Chapter 36 - No Quarter! by Mayne Reid
After Roundway Down
An hundred horsemen riding at their hardest—not in any military formation, but strung out in a straggled ruck—horsemen steel-clad from crown to hip, some with helmets battered; others bare-headed, the head-piece gone; cuirasses showing dints, as from stroke of halberd or thrust of pike; on back and breastplate blood splashes, dried and turned purple-black; boots, mud-bespattered and délabré—this damaged cohort all that remained of “William the Conqueror’s” army!
They were the remnant of Hesselrig’s Horse, the “Lobsters” in retreat from Roundway Down, where the chivalrous, but too reckless, too confident Waller, had given battle to the outnumbering enemy under Byron and Wilmot; been defeated, and put to utter rout.
It was the wind up of a series of sanguinary engagements with the Marquis of Hertford and Prince Maurice, commencing with an encounter on the low-wooded bottom between Tog and Friznoll hills, so hotly contested that veterans there engaged, who had gone through all the Low Country and German campaigns, declared the most furious fights they ever had abroad were but sport to it.
Carried up to the adjacent height of Lansdown, from which, after another fierce conflict, the Parliamentarians were forced to retire, the two armies—what remained of them—again came face to face on the elevated plateau of Roundway Down; the final scene of the struggle and Waller’s discomfiture.
Hesselrig’s Cuirassiers had especially suffered. With ranks broken, and many of them unhorsed, they were all but helpless in their unwieldy armour, and scores got tumbled over the cliffs of the Down. Of a well-appointed regiment, over five hundred strong, which but a few days before had filed out through the gates of Bristol, only this straggling troop—less than a fifth of the force, still kept the saddle.
Waller was himself along with it—for the “Lobsters” formed his body-guard—so too Hesselrig, severely wounded. Crestfallen both—it could not be otherwise—but with no cowed or craven look. The blood upon their gauntlets and sword-hilts, on their blades still unwiped, told both had been where cowards would not be—in the thick of the fight. Only to superior numbers had they yielded, and were now retiring sullenly as disabled lions. If they rode hard and fast it was through the urgency of their followers, who feared pursuit behind with the fiendish cry, “No Quarter!”
Morn was just dawning as the retreating troop caught sight of Bristol’s towers—glad to their eyes, giving promise of refuge and rest. This last they needed as much as the first. For days and nights they had scarce ever been out of the saddle; looked wan for the want of sleep, and were weak from fatigue and hunger. Their horses blown and dead-beat, many of them staggering in their gait. No wonder the sight of that city was welcome to them.
But what a spectacle they themselves to those inside it, to the hundreds, nay thousands, who gazed off and out from turret, wall, and window! The first glimpse got of them was by the warder in the Castle’s keep, just as the brightening sky enabled him to descry objects at a distance. Then other sentries saw them from the watch towers of the gates on that side; and the signal of alarm ran along the line of fortification, round and round. Soon bells rang, trumpets brayed, and drums beat all over the city, startling the citizens out of their sleep and beds. Before the sun had yet shown above the horizon, not one but was awake, and most out of doors. Men rushed wildly through the streets—women too—or stood aperch, clustering on every eminence, every pinnacle and parapet thick as bees, with eager, anxious glances scanning the country outside. At length to fix them on the long, glittering line—for the sheen of the cuirasses were not all gone—that now approached in slow, laboured pace, as the crawl of a scotched snake.
When near enough for the bare heads and battered helmets to be distinguished, the blood smouches on dress, arms, and accoutrements, the gloom on brows and in eyes, with lips compressed and features hard set as in sullen anger—when these sure insignia of disaster were fully before them, a feeling of despondency came over the hearts of the Bristolians. Intensified, doubled, when at the head of this figment of a force, crushed and shattered, they saw Sir William Waller, and by his side Sir Arthur Hesselrig—the two leaders so long victorious as to be deemed invincible! They had seen them ride out with an army numbering nigh 6,000 men, and now saw them returning, in retreat, with but a bare hundred! These so down-looking and dispirited, that, as Waller himself—candid as he was brave—confessed in his report to the Lord General, “a corporal with an ordinary squadron could have routed them.”
To many who witnessed their re-entry within Bristol’s gates it was as much spectre as spectacle—the presentiment of misfortune for themselves.
But not all viewed it in this light. There were eyes into which it brought a sparkle of gratification; some even the glow of anticipated vengeance. During Fiennes’s iron rule, the “malignants” had been much humiliated, and the prospect of a change, themselves to have the upper hand, made them jubilant. And there were the relatives and friends of the so-called “State Martyrs,” with the fate of these fresh in their mind, burning for revenge. Citizens affected to the King’s cause, Cavaliers, whether prisoners on parole or otherwise, the tapsters, gamesters, and tricksters of every speciality; in a word, all the reprobacy and blackguardism of Bristol, high and low, male and female, were gleeful at a sight giving them forecast of that for which they had long been yearning—an opportunity of pillage and plunder. It was just with them, as it would be with their modern representatives the Jingoes, at any mischance to Liberalism, likely to give the Jew of Hughenden another spell at despoiling and dishonouring England. For they, too, were doughty champions of beer and Bible, with whom national honour was but a name, the nation’s glory an empty boast. They, as Tories now, cared not for the wrongs and sufferings of an over-taxed people, any more than recks Arab slave-trader the tears and lamentations of the poor human beings with black skins he drives, brute-like, across the burning sands of Africa. For is not the whole history of Toryism, from its commencement up to the latest chapter and verse, a record of sympathy with the wronger and unpitying regardlessness for the wronged—an exhibition of all the ferocity known to the human heart, with all its falsehood and meanness?
By a coincidence in no way singular, but simply from two events chancing to occur at the same time, they were dancing at Montserrat House, while Waller was riding in retreat from Roundway Down. Madame Lalande’s ball was on the night after the battle, July 13th.
It was about to break up, for day was dawning, and cheeks growing pale. Less than a month after mid-summer, the hour was not so much into morning, and there were some tireless votaries of Terpsichore inclined for still another contredanse, by way of wind up. This came, however, in a manner more sudden and unexpected. First, the call notes of a distant bugle, taken up and responded to by others, till a very chorus of them sounded all over the city. Then a tantara of drums, and the jangling of church bells, with the boom of a great gun from the Castle!
Too early for the reveillée—before the hour of orisons—what could it all mean? So queried they in the grounds of Montserrat House, gathering into groups. Certainly, something unusual; as the fracas not only continued but seemed growing greater. To the instrumental sounds were added human voices, shouting in the streets, calls and responses, with a hurried trampling of feet—men rushing to and fro!
Only for a short while were Madame Lalande’s guests in suspense. Nor had they to go outside for explanation. There was an eminence in the grounds which commanded a view of most part of Bristol, with the country beyond the fortified line, south-eastward. On its summit stood a pavilion; the same which on that night had been the means of revealing more than one secret. And now from this spot an anxious crowd—for scores had rushed up to it—learnt the cause of the excitement. Close in to the city’s walls, about to enter one of the gates, was the shattered remnant of Hesselrig’s Horse—all that was left of Waller’s defeated army!
If the dresses of those who clustered round the pavilion—most in fancy costume—were diversified, varied also were the feelings with which they regarded this new spectacle presented to them. A surprise to all; to many an unpleasant one, but most viewing it with delighted eyes. For, unlike as with the crowds clustering other eminences outside, within that precinct, hitherto almost sacred to Cavalierism, this was, of course, in the ascendant. And what they saw seemed sure evidence of a crushing defeat having been sustained by their adversaries; so sure, that many who had all the night behaved modestly, and worn masks, now pulled them off and began to swagger in true Cavalier fashion.
