CROMWELL'S PLUCK AS A BOY.

Thames Star, Volume XV, Issue 4733, 8 March 1884, Page 4

CROMWELL'S PLUCK AS A BOY.

One of his mischievous schoolboy pranks—perhaps an unauthorised raid on an orchard—had brought on him the displeasure of his mother, who inflicted a severe chastisement on the delinquent, and sent him to bed early in the evening. Oliver was sebbiog with anger and pain, when a servant entering the bedroom upon an errand, happened to say to him that Mrs Cromwell had gone to pay a visit to a sick friend, and intended returning alone by a path across the fields, a distance of two or three miles, The moment the -servant was gone and the door closed, the boy sprang out of bed, hastily dressed himself, got out of the house unobserved, so as to avoid meeting any of the domestics—who would, doubtless, have stopped him—possessed himself of a light spade, and sped off in the direction of the route his mother would have to take on her return. He had traversed a considerable portion of the distance when he met his mother. " There—there is a savage bull"—said the still sobbing and excited boy, in reply to Mrs Cromwell's exclamation of surprise—"in the field yonder, brought there I knew to»day, and I—l thought he might run at your red cardinal, and so I slipped out and came." The mother was touched by her son's affectionate care, and having rewarded him with a kiss, was proudly escorted by the courage* ous lad across the field in which the fierce and dangerous animal was pastured.