CHAPTER LXIV
SLAUGHTER IN THE MARSHES
We rattled away at a merry pace, out of the town of Dulverton my horsebeing gaily fed, and myself quite fit again for going. Of course I waspuzzled about Cousin Ruth; for her behaviour was not at all such as Ihad expected; and indeed I had hoped for a far more loving and movingfarewell than I got from her. But I said to myself, 'It is useless everto count upon what a woman will do; and I think that I must have vexedher, almost as much as she vexed me. And now to see what comes ofit.' So I put my horse across the moorland; and he threw his chest outbravely.
Now if I tried to set down at length all the things that happened to me,upon this adventure, every in and out, and up and down, and to and fro,that occupied me, together with the things I saw, and the things I heardof, however much the wiser people might applaud my narrative, it islikely enough that idle readers might exclaim, 'What ails this man?Knows he not that men of parts and of real understanding, have toldus all we care to hear of that miserable business. Let him keep to hisfarm, and his bacon, and his wrestling, and constant feeding.'
Fearing to meet with such rebuffs (which after my death would vex me), Iwill try to set down only what is needful for my story, and the clearingof my character, and the good name of our parish. But the manner inwhich I was bandied about, by false information, from pillar to post, orat other times driven quite out of my way by the presence of the King'ssoldiers, may be known by the names of the following towns, to whichI was sent in succession, Bath, Frome, Wells, Wincanton, Glastonbury,Shepton, Bradford, Axbridge, Somerton, and Bridgwater.
This last place I reached on a Sunday night, the fourth or fifth ofJuly, I think--or it might be the sixth, for that matter; inasmuch as Ihad been too much worried to get the day of the month at church. Only Iknow that my horse and myself were glad to come to a decent place, wheremeat and corn could be had for money; and being quite weary of wanderingabout, we hoped to rest there a little.
Of this, however, we found no chance, for the town was full of the goodDuke's soldiers; if men may be called so, the half of whom had neverbeen drilled, nor had fired a gun. And it was rumoured among them,that the 'popish army,' as they called it, was to be attacked that verynight, and with God's assistance beaten. However, by this time I hadbeen taught to pay little attention to rumours; and having sought vainlyfor Tom Faggus among these poor rustic warriors, I took to my hostel;and went to bed, being as weary as weary can be.
Falling asleep immediately, I took heed of nothing; although the townwas all alive, and lights had come glancing, as I lay down, and shoutsmaking echo all round my room. But all I did was to bolt the door; notan inch would I budge, unless the house, and even my bed, were on fire.And so for several hours I lay, in the depth of the deepest slumber,without even a dream on its surface; until I was roused and awakened atlast by a pushing, and pulling, and pinching, and a plucking of hair outby the roots. And at length, being able to open mine eyes, I saw the oldlandlady, with a candle, heavily wondering at me.
'Can't you let me alone?' I grumbled. 'I have paid for my bed, mistress;and I won't get up for any one.'
'Would to God, young man,' she answered, shaking me as hard as ever,'that the popish soldiers may sleep this night, only half as strong asthou dost! Fie on thee, fie on thee! Get up, and go fight; we can hearthe battle already; and a man of thy size mought stop a cannon.'
'I would rather stop a-bed,' said I; 'what have I to do with fighting? Iam for King James, if any.'
'Then thou mayest even stop a-bed,' the old woman muttered sulkily. 'Awould never have laboured half an hour to awake a Papisher. But hearkenyou one thing, young man; Zummerzett thou art, by thy brogue; or atleast by thy understanding of it; no Zummerzett maid will look at thee,in spite of thy size and stature, unless thou strikest a blow thisnight.'
'I lack no Zummerzett maid, mistress: I have a fairer than your brownthings; and for her alone would I strike a blow.'
