languished in the hall. A boy with an ass
had been sent to the woodland for logs, and the
driver loitered on his homeward way. Lady
Grace lost patience, and was displeased. All at
once a sudden outcry was heard at the gate, and
Sir Beville's Giant appeared with the loaded
animal on his mighty back. He threw down
his burden in triumph at the hearth-side, shouting
merrily, " Ass and fardel! Ass and fardel
for my lady's yule!" Another time he strode
along the path from Kilkhampton village to
Stowe with a bacon-hog of three hundred-weight
thrown across his shoulders, and merely because
a taunting butcher had doubted his strength for
the feat. Among the excellences of Sir Beville's
Giant, it is told of him that he was by no means
clumsy or uncouth, as men of unusual size
sometimes are, but as nimble, and elastic, and as
capable of swift and dexterous movement as a light
and muscular man. Added to this, his was a
strong and acute intellect; so happy also in
his language, and of such a ready wit, that he
was called by a writer of the last century,
from his resemblance, in these points only, to
Shakespeare's knight, " the Falstaff of the West."

But a great and sudden change was about
to come over the happy halls of Stowe. The
king and his parliament were at fatal strife;
and there could be but one place in the land for
the true-hearted and chivalrous Sir Beville,
and that was at his royal master's side. The
well-known rallying cry went through the hills
and valleys of Cornwall, " Granville's up," and
the hearts and hands of many a noble knight
and man-at-arms turned towards old Stowe.
Mounted messengers rode to and fro. Strange
and stalwart forms arrived to claim a place in
the ranks. Retainers were enrolled day and
night; and the smooth sward of the bowling
green and the Fawn's Paddock were dinted by
the hoofs of horses and the tread of serried
men. Foremost among these scenes we find, as
body-guard of his master, the bulky form of
Antony Payne. He marshalled and manoeuvred
the rude levies from the western mines, " the
underground men." He served out arms and
rations, and established order, by the mere
terror of his presence and strength, among
the wild and mixed multitude that gathered
"for the king and the land."

Instead of the glad and hospitable scenery of
former times, Stowe became in those days like a
garrison surrounded by a camp. At last, one
day tidings arrived that the battalions of the
parliament, led by Lord Stamford, were on their
way northwards, and not many miles off. A
picked and goodly company marched forth from
the avenue of Stowe, and among them Payne, on
his Cornish cob Samson, of pure Guinhilly breed.
The next day, eight miles towards the south,
the battle of Stratton-hill was fought and won
by the royal troops. The Earl of Stamford was
repulsed and fled; bequeathing by a strange
mischance his own name, although the defeated
commander, to the field of fight. It is called
to this day Stamford-hill. Sir Beville returned
that night to Stowe, but his giant remained
with some other soldiers to bury the dead.
He had caused certain large trenches to be laid
open, each to hold ten bodies side by side.
There he and his followers carried in the
slain. On one occasion they had lain down
nine corpses , and Payne was bringing in
another, tucked under his arm, like one of " the
kittens" of his schoolboy days, when all at once
the supposed dead man was heard pleading
earnestly with him, and expostulating, " Surely
you wouldn't bury me, Mr. Payne, before
I am dead?" "I tell thee, man," was the
grim reply, " our trench was dug for ten, and
there's nine in already; you must take your
place." " But I bean't dead, I say; I haven't
done living yet; be massyful, Mr. Payne; don't
ye hurry a poor fellow into the earth before his
time." " I won't hurry thee: I mean to put
thee down quietly and cover thee up, and then
thee canst die at thy leisure." Payne's purpose,
however, was kinder than his speech. He carried
his suppliant, carefully, to his own cottage,
not far off, and charged his wife to stanch,
if possible, her husband's rebellious blood. The
man lived, and his descendants are among the
principal inhabitants of the town of Stratton to
this day.

That same year, the battle of Lansdown, near
Bath, was fought. The forces of the parliament
prevailed, and Sir Beville nobly died. Payne
was still at his side, and when his master fell, he
mounted young John Granville, a youth of sixteen,
whom he had always in charge, on his father's
horse, and led the Granville troop into the fight.
A letter which the faithful retainer wrote to his
lady at Stowe still survives. It breathes, in the
quaint language of the day, a noble strain of
sympathy and homage. Thus it ran:

"Honoured Madam. Ill news flieth apace.
The heavy tidings no doubt hath already
travelled to Stowe that we have lost our blessed
master by the enemy's advantage. You must
not, dear lady, grieve too much for your noble
spouse. You know, as we all believe, that his
soul was in heaven before his bones were cold.
He fell, as he did often tell us he wished to die,
in the great Stewart cause, for his country and
his king. He delivered to me his last commands,
and with such tender words for you and for his
children as are not to be set down with my poor
pen, but must come to your ears upon my best
heart's breath. Master John, when I mounted
him on his father's horse, rode him into the war
like a young prince, as he is, and our men
followed him with their swords drawn and with
tears in their eyes. They did say they would
kill a rebel for every hair of Sir Beville's beard.
But I bade them remember their good master's
word when he wiped his sword after Stamford
fight; how he said, when their cry was, ' Stab and
slay!'  'Halt! men; God will avenge!' I am
coming down with the mournfullest load that
ever a poor servant did bear, to bring the great
heart that is cold to Kirkhampton vault.