That which Fred had dreaded had indeed begun, for about a hundred and
fifty men had been told off for the attack, and these had prepared
themselves by picketing their horses, arming themselves with stout axes
for the barricades, and dragging after them stout scaling-ladders.
The advance had seemed to be dilatory before, and the generally received
opinion in the camp had been that the defending party, to save risk, was
to be starved into submission.
But those who judged did not know the general. He had been waiting his
time, for sundry reasons: respect for Colonel Forrester, and mercy,
being among these; but now that he found it necessary to adopt strong
coercive measures, he was prompt and quick in every step.
Fred Forrester was freed from the terrible necessity of taking part in
the attack, but that did not lessen his eagerness to see what would be
the result, and in consequence he hurried to the top of the nearest
woodland summit, and from thence prepared to witness the issue of the
fight.
As he reached the clump of beeches which crowned the hill, he caught
sight of the back of some one lying at the very edge of the wood, in the
commanding spot he had selected for himself, and where he had often
stood to make signs to Scarlett in the old boyish days. For a moment or
two he hesitated, and then approached, wondering who it could be, and
taking the precaution to draw his sword, for it was not likely to be one
of their own men.
It was disconcerting to find any one there, and for the moment he was
ready to draw back. But, on the other hand, it might be a spy of the
enemy, who had crept up there to watch their proceedings; and under
these circumstances, Fred felt that there were only two courses open to
him, flight or bold attack.
To make such an attack in cold blood required consideration. It was not
like taking part in an exciting charge, amid the stirring din of battle,
when the pulses were bounding, and the bray of the trumpet called them
to advance. He, a mere youth, had to go single-handed to an encounter
with a great broad-backed fellow, who, at the first brunt, might turn
the tables upon him.
"But he is a spy," said Fred to himself; "and he is sure to be half
afraid;" and without further hesitation, the lad advanced softly,
keeping well behind.
As he drew nearer he could see that the man was upon his chest with his
arms folded for a support; his morion was tilted back over his ears, so
that it covered his neck, and as he watched the advance, he slowly
raised first one and then the other leg, crossing them backwards and
forwards, and beating the ground with his toes as if they were portions
of a pick-axe.
A peculiar feeling of hesitation came over Fred again, and he found
himself asking whether he ought not to go down for help, and whether
there were any of the man's companions near.
This he felt was only common prudence; and, stepping back, he carefully
searched among the trees and round the edge of the hill. But no, the
man seemed to have come up quite alone; and, gaining confidence from
this, he went softly back, taking care not to trample upon any dead
twig, so as to give the alarm.
In a few minutes he was again at the edge of the wood, near enough to
see that the man wore a backpiece, and that the hilt of his sword was
quite near his hand.
The hesitation was gone now. A glance showed that the attacking party
were near the end of the lake, and that outposts of three or four men
were dotted here and there, ready to drive back or capture any of the
Cavaliers who might try to make their escape.
"I'll do it," said Fred to himself; and, stooping down, he crept nearer
and nearer, holding back any twig or obtruding branch with his sword,
and wincing and preparing for a spring, when a bramble grated against
the edge of his blade.
But the man was too intent upon the scene below, and paid no heed to a
warning which, had he been on the alert, would have placed Fred at a
terrible disadvantage.
The lad's eyes, as he crept on with sword in advance, were fixed on the
back of the man's half-hidden neck; and he had made his plans, but for
all that he could not help glancing down at the advancing men, and
pausing to note that the Cavaliers were at the barricaded windows, ready
for their enemy.
And now for a moment Fred again wondered whether he was doing right, and
whether his more sensible plan would not have been to go down to the
camp and spread the alarm.
His answer to this thought was to set his teeth, which grated so loudly
that his grip tightened on the hilt of his sword, and he felt sure that
he must have been heard.
But no; the man lay perfectly still, watching intently, as motionless,
in fact, as if he had been asleep; and Fred crept step by step nearer
and nearer, till he felt that he was within springing distance, and then
stopped to take breath.
"How easy it would be to kill him," he thought, "and how cowardly;" and
he was about to put his first idea into action, namely, to make one bold
spring forward, and snatch the man's sword from the sheath.
But the sword might stick, the sheath clinging to it tightly, as it
would sometimes; and if it did, instead of the man being helpless, it
would be he who was at the mercy of one who might beat him off with
ease.
So, giving up that idea, he paused a few moments, till the man raised
his head a little higher, so as to get a better view of those below, and
then with one bold spring, Fred was upon his back, with the point of his
sword driven in a peculiar way into the soft earth.