At this the old woman gave me up, as being beyond correction: andit vexed me a little that my great fame had not reached so far asBridgwater, when I thought that it went to Bristowe. But those people inEast Somerset know nothing about wrestling. Devon is the headquartersof the art; and Devon is the county of my chief love. Howbeit, my vanitywas moved, by this slur upon it--for I had told her my name was JohnRidd, when I had a gallon of ale with her, ere ever I came upstairs; andshe had nodded, in such a manner, that I thought she knew both nameand fame--and here was I, not only shaken, pinched, and with many hairspulled out, in the midst of my first good sleep for a week, but alsoabused, and taken amiss, and (which vexed me most of all) unknown.
Now there is nothing like vanity to keep a man awake at night, howeverhe be weary; and most of all, when he believes that he is doingsomething great--this time, if never done before--yet other people willnot see, except what they may laugh at; and so be far above him, andsleep themselves the happier. Therefore their sleep robs his own; forall things play so, in and out (with the godly and ungodly ever movingin a balance, as they have done in my time, almost every year or two),all things have such nice reply of produce to the call for it, and sucha spread across the world, giving here and taking there, yet on thewhole pretty even, that haply sleep itself has but a certain stock,and keeps in hand, and sells to flattered (which can pay) that whichflattened vanity cannot pay, and will not sue for.
Be that as it may, I was by this time wide awake, though much aggrievedat feeling so, and through the open window heard the distant roll ofmusketry, and the beating of drums, with a quick rub-a-dub, and the'come round the corner' of trumpet-call. And perhaps Tom Faggus might bethere, and shot at any moment, and my dear Annie left a poor widow, andmy godson Jack an orphan, without a tooth to help him.
Therefore I reviled myself for all my heavy laziness; and partly throughgood honest will, and partly through the stings of pride, and yet alittle perhaps by virtue of a young man's love of riot, up I arose, anddressed myself, and woke Kickums (who was snoring), and set out to seethe worst of it. The sleepy hostler scratched his poll, and could nottell me which way to take; what odds to him who was King, or Pope, solong as he paid his way, and got a bit of bacon on Sunday? And would Iplease to remember that I had roused him up at night, and the qualityalways made a point of paying four times over for a man's loss ofhis beauty-sleep. I replied that his loss of beauty-sleep was ratherimproving to a man of so high complexion and that I, being none of thequality, must pay half-quality prices: and so I gave him double fee, asbecame a good farmer; and he was glad to be quit of Kickums; as I saw bythe turn of his eye, while going out at the archway.
All this was done by lanthorn light, although the moon was high andbold; and in the northern heaven, flags and ribbons of a jostlingpattern; such as we often have in autumn, but in July very rarely. Ofthese Master Dryden has spoken somewhere, in his courtly manner; but ofhim I think so little--because by fashion preferred to Shakespeare--thatI cannot remember the passage; neither is it a credit to him.
Therefore I was guided mainly by the sound of guns and trumpets, inriding out of the narrow ways, and into the open marshes. And thus Imight have found my road, in spite of all the spread of water, and theglaze of moonshine; but that, as I followed sound (far from hedge orcauseway), fog (like a chestnut-tree in blossom, touched with moonlight)met me. Now fog is a thing that I understand, and can do with wellenough, where I know the country; but here I had never been before. Itwas nothing to our Exmoor fogs; not to be compared with them; and allthe time one could see the moon which we cannot do in our fogs; noreven the sun, for a week together. Yet the gleam of water always makesthe fog more difficult: like a curtain on a mirror; none can tell theboundaries.
And here we had broad-water patches, in and out, inlaid on land, likemother-of-pearl in brown Shittim wood. To a wild duck, born and bredthere, it would almost be a puzzle to find her own nest amongst us; whatchance then had I and Kickums, both unused to marsh and mere? Each timewhen we thought that we must be right, now at last, by tra
ck or passage,and approaching the conflict, with the sounds of it waxing nearer,suddenly a break of water would be laid before us, with the moon lookingmildly over it, and the northern lights behind us, dancing down thelines of fog.
It was an awful thing, I say (and to this day I remember it), to hearthe sounds of raging fight, and the yells of raving slayers, and thehowls of poor men stricken hard, and shattered from wrath to wailing;then suddenly the dead low hush, as of a soul departing, and spiritskneeling over it. Through the vapour of the earth, and white breath ofthe water, and beneath the pale round moon (bowing as the drift wentby), all this rush and pause of fear passed or lingered on my path.
