"And I too, most certainly, my lord," said Charles. "I will never do so unkingly an act as to forsake them who have forsaken all to serve me. There is no look of victory on my Lord of Essex's side. We keep the field. Let them advance to attack us if they dare. Take measures to withdraw those cannon from that little mound; restore what order may be, for night is falling fast; and set a sure guard, that we be not surprised."
For some time the discharge of musketry, which was still going on, continued upon both sides; but gradually, as the darkness increased, it slackened, revived, slackened again, fell into dropping shots, and then fires began to appear along the line of either army, while all the confusion and disarray which ever succeeds a drawn battle, where the combatants are only parted by the night, took place on either part. Hours were spent in giving some sort of order to the royalist forces; officers sought their men, soldiers looked for their officers, rumours of every kind were spread, and many accidents and misadventures happened, which cannot here be told.
But there was one sad subject of thought that occupied many a mind--"Who had fallen? Who remained wounded on the field?" It was impossible to discover; for the confusion was so great that no one knew where the other was to be found. Lord Beverley, however, had seen Charles Walton almost to the latest moment of the strife, and in sending off a messenger to Newington, to inform his fair bride of his own safety, he ventured to add that her brother also had escaped the slaughter of the day. About midnight, however, as he was lying by a fire, he heard a step approach, and looking up he saw Barecolt beside him.
The soldier's eyes gazed round the group, which lay in the glare, and before the earl could speak he said--
"So he is not here?"
"Do you mean Lord Walton?" asked the earl.
"Ay, to be sure, my lord," replied Barecolt. "I have been seeking you these two hours, and now we had better go and seek him, for depend upon it he is on the field. He was badly wounded with a shot in the side in that first charge, and he got another in the last; but perhaps he is not dead yet. The night is cold, and that staunches blood."
"We have no lights," said the earl, a cold foreboding coming over his heart. "Stay--the moon will be up in half-an-hour. Where saw you him last?"
"Within half musket-shot of the second regiment on the right," answered Barecolt: "we had better wait, too, till the moon rises. She will give some light, if she do not even chase the clouds; and yet I would fain go soon, for I have strange doubts."
"Of what?" asked the earl.