CHAPTER XIX.
FREE QUARTERS.
FALSTAFF. 'Sblood! 'twas time to counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid me scot and lot too.—HENRY IV.
The redness of the moon passed away as it ascended into the blue wide vault, and its cold white lustre was poured upon the level English landscape that spread at the feet of the Scottish soldiers, as they began to ascend the heights, or gentle eminence to the northward of Ipswich. Above the winter-smoke of the dense little town, the spires of its churches stood out in bold relief, like lances glittering through a sea of gauze; and the wich or bend of the beautiful Orwell swept in a silvery semicircle, like a gleaming snake, among the fallow fields and leafless copsewood; and far around the scenery spread like a moonlit map or fairy amphitheatre. All was still in the town below; at times, a light twinkled, or a voice rang out upon the quietness that reigned there, but the Scots' Royals, who were halted on the brow of an eminence, over which wound the northern road (the way to their distant home), heard nothing to indicate the success of their comrades.
Anon a vast blaze gleamed broadly and redly on the night, revealing a thousand striking objects unseen before,—the church of St. Peter, with its gleaming windows, and the Gothic façade of Wolsey's ruined college. A loud explosion followed, a shout rose up from the town below; then all became still, and it seemed, as before, to float in the calm misty light of the silver moon.
"Finland has blown up the English magazine," said the Earl; "and here he comes."
The clatter of hoofs and wheels ringing in the narrow streets, and rumbling above the hollow bridge of the Orwell, approached; steel caps flashed in the moonlight above the parapet, the gleam of arms was reflected in the surface of the river, and in a few minutes Douglas, Walter Fenton, Gavin of that ilk, and their party seated on the tumbrils, dashed up with four pieces of beautiful brass cannon, marked with the broad arrow and red rose of England, and drawn by twelve horses captured for the occasion.
"Bravo, Finland!" exclaimed the Earl; "here are four braw marrows for old Mons Meg."
"Would to heaven, my lord, they were in the Maiden Castle alongside of her, with the standard of the Cock o' the North waving over them!"
"How so?—art faint-hearted, man?"