The sun set slowly, and somewhat dimly too over a wide, extensive,
melancholy-looking plain in the west of England. Two persons gazed
over the wide expanse from the windows of a tolerably comfortable
farmhouse situated on the first slope of a rising ground to the
eastward. Nothing could appear more dreary and hopeless than the
aspect of the scene before their eyes. The general face of the country
for some miles to the westward was completely flat, rather hollowed
out than otherwise, looking much like a Dutch landscape, where a wide
tract of country, rescued from the sea, continually forces upon the
mind of the spectator the impression that at any time the sea may
break in again and recover its own. I know few things more desolate in
appearance than one of these Dutch landscapes late in the autumn or
early in the spring. There is a sort of marshy, fenny feel in the very
look, which makes the mind shiver and creep, as if it got the ague
before the body was sensible of it. But even a Dutch landscape had the
advantage over that which lay beneath the eye of the traveler. The
manifold wind-mills, with their arms waving in the breeze, which give
a sort of merry activity to most of the Dutch pictures, were here
wanting. The curious old manorial houses, very often furnished with
draw-bridge and portcullis, and with clumps of old trees around them,
were not to be seen. Here and there, indeed, marked out by the falling
of the light and shade, a little elevated piece of ground, apparently
but a few yards wide, though in reality much more extensive, rose up
as a sort of island a few feet above the dull level of the plain; and
there almost invariably appeared the spire of a little village church,
with a low cottage or two scattered among the orchards, and the
squire's or parson's house domineering over the rest. All these
houses, however, in which men and women dwelt--in which every human
passion had its sway--in which loves, and hates, and hopes, and
ambitions, and envy, and pride, and jealousy, and enmity, and strife,
and mortal struggle existed as well as in the midst of courts, seemed,
to the eyes that looked upon them from the height, no larger than the
smallest of a child's playthings, so completely did they sink into
insignificance--lost, as it were, in the vast expanse around.
Dim, dim was the aspect of the whole scene. The setting sun, half
vailed in cloud, yet partially seen through the gray covering of the
sky, looked pale and wan, and of evil augury. No rosy glow accompanied
his descent, till his lower limb touched the very verge of the
horizon, and then two or three blood-red streaks marked the death of
day, without affording one hope of brighter looks to-morrow. There
were none of those strong contrasts, those deep blue shadows, and warm
yellow lights, brought forth by the changeful aspect of the April or
October day; but the utmost variation in the depth of hue served but
to throw out, in very slight relief, the little hamlet-covered
elevations I have mentioned. Perhaps, indeed, this effect was produced
more by the long lines of light mist that rose up from the lower parts
of the ground than by any contrast of light and shade; and the dull,
leaden, cheerless, rayless look of the whole was only rendered more
oppressive by two or three tall wreaths of bluish smoke which rose up
here and there, several miles apart, marked out the distances, and
showed how wide was the space beneath the eye.
"Somewhere here," said Ralph, "must have lain, I think, the famous
isle of the Æthelings, so celebrated in our Saxon history; for this
was the great marsh--at that time nearly covered with water in the
winter--into which the Danes could never penetrate."
"It looks, indeed, a sad and gloomy place--the refuge of despair,"
replied Hortensia; and then allowing her eyes to run forward over some
twelve or fourteen miles of ground, they rested upon a spot where,
against the western sky, rose up a number of irregular white masses,
crowned by a very tall steeple, which looked as solitary and
melancholy as a column in a wilderness.
"That must be Bridgewater, I suppose," said Hortensia.
"I fancy so," answered Ralph, "but I can not tell. We will ask the
good farmer;" and he was turning toward the other side of the room,
where stood the door, when Hortensia stayed him, saying, "Nay, do not
leave me, Ralph; I am very sad to-night. I know not why it is; but I
suppose these long journeyings and wearing anxiety have fatigued me
much--fatigued mind, and heart, and soul, and spirit, more than the
body, for these frail limbs do not feel so weary as after the first
day's journey; but there is nothing like the weariness of the spirit.
It matters little whether it be Bridgewater or not--let it be what it
may. We shall learn more to-morrow--"
The moment after, with a little spice of that caprice which the
weariness of the spirit that she talked of often gives, Hortensia
added, "If that be Bridgewater, and the villages we see there be
occupied by the king's troops, as the people say, they must have
somehow passed us; and I should think that we could get across the
country to Bristol or Bath early to-morrow. Of course, if Monmouth is
before them, they will call in all stragglers and detachments, and the
road in their rear must be clear."
