‘An’ thou lift thine arm, I will kill thee,’ cried Richard.  ’What! shall a man not teach his horse lest the thief should find him not broke to his taste?  Besides, did I not give thee warning while yet I judged thee an honest man, and a thief but in jest?  Go thy ways.  I shall do my country better service by following braver men than by taking thee.  Get thee back to thy master.  An’ I killed thee, I should do him less hurt than I would.  See yonder how thy master’s horse do knot and scatter!’

He approached Lady to mount and ride away.

But Rowland, who had now with the help of his anger recovered from the effects of his fall, rushed at Richard with drawn sword.  The contest was brief.  With one heavy blow that beat down his guard and wounded him severely in the shoulder, dividing his collarbone, for he was but lightly armed, Richard stretched his antagonist on the ground; then seeing prince Rupert’s men returning, and sir Marmaduke’s in flight and some of them coming his way, he feared being surrounded, and leaping into the saddle, flew as if the wind were under him back to his regiment, reaching it just as in the first heat of pursuit.  Cromwell called them back, and turned them upon the rear of the royalist infantry.

This decided the battle.  Ere Rupert returned, the affair was so hopeless that not even the entreaties of the king could induce his cavalry to form again and charge.

His majesty retreated to Leicester and Hereford.

CHAPTER XLIV.

The king.

Some months before the battle of Naseby, which was fought in June early, that is, in the year 1645, the plans of the king having now ripened, he gave a secret commission for Ireland to the earl of Glamorgan, with immense powers, among the rest that of coining money, in order that he might be in a position to make proposals towards certain arrangements with the Irish catholics, which, in view of the prejudices of the king’s protestant council, it was of vital importance to keep secret.  Glamorgan therefore took a long leave of his wife and family, and in the month of March set out for Dublin.  At Caernarvon, they got on board a small barque, laden with corn, but, in rough weather that followed, were cast ashore on the coast of Lancashire.  A second attempt failed also, for, pursued by a parliament vessel, they were again compelled to land on the same coast.  It was the middle of summer before they reached Dublin.

During this period there was of course great anxiety in Raglan, the chief part of which was lady Glamorgan’s.  At times she felt that but for the sympathy of Dorothy, often silent but always ministrant, she would have broken down quite under the burden of ignorance and its attendant anxiety.