“There, there! do you not see them? the Roundheads are beaten back, and their leader falls. It is he, my love—and oh!—they have slain him——”
Then she fell back into the seat and sobbed, and shivered, and moaned.
The farmer took her by the shoulders, and shook her.
“Art daft, my lass,” said he, “or dreaming. What is it thou see’st?”
For a moment the girl could not do anything but sob and moan, then, recovering herself, she told her parents that, as she gazed at the sunset, it seemed as though the western heavens were alive with the figures of men—she could see the Roundhead troops rushing to the assault, at their head was the form of her lover, and even as she looked, the Royalists repulsed the attack, and in the melee she saw her lover fall, his brain pierced by a musket ball. It seemed, too, that she could hear the noise of the piece, and the death-shriek as he fell.
“Tut-tut,” said the farmer, “’tis nothing but a dream. Thou hast been dozing, that is all.”
The mother also tried to comfort her, and the two led her inside, but that night when the farmer and his spouse sought their chamber, the latter said in an awesome whisper:
“’Tis the gift of sight, good man. My grandmother had it; and I fear that the vision she has seen will prove true.”
Some days passed, and nothing was heard of the great strife which waged beyond the valley; but one day a man, pale and thin from suffering, seated upon a jaded steed, rode wearily into Longdendale. Near Mottram town he met Yeoman Cooke, whom he accosted; and the latter looked at him with a start of surprise.