"I have good hope it will prove so," replied Ralph; "but if the
intelligence we have heard to-night be correct, your own house at
Danvers's New Church must be free of these marauders. Nothing is more
probable than that Lord Feversham should order Kirke, as the people
told us, to join him again by forced marches."
"I wish Stilling would return," said Lady Danvers, with a sigh. "We
have fed so long upon the bitter bread of uncertainty, that I am
marvelous tired of the diet, Ralph."
"He has not yet been gone half an hour," replied Ralph Woodhall. "Take
my counsel, dear lady: go and lie down to rest for a few hours, and as
soon as Stilling returns I will send and let you know what news he
brings. If I judge right, there will be some one up in the house all
night, for the good people are evidently anxious and alarmed in
consequence of the near presence of the soldiery."
"If I sleep at all," replied Hortensia, "it shall be in this large
chair. Though the back be as tall and stiff as a monument, yet there,
ready for any event, I shall rest more quietly than in a bed. I like
this sober evening twilight--this sort of middle state of sight, where
there is nothing very bright, and nothing very dark, like the calm,
even hue of happy mediocrity. Forbid me candles at an hour such as
this. I could go on, methinks, musing and pondering in this light for
ever, if it would but last--or till the night of age and death fell
upon me."
Her quiet melancholy dream ended with the opening of the door; and the
good farmer's wife entered, saying, in a broad, Somersetshire dialect,
"Come, young folks, don't you sit moping here in the dark. I've got
something ready all hot for your supper down below. A plenty of
roasted eggs and some bacon, and some good dough cakes as ever were
baked. It's poor feeding for such as you, I dare say; but it's the
best we can give, and it's given right hearty."
"And so will we partake of it," said Hortensia, rising and laying her
hand upon the good woman's arm. "Come, Ralph, let us go to supper; we
can employ our time worse, even in sitting thinking sadly here."
"Well, thou art a dear, beautiful lady! and there's the very best
cider in the country to boot," said the farmer's wife, walking down
the stairs by the side of her fair guest.
Hortensia did not see the connection between herself and the cider;
but she asked no questions, and was soon seated at the farmer's
supper-table, where, in addition to himself, his wife, and her two
guests, were half a score of plowmen and maid-servants, all very
decorous in their behavior, though simple and rough enough in their
manner.
The conversation turned naturally enough to the situation of Monmouth
and the king's troops, and some speculations were indulged in as to
the result of the struggle going on. It was evident that the good
farmer was a Tory at heart, although he took especial care to guard
the expression of his opinions.
"Lord bless you! my lady," he said, in answer to some observation of
Hortensia, "there will be no battle. The duke can't afford to fight
such men as he's got before him--that's to say, the duke or King
Monmouth, as they call him; and I can't tell, of course, which is
right. But he's strengthening himself in Bridgewater, they say; and I
know he sent for a great number of our lads round about, to help to
cut rines and throw up dikes. He'll soon be obliged to give them all
up, I've a notion; but nobody can tell, after all. War and love are
the two most uncertain things that are, and I do not know which is the
worst, for my part."
"Love," said Hortensia, smiling; "for, besides being bad in itself, as
you say, it often leads to war, which is another evil."
"Lord bless you! my lady, love's a very good thing in its way, when
it's young and fresh," said the farmer's wife, with a merry laugh.
"It's not like beer, the better for being kept, that is true; but all
those sweet liquors grow sour when they get stale; and so love's no
worse than the rest of them. Isn't it so, father?"
The jolly farmer shook his sides with a hearty laugh, but replied,
with a better compliment than courts could afford, "Such as thou never
gets stale, my dear old girl; for there's a sweet spirit in the heart
of thee that won't let a drop in thy veins grow sour, and the longer
thou art kept the better."
The conversation served somewhat to cheer; but still both Ralph and
Hortensia were anxious for the return of Gaunt Stilling; and Lady
Danvers would not consent to retire to rest before information was
received of what was the course to be pursued in the morning. After
the supper was over, they went up again together to the room above,
and seated themselves by the window, while the good farmer's wife
followed them with a single lamp, and sat making stockings, and every
now and then saying a word or two, calculated, as she thought, to keep
their spirits up.
Ralph and Hortensia said little, but gazed on the scene before them,
with the stars twinkling faintly above, and the wide expanse of
Sedgemoor nearly vailed in mist, looking like a dim, uncertain sea.
