"Yes, mother. First and best of all."
"When Neville has done his duty, he will come for you. He can no more bear to live without you than without his eyes. I see that."
Before Jane could reply, they heard the men and women coming from the harvesting. They were singing as they trailed homeward, their harsh, drawling voices in the night's silence sounding tired and pathetic and bare of melody. Jane slipped away to the music in her own heart, closing within herself that Love whose growth had been sweet and silent as the birth of roses.
CHAPTER V
SHEATHED SWORDS
"The peaceful cities
Lulled in their ease and undisturbed before are all on fire.
The thick battalions move in dreadful form
As lowering clouds advance before a storm;
Thick smoke obscures the field, and scarce are seen,
The neighing coursers and the shouting men;
In distance of their darts they stop their course,
Then man to man they rush, and horse to horse.
The face of heaven their flying javelins hide
And deaths unseen are dealt on every side.
. . . . . . . . . the fields are strewed
With fallen bodies, and are drunk with blood."
It will be well now to recall the positions which Charles Stuart and Cromwell, with their armies, occupied. The royalist defeat at Dunbar occurred on September the third, A.D. 1650, and Charles, after it, sought shelter in the fortress of Stirling Castle, where he remained until he went to Perth. Here, on January the first, 1651, he was crowned King of Scotland, and then he assumed the command of Captain-General of the Scotch forces, having under him the Duke of Hamilton and David Leslie. At this time the Scotch army had become purely royal and malignant, the Kirk having done its part had retired, leaving the King to manage his own affairs. During the winter, which was long and severe, Charles and his army could do nothing; but when fine weather came and they understood that Cromwell would march to Perth, the Scotch army went southward, fortifying itself on the famous Torwood Hill, between Stirling and Falkirk.
This long winter had been one of great suffering to General Cromwell. After making himself master of the whole country south of Forth and Clyde, he had a severe illness, and lay often at the point of death. In the month of May two physicians were sent by Parliament from London to Edinburgh to attend him, but ere they arrived, the Lord Himself had been his physician and said unto him, Live! He took the field in June, throwing the main part of his army into Fife, in order to cut off the enemy's victual. This move forced the hand of Charles Stuart. His army was in mutiny for want of provisions, the North country was already drained, he durst not risk a battle—but the road into England was clear.
Cromwell himself had gone northward to Perth, and on the second of August he took possession of that city; but while entering it was told that Charles Stuart, with fourteen thousand men, had suddenly left Stirling and was marching towards England. Cromwell was neither surprised nor alarmed; perhaps, indeed, he had deliberately opened the way for this move by going northward to Perth, and leaving the road to England open. At any rate, when Charles reached the border he found Harrison with a strong body of horse waiting for him, while Fleetwood with his Yorkshiremen lay heavy on his left flank, and Lambert with all the English cavalry was jogging on, pressing close the rear of his army. For in Lambert's ears was ringing night and day Cromwell's charge to him,—
"Use utmost diligence! With the rest of the horse and men I am hastening up, and by the Lord's help, I shall be in good time."