Cuthbert heard it, and the loud voice of Maxwell, and saw the men rushing to their arms. He hurried to his post; and there, as he stood, saw stragglers coming in, who stopped and stooped upon the very spot where the body of the youth lay, as if to rifle it. His regiment was at the same moment faced to the left, and moved a quarter of a mile off to new ground. Here they halted and stood at ease. Now came rumours how that great and good men had fallen on the King’s side; that the gallant Caernarvon had been slain by the sword, and that a bullet had taken the life of the noble Falkland. The trumpets did seem to wail them, they sounded so desolate and mournful as the shades of evening came on. As soon as he could get away, Cuthbert again hurried to the place where the corpse of his own particular victim lay. He got a torch, and searched the body, if haply he might find a name: in the bosom next the heart there lay the miniature of a girl of calm pure beauty; from the features and the costume, it seemed that of an Italian. Cuthbert sighed, and continued his search for some paper that might give a name. At last, in the breast pocket of the doublet beneath his buff coat, he found a letter:--the address was “Martin Noble,”--the handwriting was that of his own father. CHAP. XVII. Lead us from hence; where we may leisurely Each one demand, and answer to his part Perform’d in this wide gap of time. _Winter’s Tale._ It is not necessary to the after-story of the persons in our domestic drama that the various fortunes of that unnatural war, which desolated England for so many years, should be further related. From the bloody field of Newbury, of which we have already spoken, to the close of that mighty and memorable contest which convulsed the whole kingdom, our tale pauses. The imagination of the reader must pass with us in haste across that afflicting season of violence and woe to consider the first-fruits of that harvest, the seed of which had been sown in the whirlwind of human passions, and had been watered by torrents of human blood.