CHAPTER III.
A BRAWL AT OXFORD.
News in those days traveled but slowly, and England was full of conflicting rumors as to the doings of the two armies.

Every one was unsettled.

Bodies of men moving to join one or other of the parties kept the country in an uproar, and the Cavaliers, or rather the toughs of the towns calling themselves Cavaliers, brought much odium upon the royal cause by the ill-treatment of harmless citizens, and by raids on inoffensive country people.

Later on this conduct was to be reversed and the Royalists were to suffer tenfold the outrages now put upon the Puritans.

But there can be no doubt that the conduct of irresponsible ruffians at that time did much to turn the flood of public opinion in many places, where it would otherwise have remained neutral, against the crown.
To Harry the time passed but slowly.