"I had thought," said Charles Walton, "from his ridiculous bravadoes during the last two days, that the man must be at least a coward, although Randal is not one to suffer such an animal near him; but it proved quite the contrary; for I saw his long body constantly in the thick of the mêlée, and his heavy sword cutting right and left at the steel caps of the musketeers, over the very muzzles of their guns."
As they approached nearer to the scene of conflict, however, the sights which Miss Walton witnessed--the dead, the dying, the wounded, the road stained with deep pools of blood, and the sounds that met her ear--the groan of anguish, the sad complaint, the cry for water and for help--blotted out all memory of their success; and with a shuddering frame and a sad heart she followed her brother to the spot where Major Randal was sitting by his cornet, on the parapet of the bridge, receiving accounts from the different troopers as they came in, of the prisoners taken from the enemy, and the killed and wounded on their own part, while ever and anon a mounted trumpeter by his side blew a loud, long blast, to call the parties from the pursuit.
"Ah, Miss Walton!" cried the old officer, starting up and addressing her in his usual bluff tone; "I am glad to see you safe and well. I will never say that women are of no use any more; for, by my faith, you and that little girl got us out of a pretty predicament. I was blind enough or stupid enough, and so were all the rest, not to mark the little path, for we passed it in charging up to the bridge; but even if we had seen it, we should not have known that the stream was fordable below. However, get you into the carriage again, and shut your eyes or draw the curtains, for I see you look white and sickish, and these sights are not fit for women. The men will soon have pulled down that barricade, and then you can go on, while we get up the wounded and follow. We must do ten miles more to-night."
"I should prefer to ride," replied Miss Walton; "you had better put the wounded people in the carriages."
"True, true; well bethought," answered the old soldier. "You are a good girl after all."
Lord Walton smiled at this somewhat ambiguous compliment to his sister; but, as no time was to be lost, he left her under the care of Lord Beverly, and proceeded to give orders, and make those arrangements which the circumstances required. The barricade, which had been constructed hastily of felled trees, stone, and turf, was speedily removed, and the foremost of the carriages was being brought forward to receive some of the men severely wounded, who were lying about within the very narrow circle to which the strife had been confined, when Lord Walton's servant, Langan, rode up, exclaiming--"My lord! my lord! the prisoners have made their escape."
"What prisoners?" demanded Lord Walton, forgetting those he had brought from Bishop's Merton.
"Why, that Roundhead rascal and canting hypocrite, Dry, of Longsoaken, with Thistleton, and the rest."
"No," rejoined Roger Hartup, who was standing near, with a severe wound in his shoulder; "I shot Thistleton through the head after the first charge. He had picked up a sword, I don't know how, and got out of the carriage, and was just making a plunge at Jackson the forester when I blew his brains out with my pistol; you will find him lying behind the waggons. Of the rest I know nothing."
"They are all gone," answered Langan.