"
"Oh, go not too nigh," said Catherine; "but fail not to see how the
Seytons fight, and how they bear themselves."
"Fear nothing, I will be on my guard," said Roland Avenel; and without
waiting farther answer, rode towards the scene of conflict, keeping,
as he rode, the higher and unenclosed ground, and ever looking
cautiously around him, for fear of involving himself in some hostile
party. As he approached, the shots rung sharp and more sharply on his
ear, the shouts came wilder and wilder, and he felt that thick beating
of the heart, that mixture of natural apprehension, intense curiosity,
and anxiety for the dubious event, which even the bravest experience
when they approach alone to a scene of interest and of danger.
At length he drew so close, that from a bank, screened by bushes and
underwood, he could distinctly see where the struggle was most keenly
maintained. This was in a hollow way, leading to the village, up which
the Queen's vanguard had marched, with more hasty courage than
well-advised conduct, for the purpose of possessing themselves of that
post of advantage. They found their scheme anticipated, and the hedges
and enclosures already occupied by the enemy, led by the celebrated
Kirkaldy of Grange and the Earl of Morton; and not small was the loss
which they sustained while struggling forward to come to close with
the men-at-arms on the other side. But, as the Queen's followers were
chiefly noblemen and barons, with their kinsmen and followers, they
had pressed onward, contemning obstacles and danger, and had, when
Roland arrived on the ground, met hand to hand at the gorge of the
pass with the Regent's vanguard, and endeavoured to bear them out of
the village at the spear-point; while their foes, equally determined
to keep the advantage which they had attained, struggled with the like
obstinacy to drive back the assailants.
Pages:
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632