Therefore, with those reckless cannons, brazen-mouthed, and bellowing, two furlongs off, or it might be more (and the more the merrier), I would have given that year’s hay-crop for a bit of a hill, or a thicket of oaks, or almost even a badger’s earth.  People will call me a coward for this (especially when I had made up my mind, that life was not worth having without any sign of Lorna); nevertheless, I cannot help it:  those were my feelings; and I set them down, because they made a mark on me.  At Glen Doone I had fought, even against cannon, with some spirit and fury:  but now I saw nothing to fight about; but rather in every poor doubled corpse, a good reason for not fighting.  So, in cold blood riding on, and yet ashamed that a man should shrink where a horse went bravely, I cast a bitter blame upon the reckless ways of Winnie.

Nearly all were scattered now.  Of the noble countrymen (armed with scythe or pickaxe, blacksmith’s hammer, or fold-pitcher), who had stood their ground for hours against blazing musketry (from men whom they could not get at, by reason of the water-dyke), and then against the deadly cannon, dragged by the Bishop’s horses to slaughter his own sheep; of these sturdy Englishmen, noble in their want of sense, scarce one out of four remained for the cowards to shoot down.  “Cross the rhaine,” they shouted out, “cross the rhaine, and coom within rache:”  but the other mongrel Britons, with a mongrel at their head, found it pleasanter to shoot men who could not shoot in answer, than to meet the chance of mischief from strong arms, and stronger hearts.

The last scene of this piteous play was acting, just as I rode up.  Broad daylight, and upstanding sun, winnowing fog from the eastern hills, and spreading the moors with freshness; all along the dykes they shone, glistened on the willow-trunks, and touched the banks with a hoary gray.  But alas! those banks were touched more deeply with a gory red, and strewn with fallen trunks, more woeful than the wreck of trees; while howling, cursing, yelling, and the loathsome reek of carnage, drowned the scent of the new-mown hay, and the carol of the lark.

Then the cavalry of the King, with their horses at full speed, dashed from either side upon the helpless mob of countrymen.  A few pikes feebly levelled met them; but they shot the pikemen, drew swords, and helter-skelter leaped into the shattered and scattering mass.  Right and left they hacked and hewed; I could hear the snapping of scythes beneath them, and see the flash of their sweeping swords.  How it must end was plain enough, even to one like myself, who had never beheld such a battle before.  But Winnie led me away to the left; and as I could not help the people, neither stop the slaughter, but found the cannon-bullets coming very rudely nigh me, I was only too glad to follow her.

CHAPTER LXV

FALLING AMONG LAMBS