to catch this movement in flank: and there, by the ford's edge,
I believe, took a cartload of muskets with five abandoned pieces, two
of them very long guns. The river being too deep, with a rising tide,
for Margery to wade, we made our crossing by the bridge, where the
fighting had been, but where there was now no soldiery, only a many
dead bodies, some huddled into the coigns of the parapet, more laid
out upon a patch of turf at the bridge end, the mud caked on their
faces. It made me shiver to see: but my sister went by with scarce a
glance and, once past the river, caught my hand and set off running
after the troops.

The beginning of the retreat had been brisk enough--so brisk that it
outpaced his Majesty's movement in flank: who, breasting the hill with
his cavalry (after some minutes lost at the ford in collecting the
cannon and muskets which might well have been gleaned later) found
himself, if anything, in the rear of his victorious footmen. But after
two miles, coming to that part of the ridge where it narrows above
Lawhibbet, and in view of our old earthwork which was yet pretty
strongly held by their artillery, the enemy made a more forcible
resistance, fighting the several hedges and, even when dislodged,
holding them with a hot skirmishing fire while the main body found the
next cover. By these checks we two, who had lost ground at the start,
now regained it fast; and by and by (towards ten o'clock as I guess)
were forced to pick our way under shelter of the hedges, to avoid
the enemy's bullets and espial by any of the King's men, who would
doubtless have cursed and driven us back out of the way of danger.

It was Margery who bethought her here of a sunken cart-road descending
along the right of the ridge and crossed on its way by another which
would lead us to the summit again and within two gunshots of the great
earthwork. By following these two roads we might outflank the soldiery
while keeping the crown of the ridge between us; for the fighting
still followed along the left-hand slope, above the river.

This way, to be sure, was reasonably safe for a while; but must lead
us out, if we persisted, into close danger--perhaps into the very
interval between the fighting lines, and if at the rebels' rear, then
certainly between them and their artillery on the earthwork. As we ran
I tried to prove this to Margery. She would not listen: indeed I
doubt that she heard me. "He must," "he must," she kept saying: