have thought it of him?' cried Sir Stephen, with flashing
eyes, as Buyse and Saxon rode out to meet him. 'What think ye now of our
noble monarch, our champion of the Protestant cause?'

'He is no very great Krieger,' said Buyse. 'Yet perhaps it may be from
want of habit as much as from want of courage.'

'Courage!' cried the old Mayor, in a voice of scorn. 'Look over yonder
and behold your King.' He pointed out over the moor with a finger
which shook as much from anger as from age. There, far away, showing
up against the dark peat-coloured soil, rode a gaily-dressed cavalier,
followed by a knot of attendants, galloping as fast as his horse would
carry him from the field of battle. There was no mistaking the fugitive.
It was the recreant Monmouth.

'Hush!' cried Saxon, as we all gave a cry of horror and execration;
'do not dishearten our brave lads! Cowardice is catching and will run
through an army like the putrid fever.'

'Der Feigherzige!' cried Buyse, grinding his teeth. 'And the brave
country folk! It is too much.'

'Stand to your pikes, men!' roared Saxon, in a voice of thunder, and
we had scarce time to form our square and throw ourselves inside of it,
before the whirlwind of horse was upon us once more. When the Taunton
men had joined us a weak spot had been left in our ranks, and through
this in an instant the Blue Guards smashed their way, pouring through
the opening, and cutting fiercely to right and left. The burghers on the
one side and our own men on the other replied by savage stabs from their
pikes and scythes, which emptied many a saddle, but while the struggle
was at its hottest the King's cannon opened for the first time with a
deafening roar upon the other side of the rhine, and a storm of balls
ploughed their way through our dense ranks, leaving furrows of dead
and wounded behind them. At the same moment a great cry of 'Powder! For
Christ's sake, powder!' arose from the musqueteers whose last charge had
been fired. Again the cannon roared, and again our men were mowed down
as though Death himself with his scythe were amongst us. At last our
ranks were breaking. In the very centre of the pikemen steel caps were
gleaming, and broadswords rising and falling. The whole body was swept
back two hundred paces or more, struggling furiously the while, and
was there mixed with other like bodies which had been dashed out of all
semblance of military order, and yet refused to fly. Men of Devon, of
Dorset, o