The Man-at-Arms; or, Henry De Cerons. Volumes I and II

by G. P. R. James

"I trust," said Montgomery, "That the princes will decide upon maintaining the Charente in preference to anything else. De Pile is not one to suffer himself easily to be outwitted, and Stuart, who is with him, will cut his way through a wall of solid iron, if need be. Once having joined the Gascons, we shall be able to detach troops to the Loire, without losing our command of the rivers, and, when the Germans have joined, we can fight the enemy with the advantage of a just cause, and no great disadvantage in point of numbers."

"Depend upon it," I said, after hearing this explanation, "since such is our situation and that of the enemy, the Catholics I have seen are thrown forward to gain possession of some place in the heart of our position. But I will soon bring you farther intelligence if possible; and, in the mean time, were it not better to send off at once a messenger to the prince and the admiral, to inform them of what has been already observed, and of the direction which the Catholics are taking?"

Montgomery agreed immediately to do so, and in less than an hour after I was once more in the saddle, and advancing with a force sufficient for all that I proposed towards the villages in which I calculated the enemy would lodge that night. I need not enter into all the particulars of my expedition: suffice it to say, that about one o'clock in the morning I found forty or fifty poor peasants in a barn not far from the village, who had been driven out of their habitations by the enemy, on account of adhering to the Protestant faith, and who thought themselves not a little fortunate to have escaped with only a few strokes from the staff of a lance to make them give up their dwellings more quickly to the royal troops. I learned little from them, however, except that the commander of the Catholics lodged in one of the houses at the end of the village; and thinking that it would be an excellent consummation if I could carry him off, I bent my way thither, guided by one of the young labourers.

Before we came near, however, I caused my men either to strip off their white cassocks altogether, or, when they were lined with any other colour, to turn them inside out, in order, as far as possible, to escape attention. I did not succeed, however, so well this time as I had done before. There were men on watch at both sides of the house; and though we approached somewhat near without being seen, we were at length challenged in a loud voice. The sentry would not let the false word I gave pass current, but instantly fired his arquebus; and, as had been arranged before, while my arquebusiers remained drawn up in a line to support us, I dismounted with my men-at-arms, and rushed forward to attack the house. Moric Endem shot the unfortunate sentry through the head with a pistol; the door and one of the windows were burst open in a moment, and we poured into the lower rooms, in which we found ten or twelve men who had been sleeping in their arms, on the floor. Taken by surprise, and in confusion, their resistance was not very great, but it was sufficient to give time for the commander himself to make his escape out of one of the back windows in his shirt.

We did not, however, discover this till afterward; for, by the following circumstance, I was mistakenly led to imagine, for more than an hour, that he had fallen into our hands. I had just cut down one fellow who opposed my progress up the stairs, and had nearly reached the top, when out of a room on the right hand rushed a gay-looking youth, in a furred dressing-gown embroidered with gold. He bore a taper in one hand and a sword in the other: but a pistol at his head, with an order to surrender, rescue or no rescue, soon brought his weapon into my hand; and, passing him down the stairs to those who came behind, I entered the different rooms above, and, with Moric Endem and two or three others, swept the table that I found there of a number of papers and parchments, with cases for writing and other things, which I doubted not would give us full information respecting the object of the enemy's movement.

As I was looking at the title of one of these papers, a sharp fire opened by the arquebusiers, whom I had left without, announced that the enemy were prepared to make us pay for our intrusion; and, clearing the house as fast as possible, I effected my retreat, though I found the garden half full of Catholic troopers on foot. It was now, however, that the stratagem of making my men quit or turn their cassocks procured us great advantages which I had not foreseen. In issuing forth form the house in some disarray, the enemy could not tell whether each man was of their own party or not; and in the confusion that followed--we being very certain of what we were to do, and they quite uncertain--we forced our way through and regained our horses, carrying with us the gentleman in the furred dressing-gown and three other prisoners.

Of the men who accompanied me, two only were missing; one of my own band, whom I had seen fall by a pistol shot in the head, and one of the men-at-arms that Montgomery had given me, who, not so well accustomed to such expeditions as we were, lingered behind and was taken prisoner.

We now made the best of our way over the hill, the enemy mounting as fast as horses could be brought out, and pursuing us; but I had ridden over the ground several times before, and knew every inch of it, so that they gained little but their labour, till at length I reached the spot whence I had first discovered them on the preceding morning, when, seeing by a strong glare in the sky, the cause of which I did not at the moment discover, that I was followed by some thirty or forty horse, I ordered my men-at-arms to wheel about and give them a taste of our spear points. As there was no one to support them, they did not make any great resistance, but were driven down the hill in a very short space of time.

I pursued them no farther than the shoulder of the heights, whence I could see the village which we had attacked, and, to my surprise, beheld it all in flames. How it happened I do not know; our people were inclined to believe that the Catholics themselves had set it on fire, in their indignation at the peasants for having guided us thither; but this opinion was evidently founded upon party animosity; and I am inclined to believe that, in the confusion attending our attack upon the farmhouse, some light must accidentally have dropped and set fire to the building.

Hurrying on as fast as possible, we reached my quarters about five in the morning, and then, for the first time, I had an opportunity of speaking with, and showing some civility to my principal prisoner. He was conducted up stairs to my own apartments by two of the soldiers, while I remained for a minute or two below, to see my men properly disposed of. On entering my room, I found him standing shivering by the fire, and approached him, saying, "I fear, sir, you have had a very cold ride?"