Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/378

 wrote to Cromwell.—I then told him, That so long as there was a resolution to fight, I would not go a foot from him; but now that they were to deliver themselves prisoners, I would preserve my liberty as long as I could: and so took my leave of him, carrying my wounded thigh away with me. I met immediately with Middleton; who sadly condoled the irrecoverable losses of the last two days. Within two hours after, Baillie and all the officers and soldiers that were left of the foot were Cromwell’s prisoners. I got my wound dressed that morning by my own surgeon; and took from him those things I thought necessary for me; not knowing when I might see him again;—as indeed I never saw him after.’

This was now the Saturday morning when Turner rode away, ‘carrying his wounded thigh with him’; and got up to Hamilton and the vanguard of horse; who rode, aimless or as good as aimless henceforth, till he and they were captured at Uttoxeter, or in the neighbourhood. Monro with the rear-guard of horse, ‘always a day’s march behind,’ hearing now what had befallen, instantly drew bridle; paused uncertain; then, in a marauding manner, rode back towards their own country.

Of which disastrous doings let us now read Cromwell’s victorious account, drawn-up with more deliberation on the morrow after. ‘This Gentleman,’ who brings up the Letter, is Major Berry; ‘once a Clerk in the Shropshire Iron-works’; now a, very rising man. ‘He had lived with me,’ says Richard Baxter, ‘as guest in my own house’; he has now high destinies before him,—which at last sink lower than ever.

1em Sir,—I have sent up this Gentleman to give you an account Of the great and good hand of God towards you, in the late victory obtained against the Enemy in these parts.