.

KIRKE'S DRAGOONS.
Oglethorpe's farm stood a mile or so to the south of Bridgewater on the right bank of the river.

It was a straggling Tudor building showing grey above the ivy that clothed its lower parts.

Approaching it now, through the fragrant orchards amid which it seemed to drowse in Arcadian peace beside the waters of the Parrett, sparkling in the morning sunlight, Mr.Blood might have had a difficulty in believing it part of a world tormented by strife and bloodshed.
On the bridge, as they had been riding out of Bridgewater, they had met a vanguard of fugitives from the field of battle, weary, broken men, many of them wounded, all of them terror-stricken, staggering in speedless haste with the last remnants of their strength into the shelter which it was their vain illusion the town would afford them.
Eyes glazed with lassitude and fear looked up piteously out of haggard faces at Mr.Blood and his companion as they rode forth; hoarse voices cried a warning that merciless pursuit was not far behind.

Undeterred, however, young Pitt rode amain along the dusty road by which these poor fugitives from that swift rout on Sedgemoor came flocking in ever-increasing numbers.