They say it was a shocking sight,
After the field was won;
For many thousand bodies here
Lay rotting in the sun;
But things like that you know must be
After a famous victory.
—Southey.
Never, perhaps, had the hopes of Waller’s army been higher than on the morning of the 13th July as they encompassed the town of Devizes, the attack upon which had been fixed for that evening. Throughout the march from Bath they had been able to harass the rear of Hopton’s army: they had intercepted a convoy of ammunition coming from Oxford; and though Prince Maurice’s convoy had contrived to escape, they held Hopton and all his foot cooped up in Devizes with no match and very little powder.
While still suffering terribly from the effects of the explosion, the brave Royalist General had the wit to devise on his sickbed a plan for supplying match. He ordered the townsfolk to give the ropes which held up the sacking of their beds, and these, when boiled in resin, served very well for the emergency. Still, he was heavy-hearted, for he knew that the unfortified town could not long withstand such an attack as Waller was like to make, and in great suffering of body and anxiety of mind he lay musing over the dire misfortunes which had followed this army of the West.
The hours passed slowly by, and at length early in the afternoon he was roused by the approach of quick footsteps.
“Sir, sir,” cried Captain Nevill, eagerly, “we are, I trust, saved. Prince Maurice hath returned from Oxford bringing fresh troops under my Lord Wilmot. They are massed on Roundway Down.”
“Massed where?” cried Hopton, still somewhat deaf from his accident.
“A mile off, on Roundway Down,” shouted Captain Nevill.
“Then, for the time, Devizes is saved,” said Hopton, with a sigh of relief, “for Sir William Waller will assuredly draw off his troops and give the Prince battle at the foot of the down.”
Such, indeed was Waller’s intention, but his plans were frustrated by the over-eagerness of his friend, Sir Arthur Hazlerigg. Remembering the gallant behaviour of the “Lobsters” at Lansdown and the terror they had struck into the hearts of the Royalists, he charged gallantly, but rashly, up the slippery and precipitous hill. The Royalists bore down upon them with crushing force, and, to the dismay of Waller and his troops on the plain below, the whole regiment thus sharply repulsed tore frantically down the hill.
It was the most appalling sight Gabriel had ever seen; the maddened horses, forced down perilous heights “where never horse went down or up before,” fell by scores, crushing their riders, and, to his horror, he saw his friend Major Locke first wounded in the thigh by a musket ball, and then thrown headlong to the ground with his horse on the top of him.
The sight of this was more than he could endure, for he knew only too well the horrible agony the Major would undergo. Receiving a word of permission from Waller, he set spurs to his horse, and rode in hot haste to the rescue, hoping to bring his friend to shelter. But by the time he had dragged him from beneath the horse and had contrived to lift him on to his own beast, he found, to his utter dismay, that the whole of Waller’s cavalry had been put to flight. The terrible sight of the destruction of Hazlerigg’s regiment had filled the men with panic, and, seeing that they were hemmed in on the side of Devizes by Hopton’s steadily advancing Cornishmen, they broke and fled in the wildest disorder.
To rejoin his routed comrades was for the present impossible; already they were riding pell-mell back to the west, hotly pursued by the Royalists, and all he could do was to try to find some sort of shelter for his wounded friend. Leading his horse cautiously along the side of the down, and supporting the Major as well as he could in the saddle, he gradually drew off from the scene of the disaster. At any moment, as he well knew, they might be seen by the enemy and shot down; but at length, thanks to the general absorption in the pursuit, he succeeded in gaining a little hollow scooped out of the hillside, where, sheltered by a few stunted trees he had the good fortune to find one of the rude huts used by shepherds in the lambing season.
“You shall rest here,” he said, helping Major Locke to dismount. “Then, later on, when the coast is clear I will try to get you to less comfortless quarters.”
“You have saved my life, lad,” said the Major, sinking down on to the mud floor of the hut with a groan. “The plungings of my poor Whitefoot would soon have crushed me to death. Now, an’ you love me, help me out of this armour.”
“Alas! ’twas the heavy armour that proved the death of many of our comrades,” said Gabriel, relieving the Major from his cumbrous burden. “The weight was too much for them to remount quickly if once unhorsed.”
Taking the orange scarf from his waist, he succeeded in bandaging the Major’s wound; then unrolling the cloak which was fastened on his saddle, he made the injured man fairly comfortable, and having secured his horse to a tree hard by, sat down and tried to form some plan for the future.
“Have you no water?” groaned the Major. “I am half mad with thirst.”
“There is not a drop,” said Gabriel; “but when dusk comes I will go out and reconnoitre. We must get you out of this filthy hut as soon as may be. I will fetch you water, and make some plan for your removal.”
The waiting seemed long, but at length, when all seemed quiet and twilight was coming on, Gabriel stole cautiously forth on his dangerous errand. At a distance he judged to be about a mile from the hollow he saw lights burning in a house, and since it lay in the opposite direction to Devizes, and away from the western quarter in which Waller’s flying cavalry had been pursued by the foe, he thought it might be possible to get safe shelter there for the wounded Major. He dared not, however, risk moving him until he had made sure, and hurrying across the open down, through a cornfield, and into a deep lane which led to a main road, he found on approaching nearer that the lights burnt in the windows of a substantial farmhouse.
