My father married late in life. His spouse, the daughter of Sir Digby Tall (a baronet as impecunious as the majority of his class at this time), died within three years of their union, leaving two children.
At the time my story opens I, Clifford Hammond, was sixteen years of age, my sister Constance being eighteen months my junior. She was a tall, sprightly girl, with fresh complexion, blue eyes, and rich golden hair, being, 'twas said, the image of her mother in her youth.
No one would readily have taken Constance and me for sister and brother, for I was olive-featured, with straight, dark-brown hair and grey eyes; tall in stature, yet inclined to slenderness.
On the particular morning to which I have referred, Constance and I had gone into Lyndhurst to give orders to a carrier respecting the purchase of a certain article at Southampton. What the nature of the purchase was we did not at the time know, although every month, summer and winter, year in and year out, my father had a similar package brought in by the regular carrier. Here I may mention that my sire, in spite of his sixty odd years, was a wonderfully well-preserved man, his dark-brown locks (for he scorned to wear a peruke) being innocent of any trace of grey hairs. Yet I call to mind the occasion, when I was yet a child of tender years, upon which my father had perforce to attend the Verderers' Court at Lyndhurst with his hair of a rusty, iron-grey hue. That was about the time that Giles Shearing's wain was upset at Redbridge, and many a housewife in Lyndhurst and Brockenhurst who relied on the Southampton carrier had to go short-handed. I no longer wonder at the coincidence.
As we left Lyndhurst town on our return journey, I leading a shaggy Forest pony on which my sister, holding the required purchase, was perched, a troop of horse came riding with loose rein and hot spur through the quiet High Street.
They were fierce-looking fellows, with bronzed features, begrimed with sweat and dust; upturned moustachios, and flowing locks. They wore red frock-coats trimmed with white facings, the skirts buttoned back to enable them to sit the better in the saddle; dark-green breeches, long riding-boots of buff leather, and broad-brimmed beaver hats, looped up on one side. All were armed with a broadsword and a pair of pistols, while not a few carried snaphances in a bucket at the right side of the saddle, or slung across their backs.
This much I noticed as they tore onwards with undiminished pace through the narrow street, till they were lost to view in a cloud of dust on the Southampton Road.
"There's some news for Cap'n Hammond, Master Clifford!" shouted Chambers the blacksmith from across the way. "They say as how Duke Monmouth's been beaten, and half his army cut to pieces. Those redcoats are Cornbury's Dragoons, and they are hot on the track of the Hampshire rebels. Heaven help the Mayor of Lymington and the score of men he sent to the West!"
Young as I was, I realized that it was a case of woe to the vanquished. Although our county had not taken up the cause of the rebel Duke to any thing like the extent of Dorset, Somerset, and Wiltshire, several of the towns in the western division of Hampshire had sent small contingents to aid Monmouth's cause, and Lymington had been the chief offender in this respect. Fortunately for us, Brockenhurst had held aloof, though the villagers were none too kindly disposed towards King James's measures.
We hastened on our homeward journey, eager to convey the momentous news to my father. For the first half of the way the road ran between dense masses of trees, intersected by shady glades, in which the leaves of last year still littered the ground. Ever and anon a herd of fallow deer would dash across the highway, or a troop of Forest ponies would scamper betwixt the trees, fearing in every human being a possible master. Pigs also roamed in great numbers, for though it was the time of fence month[1] within the Forest, so lax had the jurisdiction of the Verderers' Court become that the commoners paid less heed to the regulations than they had for years past.