Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/68

64 it is directed. These were men from the mountains of Scotland, and they were led by chieftain Mackintosh, who was to them as a divinity—compared to whom the prince in whose cause they fought was a common being, a mere mortal. I admired the rude, natural courtesy of these people, and lamented the coward counsels which delivered them up to the axe and the cord without striking a single blow. The rear—accounted in this march, with an enemy behind as well as before, a post of some peril—was brought up by about two hundred Border cavaliers and their adherents; and with them rode Walter Selby and his new companion. The command seemed divided among many, and without obeying any one chief in particular, all seemed zealous in the cause, and marched on with a rapidity regulated by the motions of the foot.

"No serious attempt was made to impede us: some random shots were fired from the hedgerows and groves; till at length, after a fatiguing journey, we came within sight of Preston; and there the enemy made his appearance in large masses of cavalry and foot, occupying the distant rising grounds, leaving our entry into the town free and uninterrupted. Something in my face showed the alarm I felt on seeing the numbers and array of our enemies: this passed not unobserved of the cavalier at my side, who said with a smile: 'Fair lady, you are looking on the mercenary bands which sordid wealth has marched against us; these are men bought and sold, and who hire their best blood for a scarlet garb and a groat. I wish I had wealth enough to tempt the avarice of men who measure all that is good on earth by the money it brings. And yet, fair one, I must needs own that our own little band of warriors is brought strangely together and bound by ties of a singular kind. It would make a curious little book were I to write down all the motives and feelings which have put our feet in the stirrup. There's my Lord Kenmore, a hot, a brave, and a self-willed, and the Scotch maidens say a bonnie Gordon: his sword had stuck half-drawn from the scabbard, but for the white hand of his wife; but he that lives under the influence of bright eyes, Lady Eleanor, lives under a spell as powerful as loyalty. And what would the little book say of my Lord Nithsdale, with whom ride so many of the noble name of Maxwell? Can scorn for the continual cant and sordid hearts of some acres of psalm-singing Covenanters,