At length the advancing host drew near. The foremost men rushed bravely on, they clutched the wall of pikes with their hands, and strove to hew a way to victory. But the arrows fell among them, dealing death in full measure, and the brave men fell. Others took their places, and again the goose-shafts flew.
Now the advancing army remembered the trick of Norman William on the field of Senlac. At a given signal they turned and fled in apparent confusion. With a wild yell the unwary Highland men broke from their post upon the summit, and charged down to slay. Then, swift as lightning, the warriors of Stephen turned. Their archers met the onrush of the pursuers with a staggering volley of shafts. The pikes and bills charged up the slope. The axes hacked the brawny Scots, and the broken ranks upon the hill, opening wider yet to receive their retreating comrades, let in the charging body of the foe. After that there was a mingled mass of slaying men about the summit. The hosts of King Stephen girt the hill round, so that there was no escape for the men who stood upon it. Death was everywhere, death for the victors and the vanquished; for the soldiers of the Princess died as soldiers should, and they slew great numbers of the foe.
MOTTRAM CHURCH AND THE WAR HILL, THE SITE OF THE BATTLE MENTIONED IN THE LEGEND.
That was the last stand for the Princess Matilda in that part of Cheshire, and the old chronicles say that the blood shed in the battle ran in a stream down the slopes, and formed a great pool at the foot of the hill.
As the gray of the morrow’s dawn fell upon the scene of battle, the pale light fell also upon a group of living beings, who stood upon the summit of the hill among the hosts of the dead.
Matilda, the Queen, was there—beaten and dismayed, since all hope was lost. The chief forester of Longdendale stood there also, and he, too, sighed, as one whose heart is broken—he had just been groping among the corpses, and had found what he sought.
“Are thy fears well founded?” asked Matilda, anxiously.
The old man pointed to the inert forms of five dead men.