"Ay, we none of us can rest to-night," said the old woman; and then,
after a pause and two or three more stitches, she continued. "That's
because we all feel as if something were going to happen; and
something must happen, too, very soon--I'm sure of that. They've got
too near to part without tearing each other."
"It is sad to think of," said Hortensia; "perhaps to-morrow may bring
fate to many hundreds of honest men who ought to be friends and
brethren."
"Likely, my lady," replied the farmer's wife; and there the
conversation dropped.
"Farmer Bacon thinks they are going to have a siege," said the good
dame, after about half an hour's silence; "but I don't think they'll
wait for that slow work."
"I should think Lord Feversham would hardly give the duke time to
fortify himself," Ralph answered; and there the conversation dropped
again.
About an hour after that, Ralph said, "Hark! do you not hear the sound
of a horse's hoofs beating upon a hard road or causeway? I dare say it
is Stilling coming back."
"It must be on Zoyland causeway," said the old woman, "for all the
roads are mere pease-pudding. You would not hear the galloping of a
whole regiment of horses. That horse is six miles off, at the least;
but the night is still, you see."
A short time then elapsed without any further observation; but
suddenly Hortensia started and uttered a low exclamation. A bright
flash of fire was seen to blaze through the fog toward the center of
the moor, and some seconds after, a loud, ringing report of musketry;
then, immediately after, flash after flash ran along in a straight
line across the moor, extending some three or four hundred yards, and
the peal of the shot was mingled with other sounds, probably shouts of
command, or the cheer of troops in the charge.
It was clear a battle was going on--that a night attack had been made
by Monmouth on the king's troops, and that mighty destinies hung upon
the events which were taking place on one spot in the midst of that
wild moor.
Some five or ten minutes after, a light broke out about two miles to
the right, steady and persisted, as if a bonfire had been lighted
there; but a number of flashes also poured down from that quarter, and
then came the sound of many horses' feet beating the hard causeway.
The farmer and many of the people of the house came up, warned by the
sounds which reached the house, to look out upon the distant battle.
All were silent--all were pale with the strong emotions of the moment;
and it is not at all improbable that from among the farming men, at
least, many an aspiration went up for the success of Monmouth.
Again, at the end of a quarter of an hour, firing commenced upon the
left; but it was faint and scattered; and still the heat of the strife
was evidently toward the center of Feversham's position. There the
firing was kept up incessantly, rising and falling, sometimes less
fiercely than at others, but never discontinued altogether. At length
a dull, heavy roar was heard, and brighter, broader flashes were seen.
"Those are cannon brought into play," said Ralph.
"Ay, that will soon settle it," observed the farmer. "The daylight is
coming, too. See how gray it is out there."
"Heaven have mercy upon those poor men!" said Hortensia, with a sigh.
"Do you not think you hear cries and shrieks, Ralph?"
"No, indeed, dear lady," replied her companion; "it is your own bright
imagination hears them."
"They are heard by the ear of Heaven," replied Hortensia; and, bending
down her eyes, she fell into a fit of deep thought.
The farmer's voice roused her. "And now, my lady," he said, "if you
will take my advice, you will lie down and take an hour or two's
rest--say till five o'clock. By that time we shall know how matters
have gone, though I myself don't doubt. By that time, too, the chase
will be over, and you can get some breakfast, mount your horse with
this young gentleman, and ride away quietly, keeping to the rear of
the army."
"But suppose we should be met by stragglers, and stopped?" said Lady
Danvers; "I have a great dread of those troops of Colonel Kirke's; and
there being no one with us to protect us, we should be quite at their
mercy if they met with us."
"Well," said the old farmer, scratching his head, "I will ride with
you till you're out of harm's way, and will take two of the lads with
us; not that I should be any great protection, or they either, for
that matter; but I think I've got a secret to keep them quiet. I don't
believe they'll venture to hurt me, any how. So now go and lie down
and rest quietly, there's a dear, pretty lady."
"I do not think I can sleep at all after what I have seen," answered
Hortensia.
"Never mind that, my lady," said the farmer's wife; "it will rest you,
at any rate, to lie down. Come with me, and I will show you the way."
Hortensia followed, and Ralph remained debating with himself whether
it might not be better for him to place his fair companion under the
charge and safe guidance of these honest people, and entreat them to
see her unmolested to the house of some relation, than to persist in
accompanying her, when his presence seemed but to bring mishap and
inconvenience with it. He determined, in the end, to see her, at all
events, safely beyond the immediate neighborhood of the field of
battle, and then to propose his plan to her, and leave her to decide.