Not long after, the fight began; and by my companion’s management, I remained with the staff during the greater part of the day. I need not pause to describe the roaring of cannon, the firing of musketry, the charging of lines of troops, the taking and retaking of different positions; but I must notice one little event, which occurred about the middle of the day. There had been a sort of lull in the noise and confusion, when suddenly a carriage and four came dashing over the ground toward the mill, just as a battery horse-artillery was galloping like lightning across in a different direction to take up a new position, while at the same moment a cavalry regiment was dashing up to support a party on the right. The gayly dressed post-boys tried to pull in their horses, but men, horses, and ladies in the carriage, were all equally scared, and before they knew what they were doing, were enveloped on every side by the troops. The commander-in-chief spoke a word to Captain Westover; for it was a great object to all that the day should pass over without serious accident, and one seemed now very likely to take place. Away went Westover. Away went I after him, and just arrived in time to turn the horses off the road before the guns were upon them.
“Oh, good Heaven, what shall we do?” exclaimed a lady in the carriage, with her head covered with ostrich feathers.
“Drive across to that little road, and off the ground as fast as you can go,” shouted Westover to the post-boys. “You will get these ladies killed if you do not mind.”
“But where can we see?” screamed the lady from the window.
“You cannot see at all, madam,” answered Westover, impatiently. “If you wanted to see, you should have come earlier—Drive on and clear the ground, boys.”
Away the postillions went. The lady drew back her head from the window with an indignant air, and I saw just opposite to her, in the carriage, the loveliest face I ever beheld. Delicately and beautifully chiseled, every feature seemed to me perfect, in the brief glance I had. But that was not the great charm; for there before me, for that single instant, were those beautiful, liquid, hazel eyes, with the long fringe of dark lashes, which I had never seen any thing like since I had last beheld Mariette.
My first impulse was to gallop after the carriage as fast as possible; but the troops swept round, the carriage dashed away, and all I could do was to ask my companion if he knew who were its denizens.
“Not I,” he answered, hurriedly—“Some vulgar people they must be—none but vulgar people get themselves into such situations as that—a devilish pretty girl in the back of the carriage though, De Lacy—Why, what’s the matter with you, man?”
“Why, I think I know her,” I replied, “and have been looking for her and her mother for a long time.”
“Well, then, ride away after her,” answered Westover; “the post-boys will insist upon feeding their horses, depend upon it; and you will find them either at the Green-Man, or at some of the inns down below. Join me again at the mill after it’s all over; for I intend you to give me some dinner; and I must see all my aunts, and cousins, and mothers, who are congregated there, if it be but for a moment, before they go back to London. They have thought me rude enough already, I dare say.”