At last, when I almost despaired of escaping from this tangle of spongybanks, and of hazy creeks, and reed-fringe, my horse heard the neighof a fellow-horse, and was only too glad to answer it; upon which theother, having lost its rider, came up and pricked his ears at us, andgazed through the fog very steadfastly. Therefore I encouraged him witha soft and genial whistle, and Kickums did his best to tempt him with asnort of inquiry. However, nothing would suit that nag, except to enjoyhis new freedom; and he capered away with his tail set on high, and thestirrup-irons clashing under him. Therefore, as he might know the way,and appeared to have been in the battle, we followed him very carefully;and he led us to a little hamlet, called (as I found afterwards) WestZuyland, or Zealand, so named perhaps from its situation amid thisinland sea.
Here the King's troops had been quite lately, and their fires were stillburning; but the men themselves had been summoned away by the nightattack of the rebels. Hence I procured for my guide a young man who knewthe district thoroughly, and who led me by many intricate ways to therear of the rebel army. We came upon a broad open moor striped withsullen water courses, shagged with sedge, and yellow iris, and in thedrier part with bilberries. For by this time it was four o'clock, andthe summer sun, rising wanly, showed us all the ghastly scene.
Would that I had never been there! Often in the lonely hours, even nowit haunts me: would, far more, that the piteous thing had never beendone in England! Flying men, flung back from dreams of victory andhonour, only glad to have the luck of life and limbs to fly with,mud-bedraggled, foul with slime, reeking both with sweat and blood,which they could not stop to wipe, cursing, with their pumped-out lungs,every stick that hindered them, or gory puddle that slipped the step,scarcely able to leap over the corses that had dragged to die. And tosee how the corses lay; some, as fair as death in sleep; with the smileof placid valour, and of noble manhood, hovering yet on the silent lips.These had bloodless hands put upwards, white as wax, and firm as death,clasped (as on a monument) in prayer for dear ones left behind, or inhigh thanksgiving. And of these men there was nothing in their broadblue eyes to fear. But others were of different sort; simple fellowsunused to pain, accustomed to the bill-hook, perhaps, or rasp of theknuckles in a quick-set hedge, or making some to-do at breakfast, over athumb cut in sharpening a scythe, and expecting their wives to make moreto-do. Yet here lay these poor chaps, dead; dead, after a deal of pain,with little mind to bear it, and a soul they had never thought of; gone,their God alone knows whither; but to mercy we may trust. Upon thesethings I cannot dwell; and none I trow would ask me: only if a plain mansaw what I saw that morning, he (if God had blessed him with the heartthat is in most of us) must have sickened of all desire to be greatamong mankind.
Seeing me riding to the front (where the work of death went on amongthe men of true English pluck; which, when moved, no farther moves), thefugitives called out to me, in half a dozen dialects, to make no utterfool of myself; for the great guns were come, and the fight was over;all the rest was slaughter.
'Arl oop wi Moonmo',' shouted one big fellow, a miner of the Mendiphills, whose weapon was a pickaxe: 'na oose to vaight na moor. Wend theehame, yoong mon agin.'
Upon this I stopped my horse, desiring not to be shot for nothing; andeager to aid some poor sick people, who tried to lift their arms tome. And this I did to the best of my power, though void of skill inthe business; and more inclined to weep with them than to check theirweeping. While I was giving a drop of cordial from my flask to one poorfellow, who sat up, while his life was ebbing, and with slow insistenceurged me, when his broken voice would come, to tell his wife (whose nameI knew not) something about an apple-tree, and a golden guinea stored init, to divide among six children--in the midst of this I felt warm lipslaid against my cheek quite softly, and then a little push; and beholdit was a horse leaning over me! I arose in haste, and there stoodWinnie, looking at me with beseeching eyes, enough to melt a heart ofstone. Then seeing my attention fixed she turned her head, and glancedback sadly toward the place of battle, and gave a little wistful neigh:and then looked me full in the face again, as much as to say, 'Do youunderstand?' while she scraped with one hoof impatiently. If ever ahorse tried hard to speak, it was Winnie at that moment. I went to herside and patted her; but that was not what she wanted. Then I offered toleap into the empty saddle; but neither did that seem good to her: forshe ran away toward the part of the field at which she had been glancingback, and then turned round, and shook her mane, entreating me to followher.
