father retiring from the sea with a competency, having married late
in life, settled in Lyme, his native place. His house, which overlooked
the bay, was of the better sort, with curious gables, and a balcony
supported on strong wooden pillars in front, where he was wont to sit,
smoking his pipe, and enjoying a view of the ocean he still loved full
well, with the ships--their white canvas spread to the breeze--sailing
by in the distance, or approaching to take shelter in our roadstead.

There were a few other residences of the same character; but most of the
houses were built of soft stone, with thatched roofs, forming four
irregular narrow streets, with several narrower lanes of no very
dignified character. Still, we were fond of our little town, and had
reasons to be proud of it from the events I am about to describe.

My two friends and I spent much of our time on the water. Lancelot, my
senior by two years, was the son of the worshipful Master Kerridge,
Mayor of Lyme, and Dick's father was Mr Harvey, a man of considerable
wealth and influence in the neighbourhood, brother-in-law of Mr Ceely,
who had been made Governor of the town by the Parliament.

Our fathers were Puritans and staunch Parliamentarians. They had become
so in consequence of the faithlessness of the King, and the attempt of
Laud to introduce Popish rites and to enslave the consciences of
free-born Englishmen. Who, indeed, could have witnessed the clipping of
ears, the slitting of noses, the branding of temples, and burning of
tongues, to which the Archbishop resorted to crush Nonconformity--who
could have seen their friends imprisoned, placed in the pillory, and
even scourged through the streets, without feeling their hearts burn
with indignation and their whole souls rebel against tyranny so
outrageous?

"It is a wonder that any honest man could be found to support that
miscreant Laud," I remember hearing my father say. "He and his
faithless master are mainly answerable for the civil strife now
devastating, from north to south and east to west, our fair English
land."

But I must not trouble my readers with politics; my object is to narrate
the scenes I witnessed, or the events in which I took a part. I was too
young, indeed, at that time to think much about the matter, but yet I
was as enthusiastic a Roundhead as any of my fellow-townsmen. As we
approached the little harbour we passed through a large fleet of
traders, brought up in the