They were not up in action till mid-afternoon of the next day, when there came word the rebels were retreating, and, right on the heels of that, a definite order for the horse to form in the plain. Once more Hugh scrambled down the slope of Edgehill, but this time his feet were braced in the stirrups, his sword smote against his horse’s flank, and all about him, in loud talk of the victory they were soon to gain, other mounted men were descending. Once more he had sight of ranks of horsemen marshalling for a charge, but now he was himself in the thick of it, and, when the word was passed along, waved his sword with the rest, then galloped forward amidst his comrades. Before him the plain swept into the western sky, where the clouds were shiny with the sun they hid, the wind came sharp in his face, and around him men shouted and horses plunged till his own beast, too, catching the joy of movement, reared up. This was war, Hugh thought, and only for a second recalled it was the same bloody field over which he had tramped not eight and forty hours ago. Then across the plain he saw a cluster of roofs, and, as they spurred faster, made out the windows of the cottages, and men moving in the street. At that the shouting in the ranks about him became a yell of onset, and he, too, rising up in his stirrups, screamed, “For a king, a king!” Of what followed nothing was quite clear. There were houses, a woman that ran shrieking in front of his horse, and a Roundhead soldier he saw bleeding upon a doorstone. He heard shots to the front, saw some of his side press past him in flight, and after that he was mixed in a confusion of horses and men of both parties. He struck wildly in with his sword, whereat a Royalist dragoon, swinging round in his saddle, cursed him volubly in German and in English as not old enough to be trusted with cutting tools, and crowding past the man he left him still cursing. Then he was wedged into a lane, where was a baggage-wagon with a teamster on it who tried to lash forward his four horses. One Cavalier trooper slashed up at the fellow where he sat, while another was cutting the traces. Up at the far end of the lane was a shouting, “The rebels are coming!” Hugh urged the bay forward to the heads of the leaders, and, bending from the saddle, cut the traces with his sword. Then a ruck of the Royalist troops was about him, and, as men caught at the freed horses, he judged it proper to seize one of them by the bit and hold to him, while the crowd forced him back down the lane, past the wagon and the teamster dead beneath its wheels. From the rear came shots, but there was no facing about in such a throng, so with the rest Hugh swept back at a gallop through Kineton out into the open country.