Upon this I learned from the dying man where to find his apple-tree, andpromised to add another guinea to the one in store for his children; andso, commending him to God, I mounted my own horse again, and to Winnie'sgreat delight, professed myself at her service. With her ringing silveryneigh, such as no other horse of all I ever knew could equal, she atonce proclaimed her triumph, and told her master (or meant to tell, ifdeath should not have closed his ears) that she was coming to his aid,and bringing one who might be trusted, of the higher race that kill.
A cannon-bullet (fired low, and ploughing the marsh slowly) met poorWinnie front to front; and she, being as quick as thought, lowered hernose to sniff at it. It might be a message from her master; for it madea mournful noise. But luckily for Winnie's life, a rise of wet groundtook the ball, even under her very nose; and there it cut a splashygroove, missing her off hindfoot by an inch, and scattering black mudover her. It frightened me much more than Winnie; of that I am quitecertain: because though I am firm enough, when it comes to a realtussle, and the heart of a fellow warms up and tells him that he must gothrough with it; yet I never did approve of making a cold pie of death.
Therefore, with those reckless cannons, brazen-mouthed, and bellowing,two furlongs off, or it might be more (and the more the merrier), Iwould have given that year's hay-crop for a bit of a hill, or a thicketof oaks, or almost even a badger's earth. People will call me a cowardfor this (especially when I had made up my mind, that life was not worthhaving without any sign of Lorna); nevertheless, I cannot help it: thosewere my feelings; and I set them down, because they made a mark on me.At Glen Doone I had fought, even against cannon, with some spirit andfury: but now I saw nothing to fight about; but rather in every poordoubled corpse, a good reason for not fighting. So, in cold blood ridingon, and yet ashamed that a man should shrink where a horse went bravely,I cast a bitter blame upon the reckless ways of Winnie.
Nearly all were scattered now. Of the noble countrymen (armed withscythe or pickaxe, blacksmith's hammer, or fold-pitcher), who had stoodtheir ground for hours against blazing musketry (from men whom theycould not get at, by reason of the water-dyke), and then against thedeadly cannon, dragged by the Bishop's horses to slaughter his ownsheep; of these sturdy Englishmen, noble in their want of sense, scarceone out of four remained for the cowards to shoot down. 'Cross therhaine,' they shouted out, 'cross the rhaine, and coom within rache:'but the other mongrel Britons, with a mongrel at their head, found itpleasanter to shoot men who could not shoot in answer, than to meet thechance of mischief from strong arms, and stronger hearts.
The last scene of this piteous play was acting, just as I rode up. Broaddaylight, and upstanding sun, winnowing fog from the eastern hills,and spreading the moors with freshness; all along the dykes they shone,glistened on the willow-trunks, and touched the banks with a hoary gray
.But alas! those banks were touched more deeply with a gory red, andstrewn with fallen trunks, more woeful than the wreck of trees; whilehowling, cursing, yelling, and the loathsome reek of carnage, drownedthe scent of the new-mown hay, and the carol of the lark.
Then the cavalry of the King, with their horses at full speed, dashedfrom either side upon the helpless mob of countrymen. A few pikesfeebly levelled met them; but they shot the pikemen, drew swords, andhelter-skelter leaped into the shattered and scattering mass. Right andleft they hacked and hewed; I could hear the snapping of scythes beneaththem, and see the flash of their sweeping swords. How it must end wasplain enough, even to one like myself, who had never beheld such abattle before. But Winnie led me away to the left; and as I couldnot help the people, neither stop the slaughter, but found thecannon-bullets coming very rudely nigh me, I was only too glad to followher.
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