I crawl’d to my feet, rested a moment to stay the giddiness, and totter’d across to the door, where I lean’d, listening and gazing south. No strip of vapor lay on the moors that stretch’d—all bathed in the most wonderful bright colors—to the lip of the horizon. The air was like a sounding board. I heard the bleat of an old wether, a mile off, upon the tors; and was turning away dejected, when, far down in the south, there ran a sound that set my heart leaping.
’Twas the crackling of musketry.
There was no mistaking it. The noise ran like wildfire along the hills: before echo could overtake it, a low rumbling followed, and then the brisker crackling again. I caught at the door post and cried, faint with the sudden joy—
“Thou angel, Joan!—thou angel!”
And then, as something took me by the throat—“Joan, Joan—to see what thou seest!”
A long time I lean’d by the door post there, drinking in the sound that now was renewed at quicker intervals. Yet, for as far as I could see, ’twas the peacefullest scene, though dreary—quiet sunshine on the hills, and the sheep dotted here and there, cropping. But down yonder, over the edge of the moors, men were fighting and murdering each other: and I yearn’d to see how the day went.
Being both weak and loth to miss a sound of it, I sank down on the threshold, and there lay, with my eyes turned southward, through a gap in the stone fence. In a while the musketry died away, and I wondered: but thought I could still at times mark a low sound as of men shouting, and this, as I learn’d after, was the true battle.
It must have been an hour or more before I saw a number of black specks coming over the ridge of hills, and swarming down into the plain toward me: and then a denser body following. ’Twas a company of horse, moving at a great pace: and I guessed that the battle was done, and these were the first fugitives of the beaten army.
On they came, in great disorder, scattering as they advanced: and now, in parts, the hill behind was black with footmen, running. ’Twas a rout, sure enough. Once or twice, on the heights, I heard a bugle blown, as if to rally the crowd: but saw nothing come of it, and presently the notes ceased, or I forgot to listen.
The foremost company of horse was heading rather to the eastward of me, to gain the high road; and the gross pass’d me by at half a mile’s distance. But some came nearer, and to my extreme joy, I learn’d from their arms and shouting, what till now I had been eagerly hoping, that ’twas the rebel army thus running in rout: and though now without strength to kneel, I had enough left to thank God heartily.
’Twas so curious to see the plain thus suddenly fill’d with rabble, all running from the south, and the silly startled sheep rushing helter-skelter, and huddling together on the tors above, that I forgot my own likely danger if any of this revengeful crew should come upon me lying there: and was satisfied to watch them as they straggled over the moors toward the road. Some pass’d close to the cottage; but none seem’d anxious to pause there. ’Twas a glad and a sorry sight. I saw a troop of dragoons with a standard in their midst; and a drummer running behind, too far distracted even to cast his drum away, so that it dangled against his back, with a great rent where the music had been; and then two troopers running together; and one that was wounded lay down for a while within a stone’s throw of me, and would not go further, till at last his comrade persuaded him; and after them a larger company, in midst of whom was a man crying, “We are sold, I tell ye, and I can point to the man!” and so passed by. There were some, too, that were galloping three stout horses in a carriage, and upon it a brass twelve pounder. But the carriage stuck fast in a quag, and so they cut the traces and left it there, where, two days after, Sir John Berkeley’s dragoons found and pulled it out. And this was the fourth, I had heard, that the King’s troops took in that victory.
Yet there were not above five or six hundred in all that I saw; and I guessed (as was the case) that this must be but an offshoot, so to say, of the bigger rout that pass’d eastward through Liskeard. I was thinking of this when I heard footsteps near, and a man came panting through a gap in the wall, into the yard.
He was a big, bareheaded fellow, exceedingly flush’d with running, but unhurt, as far as I could see. Indeed, he might easily have kill’d me, and for a moment I thought sure he would. But catching sight of me, he nodded very friendly, and sitting on a heap of stones a yard or two away, began to draw off his boot, and search for a prickle, that it seem’d had got into it.
“ ’Tis a mess of it, yonder,” said he, quietly, and jerk’d his thumb over his shoulder.
By the look of me, he could tell I was on the other side; but this did not appear to concern him.
“How has it gone?” asked I.
“Well,” says he, with his nose in the boot; “we had a pretty rising ground, and the Cornishmen march’d up and whipp’d us out—that’s all—and took a mort o’ prisoners.” He found the prickle, drew on his boot again, and asked—
“T’other side?”
I nodded.
“That’s the laughing side, this day. Good evening.”
And with that he went off as fast as he came.
’Twas, may be, an hour after, that another came in
