"Dismal news enough for some, and glorious for others," he said. "The king's army and Lord Essex's met yesterday. Lord Essex below in the Vale of the Red Horse, and the king on Edgehill above. Prince Rupert charged down on the Parliament horse, under Commissary-General Ramsay, broke them in a trice, and pursued them to Keinton, killing and plundering. I heard it from one of the routed horsemen who escaped. Everything is lost, he said, for Lord Essex, and I hasten to carry the news to one who loves the king." Hastily draining Rachel's can of home-brewed ale, he was off in a minute, and out of sight. All through the afternoon confused and contradictory news continued to drop in from one and another. But it was not till the next day (Tuesday) that we could collect anything like a true account of the battle,--how for hours, all through the noon-tide of that autumn Sunday, the two armies had couched, like two terrible beasts of prey, watching each other; the king on the height, and Essex in the plain--as if loth to break with the murderous roar of cannon our England's two centuries of peace. Prayers, no doubt, there were, many and deep, breaking that silence, to the ear of God; but few, perhaps, better than that of gallant Sir Jacob Ashley, one of the king's major-generals: "Lord, Thou knowest I must be busy this day; if I forget Thee, do not Thou forget me." Who began the fight at last, we could not well make out. The most part said Lord Essex, directing a sally up the hill, which Prince Rupert answered by dashing down like a torrent, from the royal vantage-ground to the plain, on the left wing of the Parliament army. The men fell or fled on all sides before his furious charge; and he pursued them to the village of Keinton, where Lord Essex had encamped the day before. Deeming the day won, his men gave themselves up to plundering the baggage, and slaughtering the wagoners and unarmed labourers. But meantime Sir William Balfour, on the right wing, charged the king's left, broke it, seized and spiked many of the king's guns, took the royal standard after a struggle which left sixty brave men dead in sixty yards around it, and drove nearly the whole royal army to their morning's position up the hill. There they rallied. Prince Rupert returned, laden with his blood-stained plunder, to find the king's army in confusion. But darkness was setting in; it is said the Parliament gun-powder began to fail; so no further pursuit was made, and on Sunday night again both armies encamped on the ground where they had begun the battle. The king's camp-fires blazed on the hill, and the Parliament's in the Vale of the Red Horse. But between them lay four thousand dead Englishmen,--that Sabbath morning full of life and courage, now lying stiff and helpless on the quiet slopes where they had fallen in the tumult of the mortal conflict.