That idea had occurred to him at the last moment, and even in the
intense excitement of the moment he smiled, as he saw in it success, for
it effectually baffled the man in what was his first effort--to draw his
sword, which was pinned, as it were, to the ground by Fred's weapon
being passed directly through the hilt.
There was an angry snort, as of a startled beast, a tremendous heave,
and a coarse brown hand made a dart at the sword-blade, and was snatched
away with an exclamation of pain. Then in fiercely remonstrant tones a
harsh voice shouted--
"You coward! Only let me get a chance!"
"Samson!" cried Fred, starting back as he removed his knee from the back
of the man's head, and the ex-gardener's steel cap rolled over to the
side.
"Master Fred!" was the answer; and Samson turned over and sat up,
staring in his assailant's face.
"You here?"
"Here, sir, yes; and look what you've done. Don't ketch me sharping
your sword again, if you're going to serve me like that."
He held up his hand, which was bleeding from the fact of his having
seized hold of the blade which had pinned down his hilt.
"But I thought you were one of the enemy--a spy."
"Then you'd no business to, sir. I only come up here to see the fight."
"But I thought you were down in the ranks--gone to the attack."
"Me? Now, was it likely, sir, as I should go and fight against the
Hall? No, sir, my bad brother Nat, who is as full of wickedness as a
gooseberry's full of pips, might go and try and take the Manor, if it
was only so as to get a chance to ransack my tool-shed; but you know
better than to think I'd go and do such a thing by him. Would you mind
tying that, sir?"
Samson had taken a strip of linen out of his morion, and after twisting
it round the slight, freely bleeding cut on his finger, held it up for
Fred to tie.
"Thank ye kindly, sir. I meant that for a leg or a wing, but it will do
again for them."
"I am very sorry, Samson," said Fred, giving the knot a final pull.
"Oh, it don't matter, sir; only don't try any o' them games again. So
you thought I was a spy?"
"Yes."
"And what was you going to do with me?"
"Make you a prisoner, and take you down to camp."
"Well, you are a one!" said Samson, looking at his young master, and
laughing. "Think of a whipper-snapper like you trying to capture a big
chap like me."
Fred winced angrily.
"Well, not so much of a whipper-snapper as Master Scarlett, sir; but you
haven't got much muscle, you know."
"Muscle enough to try."
"Yes, sir," said the ex-gardener, thoughtfully; "but it isn't the muscle
so much as the try. It's the thinking like and scheming. You see a bit
of rock stands up, and you can't move it with muscle, but if you put a
little bit of rock close to it, and then get a pole or an iron bar, and
puts it under the big rock and rests it on the little, and then pushes
down the end, why, then, over the big rock goes, and it's out of your
way."
"Yes, Samson," said Fred, thoughtfully, as he watched the advance; "and
so you didn't care to go to the attack?"
"No, sir, I wouldn't; but it was tempting, though; ay, that it was."
"Tempting?"
"Well, you see, Master Fred, Nat has got some chyce cabbage seed, and
he'd never give me a pinch, try how I would; no, nor yet sell a man a
pen'orth. He kept it all to himself, just out of a nasty greedy spirit,
so that his cabbages might be bigger and heavier than ours at the Manor.
I'd have had some of that seed if I'd gone, for he couldn't have come
and stopped me now."
"No, poor fellow! I wonder how he is?"
"Getting better, sir. He's as tough as fifty-year-old yew. Nothing
couldn't kill him; but look, sir, look! See how they're getting up to
the terrace. Ah!"
This exclamation was made as a white puff suddenly seemed to dart from
one of the windows of the Hall, and then there was another, and another,
the reports seeming to follow, and then to echo from the next hill.
But no one in the attacking force seemed to fall, neither did it check
them. On the contrary, they appeared to be spurred into action, and
instead of creeping on as it were in a slow steady march, they broke up
into little knots, and dashed forward, while a second line kept steadily
on.
"Look at them! look at them, Master Fred! Don't it make you feel as if
you wished you was in it?" cried Samson, excitedly. "That's it; fire
away; but you won't stop 'em. All Coombeland boys, every man-jack of
'em, and you can't stop them when they mean business."
"No," said Fred between his teeth, as he tried to keep down the feelings
of elation engendered by the gallantry of the attack, by forcing himself
to think of how it would be were he Scarlett Markham, and these men
enemies attacking his home. "Look, look, Samson!" he whispered, with
his throat dry, his tongue clinging to the roof of his mouth, and the
scar of his worst wound beginning to throb.
