have supposed it, with the whole Parliamentary army lying between it and Oxford, to protect from danger.  Yet the small party of Puritan troopers awake in their quarters with Rupert at the door; it is well for them that they happen to be picked men, and have promptness, if not vigilance; forming hastily, they secure a retreat westward through the narrow street, leaving but few prisoners behind them.  As hastily the prisoners are swept away with the stealthy troop, who have other work before them; and before half the startled villagers have opened their lattices the skirmish is over.  Long before they can send a messenger up, over the hills, to sound the alarm-bells of Stoken Church, the swift gallop of the Cavaliers has reached Chinnor, two miles away, and the goal of their foray.  The compact, strongly-built village is surrounded.  They form a parallel line behind the houses, on each side, leaping fences and ditches to their posts.  They break down the iron chains stretched nightly across each end of the street, and line it from end to end.  Rupert, Will Legge, and the “forlorn hope,” dismounting, rush in upon the quarters, sparing those alone who surrender.

In five minutes the town is up.  The awakened troopers fight as desperately as their assailants, some on foot, some on horseback.  More and more of Rupert’s men rush in; they fight through the straggling street of the village, from the sign of the Ram at one end to that of the Crown at the other, and then back again.  The citizens join against the invaders, the ’prentices rush from their attics, hasty barricades of carts and harrows are formed in the streets, long musket-barrels are thrust from the windows, dark groups cluster on the roofs, and stones begin to rattle on the heads below, together with phrases more galling than stones, hurled down by women, “cursed dogs,” “devilish Cavaliers,” “Papist traitors.”  In return, the intruders shoot at the windows indiscriminately, storm the doors, fire the houses; they grow more furious, and spare nothing; some towns-people retreat within the church-doors; the doors are beaten in; women barricade them with wool-packs, and fight over them with muskets, barrel to barrel.  Outside, the troopers ride round and round the town, seizing or slaying all who escape; within, desperate men still aim from their windows, though the houses each side are in flames.  Melting lead pours down from the blazing roofs, while the drum still beats and the flag still goes on.  It is struck down presently; tied to a broken pike-staff, it rises again, while a chaos of armor and plumes, black and orange, blue and red, torn laces and tossing feathers, powder-stains and blood-stains, fills the dewy morning with terror, and opens the June Sunday with sin.