Should he risk the chance of encountering Royalists, who would instantly make him prisoner? There was nothing whatever to indicate whether the house contained friends or foes. On the other hand, it was impossible to linger, or it would grow too dark to find his way back to Major Locke’s hiding-place. He must put a bold face on it and knock.
In response he heard the heavy bolts withdrawn, and the door was slowly opened by an old, grey-haired man, who peered suspiciously at the stranger standing in the gloom of the porch.
“I have come to crave water and, if possible, linen for a sorely wounded man,” said Gabriel, his heart sinking a little as he noticed the severity of the old man’s face. It was certainly not the face of one who cultivated the virtues of compassion and tender-heartedness.
“As grim an old fellow as I ever clapped eyes on,” he reflected, ruefully. “There’ll not be much help here.”
“Before I say ay or no to that I will hear who thou art for,” said the master of the house, sternly.
“Surely you would not refuse a cup of water to a wounded man whether he were friend or foe,” said Gabriel.
“Ay, that would I in good sooth, if the wounded man was one of the Amalekites, a foe to the truth,” said the veteran, with a gleam of indignant zeal in his hard eyes.
Gabriel gave a sigh of relief; he had not lighted on a fiery Royalist who would hand him over as a prisoner, but upon one of those stern and uncompromising Puritans who literally applied every word of the Old Testament to the troubles of their own day.
“Nay, we are not what you call Amalekites,” he replied, biting his lip to keep back a smile; “we were both in Sir William Waller’s army. An’ you could give shelter to my friend, Major Locke, you would be doing a good deed, and he will be well able to recompense you.”
“I cannot take him in now—the women-folk be all abed and asleep, and we be hard-working folk; but bring him at dawn to-morrow and my wife will tend him before she sets about her business in the dairy.”
Gabriel thanked him heartily, and gladly accepted half a loaf of rye bread which the farmer proffered with the flagon of water.
“Now if you could but spare me a bit of linen I should have better hope of bringing my wounded friend here in safety,” he said, glancing round the great kitchen to which he had been led.
“The women-folk would ha’ known what to give thee, sir,” said the farmer, in perplexity, “but beshrew me I can’t tell where——”
He broke off with an exclamation of relief, and crossing the room took down a long roller towel on which the household were wont to wipe their hands, apparently without much preliminary washing.
“Here, sir, use this,” he said. And Gabriel, treasuring up the story to amuse his father when next they met, but too well-seasoned a warrior after his nine months’ campaign to be in the least dainty, accepted the towel with genuine gratitude, and returned to his friend as fast as the fading light and the perplexities of the way would allow.
The Major was so much exhausted by the dressing of his wound that he fell asleep directly he had refreshed himself with the water and the rye bread. Gabriel, not daring to close his eyes lest he should sleep after daybreak, paced to and fro outside the hut, and thought sadly enough over the tragedy he had seen enacted that day. Now and then on the soft summer wind the distant sound of groans reached his ear, for many of the victims still lay as they had fallen on the hill side, and several times the piercing shriek of a wounded horse made him shudder.
He resolved that as soon as he had left the Major in safekeeping at the farmhouse, his best plan would be to rejoin Waller, who, in all probability, would make in the first instance for Bristol, and try to reorganise his shattered army. But as he thought of the desperate condition of the Parliamentary forces, and of the extraordinary conduct of Lord Essex in permitting the reinforcements from Oxford to escape him when, with his whole army, he was lying idle at Reading, his heart was sorely troubled; for it seemed to him that the Cause was being overborne, and that evil was like to triumph.
With a sigh, he stretched himself for a time on the sheep-cropped grass of the steep little hollow, watching the stars and the swaying of the branches in the group of trees hard by. The sight brought to his mind certain long-familiar words about one in olden days who had been troubled by the near approach of an overwhelming army, which threatened to ruin his country—
And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.. . . Then said the Lord to Isaiah, “Go forth now to meet Ahaz.... and say unto him, ‘Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be faint-hearted.’”
And therewith he fell to thinking of the strange rise and fall of nations, and of the things which make a nation truly great. How transitory was all earthly glory and dominion—how eternal the glory of truth and righteousness, and the joy of struggling to right wrong!
Thus the night wore away; and at daybreak he saddled his horse, and, rousing Major Locke, helped him with great difficulty to mount. Then, slowly and carefully, he guided Harkaway along the slippery down, and, skirting the cornfield, came out into the lane below. The hedges rose high on either side, cutting off all view of the surrounding country; but as they paced slowly round the last turning and came into sight of the main road, a sound of tramping feet made Gabriel pause. Undoubtedly soldiers were approaching, and he cautiously led Harkaway into a shady nook, where they could see but were little likely to be seen.
For a minute his heart beat high with hope, for he was certain that the men wore orange scarves; then, with a pang, he saw that many had been stripped of their buff coats, while, from their dejected bearing, it was only too evident that they were prisoners.
