“Why, doubtless they have more mouths to feed than they can conveniently supply,” said the more pacific personage.  “Living men, to keep them so, even though prisoners, require feeding.”

“Our vengeance is sure, though tardy,” said Rigby, rising in great choler.  “The blood of these martyrs crieth from the ground.  To-morrow!” and he breathed a bloody vow, looking fiercely up to heaven in the daring and impious attitude of revenge.

“We had best give her ladyship another summons; which, if she refuse, her blood be upon her own head!” Saying this, Egerton abruptly left the council.

On the next morning, which was cold and drizzly, a “pragmatical” drummer went out from the nearer trench, beating his drum for a parley, lest his person should be dismissed without ceremony to the hungry kites.

Early had he been summoned to Rigby’s lodging, where Ashton and Morgan were contriving a furious epistle to the contumacious defenders of their lives and substance.  A summons, couched in no very measured terms, was drawn up, to the purport that the fortress should be surrendered, and all persons, goods, arms, and munitions therein, to the mercy of parliament; and by the next day, before two o’clock, her ladyship to return her answer, otherwise at her peril.  Their valour grew hotter with the reading of this cruel message, which they secretly hoped and suspected she would refuse.  The drum-major was called in, one Gideon Greatbatch by name—­a long, straight-haired, sallow-faced personage, of some note among the brethren for zeal and impiety.  By this we mean that awful and profane use of Scripture phraseology with which many of these gifted preachers affected to interlard their everyday discourse, attaching a ludicrous solemnity to matters the most trivial and unimportant.

In delineating this species of character, unfortunately not extinct in our own days, we do not hold it up to ridicule, but to reprehension.  Irreverence and profanity, under whatever pretext, are without excuse, even beneath the mask of holy zeal and ardent devotion.

The man stalked in with little ceremony and less manners.  He stood stiff and erect, the image of pride engendered by ignorance.

“’Tis our last,” said Rigby, folding up the message; “and if our arms are blessed, as we have hoped, and, it may be, unworthily deserved, ere the going down of to-morrow’s sun yon strong tower wherein she trusteth shall be as smoke; for the hope of the wicked shall perish.”

“Yea, their idols shall fall down; yea, their walls shall be as Jericho,” said the drum-major, with a sing-song whine, to sanctify his blasphemous allusions, “and shall utterly fall at the sound of”——­

“Thy two drumsticks, mayhap,” returned Morgan, sharply; for this latter personage, though his presence became needful in the camp by reason of his reputed skill and bravery, was a great scandal to the real and conscientious professors—­of whom not a few had joined the ranks of the besiegers—­as well as the hypocritical and designing; some of whom did not hesitate to liken him to Achan and the accursed thing, by reason of which they were discomfited before their enemies.