Chapter Thirty Three.
What Fred Found in the Wood.
“Why, Fred, my boy, what a long face. What’s the matter?”
For answer, Fred pointed to the trampled garden, the litter in the park, and the desolation visible at the Hall, where window casements had been either smashed or taken off, and rough barricades erected; so that where all had once been so trim and orderly, desolation seemed to reign.
For the little band of devoted Royalists, under Sir Godfrey Markham, had offered a desperate defence to every attempt made by the attacking party, which for want of infantry and guns, had settled down to the task of starving them out.
The prisoners and the wounded from the barn, irrespective of party, had been sent to the nearest town; and as no immediate call was being made upon his services, and his orders were to wait for reinforcements, so as to render the men under his command something like respectable in number, General Hedley set himself seriously to the task of crippling the Royalist forces, by securing the person of Sir Godfrey Markham, whose influence in the district was very great, and whose prowess as a soldier had worked terrible disaster to the Puritan cause.
The little siege of the Hall had been going on four days, when Colonel Forrester, who had been with the relieving party, found his son contemplating the ruin.
“Yes,” he said, “it is bad; but better so than that these Royalists should be destroying our home, my boy.”
“Is it, father?” said Fred, doubtingly.