“’Tis Sir William Waller’s foot soldiers,” whispered the Major, “they are marching them to Oxford.”
“Shall we turn back?” questioned Gabriel.
“Nay, lie low here in the shadow, they will never notice us,” said the Major.
The words had only just been uttered when, to their consternation, Harkaway, catching sight of the horses ridden by a couple of officers, whinnied loudly.
“The very beast we stand in need of,” said one of the officers, with a laugh, “and right willing to come with us, me-thinks.”
Setting spurs to their horses the two young fellows swooped down upon the little group in the lane, and Gabriel, seeing that escape was hopeless, stood his ground.
“By your leave, sir,” he said, as one that he afterwards learnt to be Captain Tarverfield, snatched at Harkaway’s bridle, “I do but carry a sorely injured friend to the farm hard by, and you are welcome to the horse then.”
They laughed, boisterously.
“Nay, but you will have to join our merry company yonder, my worthy Roundhead,” said the elder of the two. “Short hair and a well-bred accent mark you out as a traitor. ’Tis idle to pretend that you are a Cavalier’s serving-man.”
“I make no pretence, sir,” said Gabriel, angrily. “I do but ask you, out of common humanity, to let a wounded man pass.”
“Oh! Lord Harry Dalblane knows naught of humanity,” said Captain Tarverfield, laughing.
“So it seems,” said Gabriel, with bitterness.
“You must come out of this hole, and see what our Colonel has to say about it,” said Lord Harry, gripping Gabriel firmly by the arm and following his companion, who led Harkaway out to the main road. “Here, by good fortune, he comes. Sir, an’ it please you to call a halt, we have taken two more prisoners, and a horse that is well worth having.”
Gabriel, looking up in the dim light, gave a start of dismay when he perceived that the Colonel was Major Locke’s deadly foe.
“Why, Harry! you are worth your weight in gold,” exclaimed Norton, with a chuckle of satisfaction. “You have taken the two men I most desired to have.”
“’Twas the horse that I desired,” said Lord Harry, studying Harkaway’s points with the keen eye of one who made the training of horses the chief interest of life. “And this prating Puritan here vows that it must first carry this wounded gentleman to a farm hard by.”
“Nay, but Major Locke is coming to Oxford with me,” said Norton, with a laugh. “I’ll give him excellent safe quarters there in the Castle—surely a better place for you, Squire, than a mere farm.”
“I shall scarce reach Oxford,” said the Major, faintly.
“Sir,” broke in Gabriel, “Major Locke is grievously wounded in the thigh; a thirty-mile ride will be his death.”
“Well, an he cannot ride perchance you would prefer that he should walk,” said Norton, mockingly. “But rest assured, Mr. Harford, that to Oxford he will have to go. I warned you at Wells that I am a man that was never yet baulked. You robbed me of my ride with the fair Helena, and I shall solace myself with this journey with her father.”
There was a gleam of such devilish cruelty in his eyes, as he glanced at Major Locke to see how he was taking this, that Gabriel’s wrath could no longer be restrained.
“You have him now at your mercy,” he said, “and the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel; but be assured that, in another world, for every brutal deed and word you will have to pay to the uttermost farthing.”
Norton laughed till his merriment infected Lord Harry, but Captain Tarverfield looked grave and ill at ease.
“You hear him, gentlemen,” said Norton, still chuckling. “Methinks he had best be dubbed Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher. To-night, Lieutenant, you shall have an excellent opportunity for a sermon, but at present I will trouble you to hold your tongue and to tender me your sword.”
With great enjoyment he noted the spasm of pain that passed over his captive’s face as he reluctantly obeyed. Then, signing to one of his men to come forward, the Colonel gave sharp and peremptory orders:
“Strip the prisoner.”
And in a minute the man had robbed Gabriel of helmet and gorget, buff coat and vest.
“Stay,” said Captain Tarverfield, who had watched with some compunction the prisoner’s keen suffering under this degradation. “Though it is lawful to strip an officer Colonel, you would surely leave the preacher his shirt to serve as surplice.” Norton laughed, gaily.
“True. And since he is so devoted a friend to Major Locke we will rope them together, the one mounted and the other afoot. And you had better keep up the pace, Mr. Harford, or your own horse will kick you on.”
The prisoner, by a supreme effort, stifled a smart retort, and began to consider how best to spare the Major when they were bound together. By the time the cavalcade moved forward again the rosy glow of sunrise was making the whole countryside beautiful, and in the sore battle that Gabriel was waging with his own nature—in the manly effort to bring his own character and conduct into accord with the high ideal he held, the sight of the rising sun brought him no small comfort. None knew better than a single-hearted Puritan how to wage that strenuous inner warfare which makes men truly great, and the conflict was to Gabriel as real as any visible struggle. As he marched now he fought as he had done on many a battle-field to the well-known battle psalm:
Let God arise, and scattered
Let all His en’mies be;
And let all those that do Him hate
Before His presence flee.