"Diggory Stokes, you're a made
man!" he finished, throwing his bill-hook from him.
Ah! Lucy, Lucy, you little thought of the harm your curiosity and
chattering had done, as you saw Diggory stealing along the side of
the wood, in the direction leading to Chichester!
CHAPTER VI.
In the afternoon Lady Woodley was so much better as to be able to
come downstairs, and all the party sat round the fire in the
twilight. Walter was just come in from his fishing, bringing a
basket of fine trout; Eleanor and Charles were admiring their
beautiful red spots, Lucy wondering what made him so late, while he
cast a significant look at his eldest sister, showing her that he had
been making a visit to Edmund.
At that moment a loud authoritative knocking was heard at the door;
Walter shouted to Diggory to open it, and was answered by Deborah's
shrill scream from the kitchen, "He's not here, sir; I've not seen
him since you threw your boots at him, sir."
Another thundering knock brought Deborah to open the door; and what
was the dismay of the mother and children as there entered six tall
men, their buff coats, steeple-crowned hats, plain collars, and thick
calf-skin boots, marking them as Parliamentary soldiers. With a
shriek of terror the little ones clung round their mother, while he
who, by his orange scarf, was evidently the commanding officer,
standing in the middle of the hall, with his hat on, announced, in a
Puritanical tone, "We are here by order of his Excellency, General
Cromwell, to search for and apprehend the body of the desperate
malignant Edmund Woodley, last seen in arms against the Most High
Court of Parliament.
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