The Last of the Barons — Complete by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (reading an ebook .TXT) 📖

“Not yet,” returned the earl; “a band of my northern archers still guard yon wood; I know them,—they will fight to the last gasp! Thither, then, with what men we may. You so marshal our soldiers, and I will make good the retreat. Where is Sir Marmaduke Nevile?”

“Here!”

“Horsed again, young cousin! I give thee a perilous commission. Take the path down the hill; the mists thicken in the hollows, and may hide thee. Overtake Somerset; he hath fled westward, and tell him, from me, if he can yet rally but one troop of horse—but one—and charge Edward suddenly in the rear, he will yet redeem all. If he refuse, the ruin of his king and the slaughter of the brave men he deserts be on his head! Swift, a tout bride, Marmaduke. Yet one word,” added the earl, in a whisper,—“if you fail with Somerset, come not back, make to the Sanctuary. You are too young to die, cousin! Away! keep to the hollows of the chase.”

As the knight vanished, Warwick turned to his comrades “Bold nephew Fitzhugh, and ye brave riders round me,—so we are fifty knights! Haste thou, Montagu, to the wood! the wood!”

So noble in that hero age was the Individual MAN, even amidst the multitudes massed by war, that history vies with romance in showing how far a single sword could redress the scale of war. While Montagu, with rapid dexterity, and a voice yet promising victory, drew back the remnant of the lines, and in serried order retreated to the outskirts of the wood, Warwick and his band of knights protected the movement from the countless horsemen who darted forth from Edward’s swarming and momently thickening ranks. Now dividing and charging singly, now rejoining, and breast to breast, they served to divert and perplex and harass the eager enemy. And never in all his wars, in all the former might of his indomitable arm, had Warwick so excelled the martial chivalry of his age, as in that eventful and crowning hour. Thrice almost alone he penetrated into the very centre of Edward’s body-guard, literally felling to the earth all before him. Then perished by his battle-axe Lord Cromwell and the redoubted Lord of Say; then, no longer sparing even the old affection, Gloucester was hurled to the ground. The last time he penetrated even to Edward himself, smiting down the king’s standard-bearer, unhorsing Hastings, who threw himself on his path; and Edward, setting his teeth in stern joy as he saw him, rose in his stirrups, and for a moment the mace of the king, the axe of the earl, met as thunder encounters thunder; but then a hundred knights rushed into the rescue, and robbed the baffled avenger of his prey. Thus charging and retreating, driving back with each charge farther and farther the mighty multitude hounding on to the lion’s death, this great chief and his devoted knights, though terribly reduced in number, succeeded at last in covering Montagu’s skilful retreat; and when they gained the outskirts of the wood, and dashed through the narrow opening between the barricades, the Yorkshire archers approved their lord’s trust, and, shouting, as to a marriage feast, hailed his coming.

But few, alas! of his fellow-horsemen had survived that marvellous enterprise of valour and despair. Of the fifty knights who had shared its perils, eleven only gained the wood; and, though in this number the most eminent (save Sir John Coniers, either slain or fled) might be found, their horses, more exposed than themselves, were for the most part wounded and unfit for further service. At this time the sun again, and suddenly as before, broke forth,—not now with a feeble glimmer, but a broad and almost a cheerful beam, which sufficed to give a fuller view than the day had yet afforded of the state and prospects of the field.

To the right and to the left, what remained of the cavalry of Warwick were seen flying fast,—gone the lances of Oxford, the bills of Somerset. Exeter, pierced by the shaft of Alwyn, was lying cold and insensible, remote from the contest, and deserted even by his squires.

In front of the archers and such men as Montagu had saved from the sword, halted the immense and murmuring multitude of Edward, their thousand banners glittering in the sudden sun; for, as Edward beheld the last wrecks of his foe, stationed near the covert, his desire of consummating victory and revenge made him cautious, and, fearing an ambush, he had abruptly halted.

When the scanty followers of the earl thus beheld the immense force arrayed for their destruction, and saw the extent of their danger, and their loss,—here the handful, there the multitude,—a simultaneous exclamation of terror and dismay broke from their ranks.

“Children!” cried Warwick, “droop not! Henry at Agincourt had worse odds than we!”

But the murmur among the archers, the lealest part of the earl’s retainers, continued, till there stepped forth their captain, a gray old man, but still sinewy and unbent, the iron relic of a hundred battles.

“Back to your men, Mark Forester!” said the earl, sternly.

The old man obeyed not. He came on to Warwick, and fell on his knees beside his stirrup.

“Fly, my lord! escape is possible for you and your riders. Fly through the wood, we will screen your path with our bodies. Your children, father of your followers, your children of Middleham, ask no better fate than to die for you! Is it not so?” and the old man, rising, turned to those in hearing. They answered by a general acclamation.

“Mark Forester speaks well,” said Montagu. “On you depends the last hope of Lancaster. We may yet join Oxford and Somerset! This way through the wood,—come!” and he laid his hand on the earl’s rein.

“Knights and sirs,” said the earl, dismounting, and partially raising his visor as he turned to the horsemen, “let those who will, fly with Lord Montagu! Let those who, in a just cause, never despair of victory, nor, even at the worst, fear to face their Maker, fresh from the glorious death of heroes, dismount with me!” Every knight sprang from his steed, Montagu the first. “Comrades!” continued the earl, then addressing the retainers, “when the children fight for a father’s honour, the father flies not from the peril into which he has drawn the children. What to me were life, stained by the blood of mine own beloved retainers, basely deserted by their chief? Edward has proclaimed that he will spare none. Fool! he gives us, then, the superhuman mightiness of despair! To your bows!—one shaft—if it pierce the joints of the tyrant’s mail—one shaft may scatter yon army to the winds! Sir Marmaduke has gone to rally noble Somerset and his riders; if we make good our defence one little hour, the foe may be yet smitten in the rear, and the day retrieved! Courage and heart then!” Here the earl lifted his visor to the farthest bar, and showed his cheerful face—“Is this the face of a man who thinks all hope is gone?”

In this interval, the sudden sunshine revealed to King Henry, where he stood, the dispersion of his friends. To the rear of the palisades, which protected the spot where he was placed, already grouped “the lookers-on and no fighters,” as the chronicler [Fabyan] words it, who, as the guns slackened, ventured forth to learn the news, and who now, filling the churchyard of Hadley, strove hard to catch a peep of Henry the saint, or of Bungey the sorcerer. Mingled with these gleamed the robes of the tymbesteres, pressing nearer and nearer to the barriers, as wolves, in the instinct of blood, come