Gabriel, in the Lord General’s regiment under Sir Philip Stapleton, found himself on the right wing next to Lord Brooke’s purple-coated troop, on the one side, and to Cromwell’s troop on the other. Then came the apparently interminable waiting which most severely tries those who have never before been under fire. The day was cold and windy, moreover, and much rain had fallen during the night; to wait hour after hour while the King’s army massed itself on Edgehill was far from inspiriting. At length, about one o’clock, when it became apparent that Essex was too good a general to scale heights guarded by a far more numerous army, and intended to wait in the admirable position he had chosen, at some little distance from the foot of the hill, the Royalist forces were brought down into the plain, and somewhat before three o’clock the dull roar of the cannon began. Then the Royalists advanced to the charge, and the left wing of the Parliamentary army, thrown into utter confusion through the treachery of Sir Faithful Fortescue, who had previously arranged with Prince Rupert to change sides on the field, broke and fled before Rupert’s fiery charge. Their panic, though partly checked by Denzil Holies, would certainly have ruined the hopes of the Parliamentary army had not Rupert been carried away by his usual impetuous zeal, and hotly pursued them as far as Kineton, where the sight of the valuable baggage waggons proved irresistible to him, and he and his troopers, totally ignoring the battle, lingered over the plunder till they were perforce driven back to the field by the advance of the Parliamentary rear-guard under Hampden and Grantham. Meanwhile, Gabriel, who had had the good fortune to be in the admirably steadfast right wing, had passed through some strange experiences. During the first exchange of cannon shots after those long hours of waiting, and before the first Royalist charge, a sickening imagination of what awaited them, for a minute half-paralysed him. He was grateful to a rugged-looking Scotsman beside him, who, understanding his sudden pallor, said: “Hoots, laddie, a’ that will pass by; think that the Cause has muckle need o’ just yer ain sel’.” And at that minute, glancing towards the next troop, Gabriel perceived Cromwell a little in advance of his men, not looking harassed, as he had often seen him in London on his way to the House of Commons, but with an indescribable light in his strong, noble face--the light of one inspired: while from the manly voices of his troopers there rang out the psalm which, for Gabriel, would be for ever associated with Hilary and the morning in the cathedral when both had been so full of heaviness. In trouble and adversity The Lord God hear thee still, The majesty of Jacob’s God Defend thee from all ill.