"Yes, I'm a-looking, sir," said Samson, in as husky a voice. "There,
they've got a ladder up against the big long window, and they're
swarming up it. They'll be in directly, and drive the long-haired
gentlemen flying like leaves before a noo birch broom."
"No," said Fred, shading his eyes with his hands; "no. Ah, did you hear
the crash? How horrible! Some of them must be killed."
"Not they, Master Fred. But I don't see how they did it. Fancy turning
the ladder right back with seven or eight lads running up it! But it
was well done."
"Can you see whether any one is hurt?"
"Not at this distance, sir. Not they, though, unless they've got any of
those long thin swords skewered into them. I've tumbled twice that
height out of apple-trees, and no one to fall upon. They'd all got some
one to tumble on, except the bottom one, and I don't suppose he's much
hurt."
"Hurt, man? He must be killed."
"Tchah! not he, sir. T'others would be too soft. Look, sir; don't lose
none of it. You may never have such a chance again. Yes; there,
they've got the ladder up once more, and some's holding it while the
others goes up. Yes. Huzza! they'll do it now. No. If they haven't
overturned it again."
"Yes," said Fred, sadly, and yet unable to help feeling pleased, so
thoroughly were his sympathies on both sides. "They're giving it up,
Samson; they're retiring."
"No, sir; only carrying some of the hurt ones out of the fight. There
goes another ladder up--two. Hah! look at that!"
Fred's eyes were already riveted on the fresh scene, for, plainly seen
even at that distance, the strong oaken-boarding screen nailed over the
window at the end of the terrace on the ground floor was suddenly thrown
down, and with a shout which was faintly heard on the hill, a party of
about five and twenty Cavaliers rushed out, sword in hand, taking the
attacking party in the flank with such vigour that they gave way, the
two scaling-ladders were overturned, and for the moment the Puritans
took to flight, and the attack seemed to have failed.
"Beaten, Samson," said Fred, unable to crush down a feeling of
satisfaction, even at the reverse of his own party.
"Beaten, sir? Not they. Only driven back. It's just like the waves
down by the cave, yonder; they come back again stronger than ever. Told
you so, sir. Look at that."
Samson Dee was right, for a solitary figure had suddenly stepped forward
from the second rank, rallied the beaten men, and advanced with them
slowly and steadily. There was a desperate _melee_, as the Cavaliers,
reinforced by more from within, tried to complete their rout, and then,
as it seemed to the excited watchers, the Royalists were driven back
step by step, by sheer force of numbers. Then in the midst of a
seething confusion, all swayed here and there along the terrace, and on
and on, till the barricaded windows and porch were reached, and then, as
they were checked by the stubborn walls as water is stopped by a pier,
they struggled fighting ever sidewise, a stream of mingled men along the
front of the house and over the broken-down boarding, till the tide of
confusion set right through the open window into the Hall.
At first this human current was a mingling of both sides; then the
Cavalier element seemed to disappear, and as Fred watched with starting
eyes, he could see at last that it was a steady stream of their own men
which flowed through the opening.
"They're in, Master Fred! The day's ours. Hark! Hear them firing
inside? Look! Look!"
It was plain enough to see: from the window, whence the scaling-ladders
were thrown down, men come dropping forth sword in hand, Cavaliers
evidently, to be encountered by those of the Puritan party still
without. Then out came other Puritans, to take the Cavaliers in the
rear, as they fought together in a knot facing all round, with their
swords flashing as they made their gallant defence.
Then a rush seemed to take place, and they were overpowered, while the
smoke came slowly rolling out from the open window, though the firing
had ceased.
The fighting still went on within for a few minutes; then a rush as made
out from door and window, and a tremendous cheer arose, loud enough to
strike well upon the spectators' ears, helmets were seen flashing,
swords flourished in the air, and it was plain enough that resistance
had ceased, while the attacking force were gathering together once
again.
"Smoke seems long while rolling out, Master Fred; must ha' been a deal
o' firing we did not hear."
"Oh!" shouted Fred, as like a flash the truth came home to him.
"What's the matter, lad? Are you hurt?" cried Samson.
"No, no; look! The dear old Hall!" cried Fred. "Don't you see?"
"Smoke, sir? Yes."
"No, no, my good fellow, not smoke alone; the poor old place is on
fire."
And without another word, Fred, followed closely by Samson, dashed down
the hill.