I crept into the shelter of the bridge parapet while they rode on past me. The mist hid them from me. The town was dark above the mist like a city in the clouds. The stars were dim now with the coming of day. A sheep-bell on the moor made a noise like a nightbird. A few ponies pastured on the moor trotted away, lightly padding, scared, I suppose, by the two riders. Then, far away, but sounding very near at hand, for sound travels very strangely in mist, so strangely that often a very distant noise will strike loudly, while it is scarcely heard close to, there came a shot. Almost instantly, the air seemed full of the roar of battle. The gun-fire broke out into a long irregular roar, a fury of noise which roused up the city behind me, as though all the citizens were slamming their doors to get away from it. I hurried along the road towards the battle, praying, as I went, that my master might conquer, that the King's troops had been caught asleep, that when I got there, in the glory of dawn, I might find the Duke's army returning thanks in their enemy's camp. I pressed on along the rough moor road until the dawn came over the far horizon, driving the mists away, so that I could see what was doing there. I saw a great sweep of moorland to my left, with a confused crowd of horsemen scattering away towards a line of low hills some miles beyond. They were riding from the firing, which filled all the nearer part of the moor with smoke, among which I saw moving figures, sudden glimpses of men in rank, sudden men on horseback, struggling with their horses. The noise was worse than I had expected; it came on me with repeated deafening shocks. I could hear cries in the lulls when the firing slackened; then the uproar grew worse again, sounds of desperate thuds, marking cannon shot. I heard balls going over my head with a shrill “wheep, wheep,” which made me duck. A small iron cannon ball spun into the road like a spinning top, scattering the dust. It wormed slowly past me for a second, then rose up irregularly in a bound, to thud into the ditch, where it lay still. I saw cannon coming up at a gallop, with many horses, on the bare right flank of the battle. Another ball came just over my head, with a scream which made my heart quite sick. I sat down cowering under a ruined thorn-tree by the road, crying like a little child. It must have been a moment after that when I saw a man staggering down the road towards me, holding his side with both hands. He fell into the road, dead, not far from me. Then others came past, some so fearfully hurt that it was a miracle that they should walk. They came past in a long horrible procession, men without weapons, without hands, shot in the head, in the body, lacerated, bleeding, limping, with white drawn faces, tottering to the town which they would never see again. I shut my eyes, crouching well under the tree, while this fight went on. It was nothing but a time of pain, a roaring, booming horror with shrieks in it.