During the solemn pause before the battle, while the hosts were drawing up face to face, and the dispositions for the attack were completing, Cuthbert felt an unaccountable sadness on his spirits. He could well imagine, from all that he heard and saw, that the feelings of a true soldier, standing opposite an army of hostile invaders, and about to fight for the altars and the hearths of his native land, must be of a most exalted and enviable description,--but how different were his. The royal standard of England was floating in the adverse line, and English voices were marshalling it for the onset: his own pupil, young Arthur Heywood, was riding in those ranks. “Remember, men,” said the commanding voice of Maxwell, “to be silent and steady: wait for the order: reserve your fire to the last moment, musketeers; and keep your ranks, pikemen, when it comes to the push. By God’s help, we’ll drive them up that hill in worse order than they are coming down.” In another minute there broke a sudden flash from the enemy’s line: close followed the white smoke and the thundering echo; and, by the very side of Cuthbert, a sergeant was struck down dead. “Pick up Sergeant Bond’s partisan,” said the sergeant-major of the regiment as he was passing by: “pick it up, you Tibbs,” he repeated, in a sharp cold tone, to a supernumerary sergeant attached to the same company, and who had only a sword. “Is this the glorious battle death?” said Cuthbert to himself,--but he had no leisure for thought: the roar of shotted guns began on both sides, and the battle fiercely opened. The musketeers of the regiment were thrown out towards a hedge, a little in front of the ground occupied by the pikemen; and a canopy of smoke soon rose above them all, veiling the golden sun and the blue heavens, and giving to all the forms and faces of those around, whether friends or foes, a shadowy indistinctness.