You will find him at the Coca Tree every day of the week between two and four of the clock. There is Mother Butterworth, too, whom I might commend to your notice. She was the queen of wet-nurses, but alas! cruel time hath dried up her business, and she hath need of some little nursing herself.'
'If I live and you should fall, I shall do what may be done for her,' said I. 'Have you aught else to say?'
'Only that Hacker of Paul's Yard is the best for vests,' he answered. 'It is a small piece of knowledge, yet like most other knowledge it hath been bought and paid for. One other thing! I have a trinket or two left which might serve as a gift for the pretty Puritan maid, should our friend lead her to the altar. Od's my life, but she will make him read some queer books! How now, Colonel, why are we stuck out on the moor like a row of herons among the sedges?'
'They are ordering the line for the attack,' said Saxon, who had ridden up during our conversation. 'Donnerblitz! Who ever saw a camp so exposed to an onfall? Oh for twelve hundred good horse--for an hour of Wessenburg's Pandours! Would I not trample them down until their camp was like a field of young corn after a hail-storm!'
'May not our horse advance?' I asked.
The old soldier gave a deep snort of disdain. 'If this fight is to be won it must be by our foot,' said he; 'what can we hope for from such cavalry? Keep your men well in hand, for we may have to bear the brunt of the King's dragoons. A flank attack would fall upon us, for we are in the post of honour.'
'There are troops to the right of us,' I answered, peering through the darkness.
'Aye! the Taunton burghers and the Frome peasants. Our brigade covers the right flank. Next us are the Mendip miners, nor could I wish for better comrades, if their zeal do not outrun their discretion. They are on their knees in the mud at this moment.'
'They will fight none the worse for that,' I remarked; 'but surely the troops are advancing!'
'Aye, aye!' cried Saxon joyously, plucking out his sword, and tying his handkerchief round the handle to strengthen his grip. 'The hour has come! Forwards!'
Very slowly and silently we crept on through the dense fog, our feet splashing and slipping in the sodden soil. With all the care which we could take, the advance of so great a number of men could not be conducted without a deep sonorous sound from the thousands of marching feet. Ahead of us were splotches of ruddy light twinkling through the fog which marked the Royal watch-fires. Immediately in front in a dense column our own horse moved forwards. Of a sudden out of the darkness there came a sharp challenge and a shout, with the discharge of a carbine and the sound of galloping hoofs. Away down the line we heard a ripple of shots. The first line of outposts had been reached. At the alarm our horse charged forward with a huzza, and we followed them as fast as our men could run. We had crossed two or three hundred yards of moor, and could hear the blowing of the Royal bugles quite close to us, when our horse came to a sudden halt, and our whole advance was at a standstill.
'Sancta Maria!' cried Saxon, dashing forward with the rest of us to find out the cause of the delay. 'We must on at any cost! A halt now will ruin our camisado.'
'Forwards, forwards!' cried Sir Gervas and I, waving our swords.
'It is no use, gentlemen,' cried a cornet of horse, wringing his hands; 'we are undone and betrayed. There is a broad ditch without a ford in front of us, full twenty feet across!'
'Give me room for my horse, and I shall show ye the way across!' cried the Baronet, backing his steed. 'Now, lads, who's for a jump?'
'Nay, sir, for God's sake!' said a trooper, laying his hand upon his bridle. 'Sergeant Sexton hath sprung in even now, and horse and man have gone to the bottom!'
'Let us see it, then!' cried Saxon, pushing his way through the crowd of horsemen. We followed close at his heels, until we found ourselves on the borders of the vast trench which impeded our advance.