, a soldier or two being suddenly struck down by the fire, he
exclaims, "Yea! this insolency is not to be endured." The moment is
come.

"God and Queen Mary!" shouts Rupert; "Charge!" In one instant that mass
of motionless statues becomes a flood of lava; down in one terrible
sweep it comes, silence behind it and despair before; no one notices the
beauty of that brilliant chivalrous array,--all else is merged in the
fury of the wild gallop; spurs are deep, reins free, blades grasped,
heads bent; the excited horse feels the heel no more than he feels the
hand; the uneven ground breaks their ranks,--no matter, they feel that
they can ride down the world: Rupert first clears the hedge,--he is
always first,--then comes the captain of his lifeguard, then the
whole troop "jumble after them," in a spectator's piquant phrase. The
dismounted Puritan dragoons break from the hedges and scatter for their
lives, but the cavalry "bear the charge better than they have done since
Worcester,"--that is, now they stand it an instant, then they did not
stand it at all; the Prince takes them in flank and breaks them in
pieces at the first encounter,--the very wind of the charge shatters
them. Horse and foot, carbines and petronels, swords and pole-axes, are
mingled in one struggling mass. Rupert and his men seem refreshed, not
exhausted, by the weary night,--they seem incapable of fatigue; they
spike the guns as they cut down the gunners, and, if any escape, it
is because many in both armies wear the same red scarfs. One Puritan,
surrounded by the enemy, shows such desperate daring that Rupert bids
release him at last, and sends afterwards to Essex to ask his name.
One Cavalier bends, with a wild oath, to search the pockets of a slain
enemy;--it is his own brother. O'Neal slays a standard-bearer, and thus
restores to his company the right to bear a flag, a right they lost at
Hopton Heath; Legge is taken prisoner and escapes; Urry proves himself
no coward, though a renegade, and is trusted to bear to Oxford the news
of the victory, being raised to knighthood in return.

For a victory of course it is. Nothing in England can yet resist these
high-born, dissolute, reckless Cavaliers of Rupert's. "I have seen them
running up walls twenty feet high," said the engineer consulted by the
frightened citizens of Dorchester: "these defences of yours may possibly
keep them out half an hour." Darlings of triumphant aristocracy, they
are destined to meet