no Tutor Harvey in peaceful meditation beneath a hedge, pondering on the circulation of the blood, with hotter blood flowing so near him; all these were to be seen at Edgehill, but not here.  This smaller skirmish rather turns our thoughts to Cisatlantic associations; its date suggests Bunker’s Hill,—­and its circumstances, Lexington.  For this, also, is a marauding party, with a Percy among its officers, brought to a stand by a half-armed and angry peasantry.

Rupert sends his infantry forward, to secure the bridge, and a sufficient body of dragoons to line the mile-and-a-half of road between,—­the remainder of the troops being drawn up at the entrance of a corn-field, several hundred acres in extent, and lying between the villages and the hills.  The Puritans take a long circuit, endeavoring to get to windward of their formidable enemy,—­a point judged as important, during the seventeenth century, in a land fight as in a naval engagement.  They have with them some light field-pieces, artillery being the only point of superiority they yet claim; but these are not basilisks, nor falconets, nor culverins, (colubri, couleuvres,) nor drakes, (dracones,) nor warning-pieces,—­they are the leathern guns of Gustavus Adolphus, made of light cast-iron and bound with ropes and leather.  The Roundhead dragoons, dismounted, line a hedge near the Cavaliers, and plant their “swine-feathers”; under cover of their fire the horse advance in line, matches burning.  As they advance, one or two dash forward, at risk of their lives, flinging off the orange scarfs which alone distinguish them, in token that they desert to the royal cause.  Prince Rupert falls back into the lane a little, to lead the other forces into his ambush of dragoons.  These tactics do not come naturally to him, however; nor does he like the practice of the time, that two bodies of cavalry should ride up within pistol-shot of each other, and exchange a volley before they charge.  He rather anticipates, in his style of operations, the famous order of Frederick the Great:  “The King hereby forbids all officers of cavalry, on pain of being broke with ignominy, ever to allow themselves to be attacked in any action by the enemy; but the Prussians must always attack them.”  Accordingly he restrains himself for a little while, chafing beneath the delay, and then, a soldier or two being suddenly struck down by the fire, he exclaims, “Yea! this insolency is not to be endured.”  The moment is come.

“God and Queen Mary!” shouts Rupert; “Charge!” In one instant that mass of motionless statues becomes a flood of lava; down in one terrible sweep it comes, silence behind it and despair before; no one notices the beauty of that brilliant chivalrous array,—­all else is merged in the fury of the wild gallop; spurs are deep, reins free, blades grasped, heads bent; the excited horse feels the heel no more than he feels the hand; the uneven ground breaks their ranks,—­no matter, they feel that they can ride down the world: