Friends, though divided eBook

His majesty was most indignant at the attempt which had been made upon his follower, but he said to General Leslie, “I doubt not, Sir David, that your thoughts and mine go toward the same person.  But we have no evidence that he had an absolute hand in it, although the fact that this ship was commanded by a Campbell, and that the hold of Kilbeg belongs to one of his kinsmen, point to his complicity in the affair.  Still, that is no proof.  Already the earl is no friend of mine.  When the day comes I will have a bitter reckoning with him, but in the present state of my fortunes, methinks that ’twere best in this, as in other matters, to hold my tongue for the time.  I cannot afford to make him an open enemy now.”

General Leslie agreed with the king.  Cromwell’s army was in a sore strait, and would, they hoped, be shortly driven either to surrender or to fight under disadvantageous circumstances.  But the open defection of Argyll at the present moment, followed as it would be by that of the whole fanatical party, would entirely alter the position of affairs, and Harry begged his majesty to take no more notice of the matter, and so returned to the camp.

CHAPTER XXIII.

The battle of Worcester.

The next morning the Scotch army moved after that of Cromwell, which had fallen back to Dunbar, and took post on the Doon hill facing him there.  Cromwell’s army occupied a peninsula, having on their face a brook running along a deep, narrow little valley.  The Scotch position on the hill was an exceedingly strong one, and had they remained there Cromwell’s army must have been driven to surrender.  Cromwell himself wrote on that night, “The enemy hath blocked up our way at the pass at Copperspath, through which we cannot pass without almost a miracle.  He lieth so upon the hills that we knoweth not how to come that way without much difficulty, and our lying here daily consumeth our men, who fall sick beyond imagination.”

The Scotch had, in fact, the game in their hands, had they but waited on the ground they had taken up.  The English had, however, an ally in their camp.  The Earl of Argyll strongly urged that an attack should be made upon the English, and he was supported by the preachers and fanatics, who exclaimed that the Lord had delivered their enemies into their hands.  General Leslie, however, stood firm.  The preachers scattered in the camp and exhorted the soldiers to go down and smite the enemy.  So great an enthusiasm did they excite by their promises of victory that in the afternoon the soldiers, without orders from their general, moved down the hill toward the enemy.  The more regular body of the troops stood firm, but Leslie, seeing that the preachers had got the mastery, and that his orders were no longer obeyed, ordered these also to move forward, in hopes that the enthusiasm which had been excited would yet suffice to win the victory.