mer mists clung, almost hiding the stream.
Aurelia was saying "I only hope we may be in time." "Yes, poor boy,"
said Sir Travers. "It will be terrible if we are too late." It gave me a
pang to hear them, for I knew that they were talking about me.

I crept into the shelter of the bridge parapet while they rode on past
me. The mist hid them from me. The town was dark above the mist like
a city in the clouds. The stars were dim now with the coming of day.
A sheep-bell on the moor made a noise like a nightbird. A few ponies
pastured on the moor trotted away, lightly padding, scared, I suppose,
by the two riders. Then, far away, but sounding very near at hand, for
sound travels very strangely in mist, so strangely that often a very
distant noise will strike loudly, while it is scarcely heard close to,
there came a shot. Almost instantly, the air seemed full of the roar
of battle. The gun-fire broke out into a long irregular roar, a fury
of noise which roused up the city behind me, as though all the citizens
were slamming their doors to get away from it. I hurried along the road
towards the battle, praying, as I went, that my master might conquer,
that the King's troops had been caught asleep, that when I got there,
in the glory of dawn, I might find the Duke's army returning thanks in
their enemy's camp. I pressed on along the rough moor road until the
dawn came over the far horizon, driving the mists away, so that I could
see what was doing there.

I saw a great sweep of moorland to my left, with a confused crowd of
horsemen scattering away towards a line of low hills some miles beyond.
They were riding from the firing, which filled all the nearer part of
the moor with smoke, among which I saw moving figures, sudden glimpses
of men in rank, sudden men on horseback, struggling with their horses.
The noise was worse than I had expected; it came on me with repeated
deafening shocks. I could hear cries in the lulls when the firing
slackened; then the uproar grew worse again, sounds of desperate thuds,
marking cannon shot. I heard balls going over my head with a shrill
"wheep, wheep," which made me duck. A small iron cannon ball spun into
the road like a spinning top, scattering the dust. It wormed slowly past
me for a second, then rose up irregularly in a bound, to thud into the
ditch, where it lay still. I saw cannon coming up at a gallop, with many
horses, on the bare right flank of the battle. Another ball came just
over m