little better than visionary alarmists. Albert Dornford was not one of these, and believing that the popular

cause would daily grow in strength, and quickly attain sufficient power to subdue the influence of the bad counsellors whom he conceived to prejudice his Sovereign; he hoped speedily for a restoration to his family, and was content, to suffer the deprivation of his chief happiness, in the meantime, for conscience sake. He determined, therefore, to join the forces of the Parliament, making only one reservation, that he should, at all times, be at liberty to decline serving against the force in which his father should be engaged. He was too good an accession to their cause for the Parliamentary leader to object to so reasonable a request.

The addition of a member of a distinguished landed family was very agreeable to the chief men of the party, every means were taken to render his duty as pleasing to Albert as possible, and he soon found himself at the head of a troop of horse. He was brave and cool, and had, indeed, done good service for his promotion. But