It may be asked if those two sloping meadows, with their clumps of trees, and broken hedgerows, and the little stream flowing on between them, was all that the moonlight showed? That would depend upon where the eye of the observer was placed. Near the lower part of the valley, formed by the inclination of the land, nothing else could be perceived; but walk half way up towards the top, on either side, and the scene was very much altered. Gradually rising, as the eye rose, appeared, stretching out beyond the chalky banks to the north, through which the rivulet came on, a large-grey indistinct mass stretching all along from east to west, the rounded lines of which, together with some misty gaps, taking a blueish white tint in the moonlight, showed it to be some ancient forest, lying at the distance probably of two or three miles from the spot first mentioned. But there were other objects displayed by the moonlight; for as those soft clouds, sweeping rapidly past, varied her light, and cast bright gleams or grey shadows on the ground, every here and there, especially on the south western slope, a brilliant spot would sparkle forth, flashing back the rays; and a nearer look showed naked swords, and breast-plates, and casques, while every now and then, under the increasing light, that which seemed a hillock took the form of a horse or of a human being, lying quietly on the green turf, or cast motionless down beneath a hedge or an old hawthorn tree. Were they sleeping there in that dewy night? Ay, sleeping that sleep which fears not the blast, nor the tempest nor the dew, which the thunder cannot break, and from which no trumpet but one shall ever rouse the sleeper. From sunset till that hour, no living thing, unless it were fox or wolf, had moved upon the scene. The battle was over, the pursuers recalled, the wounded removed; the burial of the dead, if it was to be cared for at all, postponed till another day; and all the fierce and base passions which are called forth by civil contest had lain down to sleep before the hour of which I speak. Even the human vulture, which follows on the track of warring armies to feed upon the spoils of the dead, had gorged itself upon that field, and left the rich arms and housings to be carried away on the morning following.