In the interim I took upon me, with two more,
to go to Leeds to learn some news; we were disguised like country
ploughmen; the clothes we got at a farmer's house, which for that
particular occasion we plundered; and I cannot say no blood was shed
in a manner too rash, and which I could not have done at another time;
but our case was desperate, and the people too surly, and shot at us
out of the window, wounded one man and shot a horse, which we counted
as great a loss to us as a man, for our safety depended upon our
horses. Here we got clothes of all sorts, enough for both sexes, and
thus dressing myself up _au paysan,_ with a white cap on my head, and
a fork on my shoulder, and one of my comrades in the farmer's wife's
russet gown and petticoat, like a woman, the other with an old crutch
like a lame man, and all mounted on such horses as we had taken the
day before from the country, away we go to Leeds by three several
ways, and agreed to meet upon the bridge. My pretended country woman
acted her part to the life, though the party was a gentleman of good
quality, of the Earl of Worcester's family; and the cripple did as
well as he; but I thought myself very awkward in my dress, which made
me very shy, especially among the soldiers.
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