CHAPTER I.
THE EVE OF THE WAR.
It was a pleasant afternoon in the month of July, 1642, when three young people sat together on a shady bank at the edge of a wood some three miles from Oxford.

The country was undulating and picturesque, and a little more than a mile in front of them rose the lofty spire of St.
Helen's, Abingdon.

The party consisted of two lads, who were about fifteen years of age, and a girl of ten.

The lads, although of about the same height and build, were singularly unlike.

Herbert Rippinghall was dark and grave, his dress somber in hue, but good in material and well made.