nder Fairfax and the Royalists.
Till Cromwell rose to all his military and administrative greatness,
Fairfax was generalissimo of the Puritan army, and that able soldier
never executed a more brilliant exploit than he did that memorable night
at Maidstone. In one night the Royalist insurrection was stamped out and
extinguished in its own blood. Hundreds of dead bodies filled the
streets of the town, hundreds of the enemy were taken prisoners, while
hundreds more, who were hiding in the hop-fields and forests around the
town, fell into Fairfax's hands next morning.

Among the prisoners so taken was a Royalist major who had had a deep hand
in the Maidstone insurrection, named John Gifford, a man who was destined
in the time to come to run a remarkable career. Only, to-day, the day
after the battle, he has no prospect before him but the gallows. On the
night before his execution, by the courtesy of Fairfax, Gifford's sister
was permitted to visit her brother in his prison. The soldiers were
overcome with weariness and sleep after the engagement, and Gifford's
sister so managed it that her brother got past the sentries and escaped
out of the town. He lay hid for some days in the ditches and thickets
around the town till he was able to escape to London, and thence to the
shelter of some friends of his at Bedford. Gifford had studied medicine
before he entered the army, and as soon as he thought it safe he began to
practise his old art in the town of Bedford. Gifford had been a
dissolute man as a soldier, and he became, if possible, a still more
scandalously dissolute man as a civilian. Gifford's life in Bedford was
a public disgrace, and his hatred and persecution of the Puritans in that
town made his very name an infamy and a fear. He reduced himself to
beggary with gambling and drink, but, when near suicide, he came under
the power of the truth, till we see him clothed with rags and with a
great burden on his back, crying out, 'What must I do to be saved?' 'But
at last'--I quote from the session records of his future church at
Bedford--'God did so plentifully discover to him the forgiveness of sins
for the sake of Christ, that all his life after he lost not the light of
God's countenance, no, not for an hour, save only about two days before
he died.' Gifford's conversion had been so conspicuous and notorious
that both town and country soon heard of it: and instead of being ashamed
of it, and seeking to hide it,