musketeers from behind their windmill, the evening before, who had seen the whole rebel force decamp in hot haste on the very night of their arrival before Dam, supposed themselves in full career of victory.  Believing that the name alone of the old legions had stricken terror to the hearts of the beggars, and that no resistance was possible to Spanish arms, they reviled their general for his caution.  His reason for delay was theirs for hurry.  Why should Meghem’s loitering and mutinous troops, arriving at the eleventh hour, share in the triumph and the spoil?  No man knew the country better than Aremberg, a native of the Netherlands, the stadholder of the province.  Cowardly or heretical motives alone could sway him, if he now held them back in the very hour of victory.  Inflamed beyond endurance by these taunts, feeling his pride of country touched to the quick, and willing to show that a Netherlander would lead wherever Spaniards dared to follow, Aremberg allowed himself to commit the grave error for which he was so deeply to atone.  Disregarding the dictates of his own experience and the arrangements of his superior, he yielded to the braggart humor of his soldiers, which he had not, like Alva, learned to moderate or to despise.

In the mean, time, the body of light troops which had received the fire from the musical pieces of Groningen was seen to waver.  The artillery was then brought beyond the cover of the wood, and pointed more fully upon the two main squares of the enemy.  A few shots told.  Soon afterward the ‘enfans perdus’ retreated helter-skelter, entirely deserting their position.

This apparent advantage, which was only a preconcerted stratagem, was too much for the fiery Spaniards.  They rushed. merrily forward to attack the stationary squares, their general being no longer able, to restrain their impetuosity.  In a moment the whole van-guard had plunged into the morass.  In a few minutes more they were all helplessly and hopelessly struggling in the pools, while the musketeers of the enemy poured in a deadly fire upon them, without wetting the soles of their own feet.  The pikemen, too, who composed the main body of the larger square, now charged upon all who were extricating themselves from their entanglement, and drove them back again to a muddy death.  Simultaneously, the lesser patriot squadron, which had so long been sheltered, emerged from the cover of the hill, made a detour around its base, enveloped the rear-guard of the Spaniards before they could advance to the succor of their perishing comrades, and broke them to pieces almost instantly.  Gonzalo de Braccamonte, the very Spanish colonel who had been foremost in denunciation of Aremberg, for his disposition to delay the contest, was now the first to fly.  To his bad conduct was ascribed the loss of the day.  The anger of Alva was so high, when he was informed of the incident, that he would have condemned the officer to death but