an see from the hilltop
there. They are forming for a charge. There's infantry behind--Blinker's
Dutch from the looks of them!"

"Blinker's Dutch," said the troopers. "'Hooney,' 'Nix furstay,' 'Bag
Jackson,' 'Kiss und steal,' 'Hide under bed,' 'Rifle bureau drawers,'
'Take lockets und rings'--Blinker's Dutch! We should have dog whips!"

To the rear was the little ridge clothed with beech and oak. The road
wound up and over it. Ashby's bugle sounded. "_Right face. Trot!
March!_" The road went gently up, grass on either side with here and
there a clump of small pines. Butterflies fluttered; all was gay and
sweet in the June sunshine. Ashby rode before on the bay stallion. The
Horse Artillery came also from the meadow where it had been
camped--Captain Chew, aged nineteen, and his three guns and his
threescore men, four of them among the best gunners in the whole army.
All mounted the ridge, halted and deployed. The guns were posted
advantageously, the 6th, the 7th, and the 2d Virginia Cavalry in two
ranks along the ridge. Wide-spreading beech boughs, growing low, small
oak scrub and branchy dogwood made a screen of the best; they looked
down, hidden, upon a gentle slope and the Port Republic road. Ashby's
post was in front of the silver bole of a great beech. With one
gauntleted hand he held the bay stallion quiet, with the other he shaded
his eyes and gazed at the westerly wood into which ran the road. Chew,
to his right, touched the Blakeley lovingly. Gunner number 1 handed the
powder. Number 2 rammed it home, took the shell from Number 1 and put it
in. All along the ridge the horsemen handled their carbines, spoke each
in a quiet, genial tone to his horse. Sound of the approaching force
made itself heard and increased.

"About a thousand, shouldn't you think, sir?" asked an aide.

"No. Between seven and eight hundred. Do you remember in 'Ivanhoe'--"

Out of the western wood, in order of charge, issued a body of horse. It
was yet a little distant, horses at a trot, the declining sun making a
stirring picture. Rapidly crescent to eye and ear, they came on. Their
colours flew, the sound of their bugles raised the blood. Their pace
changed to a gallop. The thundering hoofs, the braying trumpets, shook
the air. Colours and guidons grew large.

"By God, sir, Wyndham is coming to eat you up! This time he knows he's
caught the hare."

"Do all John Bulls ride like that? Shades of the Revolution! did we all
ride like that