Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/247

Rh had been buried in this Trench; piled as in a wall, a man’s length thick: the skeletons lay in courses, the heads of one course to the heels of the next; one figure, by the strange position of the bones, gave us the hideous notion of its having been thrown in before death! We did not proceed far:—perhaps some half-dozen skeletons. ‘The bones were treated will all piety; watched rigorously, over Sunday, till they could be covered in again.’ Sweet friends, for Jesus’ sake forbear!—

At this Battle Mr. John Rushworth, our Historical Rushworth, had unexpectedly, for some instants, sight of a very famous person. Mr. John is Secretary to Fairfax; and they have placed him today among the Baggage-wagons, near Naseby Hamlet, above a mile from the fighting, where he waits in an anxious manner. It is known how Prince Rupert broke our left wing, while Cromwell was breaking their left. ‘A Gentleman of Public Employment in the late Service near Naseby’ writes next day, ‘Harborough, 15th June, 2 in the morning,’ a rough graphic Letter in the Newspapers, wherein is this sentence:

‘A party of theirs, that broke through the left wing of horse, came quite behind the rear to our Train; the Leader of them, being a person somewhat in habit like the General, in a red montero, as the General had. He came as a friend; our commander of the guard of the Train went with his hat in his hand, and asked him, How the day went? thinking it had been the General: the Cavalier, who we since heard was Rupert, asked him and the rest, If they would have quarter? They cried No; gave fire, and instantly beat them off. It was a happy deliverance,—without doubt.

There were taken here a good few ‘ladies of quality in carriages’;—and above a hundred Irish ladies not of quality,