Sir Richard Walwyn, Eustace Trevor, and other Parliamentarian officers present were compelled to listen to observations sufficiently offensive. Had they been themselves unmannerly, or even without it, they could have stopped all that, being still masters in Bristol. But there was no need for their showing spite by taking the initiative; as this was forced upon them, whether or no, by command and the simple performance of duty. While Madame Lalande’s guests were hastening to take their departure, a man, newly arrived, made appearance in their midst; an officer, wearing sabretasche and other insignia of an aide-de-camp. Entering unannounced at the outer gate, without ceremony he strode on up to the house, inquiring for Sir Richard Walwyn.
“Here!” responded the knight, himself about to leave the place; and he stepped forth to meet the new comer.
“From the Governor, Colonel Walwyn,” said the aide-de-camp, saluting, and drawing a slip of folded paper from his sabretasche, which he handed to the Colonel of Horse, adding, “In all haste.”
Tearing it open, Sir Richard read:—
“Re-arrest all prisoners on parole, whether soldiers or civilians. Search the city through, and send them, under guard to the Castle.
“Fiennes.
“To the Colonel Walwyn.”
“Here’s a revanche for us, Trevor,” said the knight, communicating the contents of the despatch to his young troop captain, “if we are ill-natured enough to care for such. Anyhow, we’ll stop the speech of some of those fellows who’ve been making themselves so free of it. Haste down to quarters, and bring Sergeant Wilde with half a dozen files. We may as well begin our work here. Why, bless me! there’s the man himself, and the soldiers, too!”
This, at the sight of the big sergeant, who was just entering the gate, and behind him a score of dismounted troopers. Rob had already received orders from the Castle to report himself with a detachment at Montserrat House.
A scene followed difficult of description. Kings, Sultans, Crusaders—in costume only—with many other disguised dignitaries, were unceremoniously stopped in their masquerading; each taken charge of by a common trooper, and pinned to the spot. Many repented the imprudence of having thrown aside their masks. By keeping these on they might have escaped recognition. It was too late to restore them; and in a few minutes’ time the paroled prisoners were picked out, and ranged in line for transport to the Castle’s keep.
In all this there was much of the comic and grotesque; on both sides even badinage and laughter. But there was anger too—Madame Lalande and her daughter especially indignant—while among the faces late unmasked were some showing serious enough, even rueful. To them it might be no jesting matter in the end.
On the countenance of Reginald Trevor—of course one of the re-arrested—the expression was singularly varied. As well it might, after so many changes quick succeeding one another—jealousy of his cousin; confidence in his sweetheart restored soon to be lost again; and now that cousin confronting him, as was his duty, with a demand terribly humiliating. Yet Eustace had no desire to make it so; instead the reverse. For, meanwhile, Sir Richard had whispered a word in his ear which went far to remove the suspicions late tormenting him. He but said,—
“I’ve orders to take you to the Castle, Reginald.”
Then to avoid speech, which might be unpleasant to both, he turned away, leaving the prisoner to be looked after by Rob Wilde, who had commands to conduct him to his prison.
“Come, captain!” said the big sergeant patronisingly, “we han’t a great ways to go. Not nigh sich a distance as ye ’tended takin’ me—frae Cat’s Hill to the lock-up at Lydney.”
The Royalist officer keenly felt the satirical jibe flung at him by the Forester, but far more the play of a pair of eyes that were looking down upon him from one of the upper windows. For there stood Vaga Powell, a witness to all that was passing below. In a position almost identical he had seen her twice before, with the expression upon her face very similar. It puzzled him then, but did not vex him as now. For now he better understood it; and, as he was marched off from Montserrat House, he carried with him no sustaining faith or hope, as when riding away from Hollymead.
Eustace also saw her at the window, as he was passing off. But different was the look she gave him, and his given back. In their exchanged glances there was a mutual intelligence, which told that their respective guardian angels had kept promise by whispering sweet words to both.