Save where illumined by the gleams of moonlight, by the red flashes of a few distant fire-arms, and the redder glare from a convent burned by the retreating British, the ruddy conflagration of which mingled with the last faint glow of the departed sun, the field seemed gloomy and dark. A narrow lurid streak at the distant horizon shewed where the sun had set. The roar of that great battle had now died away, but it had sent forth an echo over France and Britain denoting joy to one and sorrow to the other. Where, then, was William of Orange, and where his mighty host?
The contest was now over, and, save the distant popping of a few skirmishers or plunderers, every sound of strife had ceased; but the cool night wind was laden with a sad and wailing murmur, a sound which it is seldom the lot of man to hear—the mingled moans of many thousands of men enduring all the complicated torture of sabre and gunshot wounds and the most excruciating thirst. Many a solemn prayer and pious ejaculation of deep contrition, uttered in many a varied tongue, were then ascending from that moonlit battlefield to the throne of God, while others in their ravings called only on Death to ease them of their torments; and long ere sunrise the stern king of terrors attended the summons of many.
A great cannon royal, drawn by eight horses and escorted by the artillerists of the Brigade de Dauphine, passed near the corpse-heaped abbatis where Walter Fenton lay, and he implored them to remove him from the field. They were passing him unheeded, when one exclaimed,
"Il est un officier Ecossais!" upon which the drivers reined up: the soldiers sprang from the tumbril, and placing him beside them, galloped across the field of battle towards the redoubts on the left of Luxembourg's position. The jolting occasioned Walter exquisite agony, and he could not repress a shudder when the cannon wheels passed over the crackling body of some dead or wounded soldier who lay prostrate in their path.
After riding a mile or two he fell from his seat with violence, and once more became insensible.
"Il est morte" said the Frenchmen, as they whipped up their horses and thought no more about him.
After lying long in a dreamy state, tormented by a burning thirst and feeling prickly and shooting pains over his whole body as the blood flowed back into its old channels, Walter made an attempt to rise, but the motion occasioned him exquisite pain, and the whole landscape swam around him. He thought he was mortally wounded; a cold perspiration burst over his temples; a stupor again stole upon his senses, and, believing he was dying, he piously recommended himself to God, closed his eyes, and lay down resigned to his fate.
But the mind was active though the frame remained inert, and he thought of Lilian, of Finland and Annie, and how the hand of Death had thrown a cold blight over all their fondest hopes and prospects, and so weak had he become that audible sobs burst from him.
The heavy dew was falling fast, and its moisture refreshed him; he raised his head, and near him saw the figure of a female in a sombre and peculiar garb: she was completely attired in black; a thick veil of the same colour with a little hood of white linen were drawn closely round her face, which seemed pale and colourless as that of death in the uncertain rays of a cruise which she carried; but though aged, she was marked by a serenity and air of repose singularly winning and prepossessing. She bent tenderly over him with a face expressive of the deepest commiseration.
"'Tis a vision!" was Walter's first thought; "'tis an Ursuline nun," was his second.