icon 0
icon TOP UP
rightIcon
icon Reading History
rightIcon
icon Log out
rightIcon
icon Get the APP
rightIcon

Micah Clarke

Chapter 7 Of the Horseman who rode from the West

Word Count: 2671    |    Released on: 18/11/2017

his age should be as devoted to the cause as was the strength of his youth. These arrangements had to be carried out with the most extreme caution, for there were many

that we soon found ourselves in a position to start at an hour'

or in those days, my dears, I had not laid on flesh, and weighed a little under sixteen stone for all my height and strength. A critic might have said that Covenant, for so I named my steed, was a trifle heavy about the head and neck, but I found him a trusty, willing brute, with great power and endurance. Saxon, who when fully accoutred could scarce have weighed

ess that this was a surprise, for when I looked back at the awe with which I had regarded my father's huge proportions, it was marvellous to me to have this convincing proof that I had outgrown him. By ripping down the side-leather and piercing holes through which a lace could be passed, my mother managed to arrange it so that I could wear it without discomfort. A pair of taslets or thigh-pieces, with guards for the upper arm and gauntlets, were all borrowed from the old Parliamentary equipment, together with the heavy straig

w weeks of campaigning, he said, would soon cure me of my squeamishness. For himself, no more truthful child had ever carried a horn-book, but he had learned to lie upon the Danube, and looked upon it as a necessary part of the soldier's upbringing. 'For what are all stratagems, ambuscades, and outfalls but lying upon a large scale?' he argued. 'What is an adroit commander but one who hath a facility for disguising the truth? When, at the battle of Senlac, William the Norman ordered his men to feign flight in order that they might break his enemy's array, a wile much practised both by the Scythians of old and by the Croats of our own day, pray what is it but the acting of a lie? Or when Hannibal, having tied torches to the horns of great droves of oxen, caused the R

come with me now, and you shall see England as it was in those days, and you shall hear of how we set forth to the wars, and of all the adventures which overtook us. And if what I tell you should ever chance to differ from what you have read in the

that we had of it, and then came a rattling and a drumming from Portsmouth, where the troops were assembled under arms. Mounted messengers clattered through the village street with their heads low on their horses' necks, for the great tidings must be carried to London, that the Governor

Clarke here

,' said

self. 'Then the trysting-place is Taunton. Pass it on to all whom ye know.

p of beer. A wiry, sharp-faced man he was, with a birth-mark upon his temple. His face and clothes were ca

s. I must be in London by morning, for we hope that Danvers and Wildman may be able to

he?' my father

as with him Lord Grey of Wark, with Wade, the German Buyse, and eighty or a hundre

s amiss

rrel about a horse. The peasants cried out for the blood of the Scot, and he was forced to

ad duellum privatae amicitiae causa declinare possit," in which the learned Fleming layeth it down that a man's private honour must give way to the good of the cause. Did it not happen in my own case that, on the eve of the raising of the Anlagerung of Vienna, we stranger officers having been invited to the tent of the General, it chanced that a red-headed Irisher, one O'Daffy, an ancient in the regiment of Pappenheimer, did c

e to find a relay at Chichester, and time presses. Work for the cause now, or be slaves for ever. Farewe

lithe word and a merry face. I need not tell you to fight manfully and fearlessly in this quarrel. Should the tide of war set in this dir

them make my leave-taking more bitter. The children are in the sleeping-room upstairs, and we hear the patter of their bare feet upon the floor. The man Saxon sprawls across one of the oaken chairs, half kneeling, half reclining, with his long legs trailing out behind, and his face buried in his hands. All round in the flickering light of the hanging lamp I see the objects which have been so familiar to me from childhood - the settle by the fireplace, the high-b

aced his hands upon my head and invoked the blessing of Heaven upon me. He then drew my companion aside, and I heard the jingling of coin, from which I judge that he was giving him something wherewith to start upon his travels. My mother clasped me to her heart, and slipped a small square of pape

I could not but wonder what they would think of my martial garb were they afoot. I had scarce time to form the same thought before Zacha

God bless you! Strong of arm and soft of heart, tender to the weak and stern to the oppressor, you have the prayers and the love of all who know you.' I pres

orses ready saddled and bridled, for my father had at the first alarm sent a message across that we should need them. By two in t

Claim Your Bonus at the APP

Open
1 Chapter 1 Of Cornet Joseph Clarke of the Ironsides2 Chapter 2 Of my going to school and of my coming thence3 Chapter 3 Of Two Friends of my Youth4 Chapter 4 Of the Strange Fish that we Caught at Spithead5 Chapter 5 Of the Man with the Drooping Lids6 Chapter 6 Of the Letter that came from the Lowlands7 Chapter 7 Of the Horseman who rode from the West8 Chapter 8 Of our Start for the Wars9 Chapter 9 Of a Passage of Arms at the Blue Boar10 Chapter 10 Of our Perilous Adventure on the Plain11 Chapter 11 Of the Lonely Man and the Gold Chest12 Chapter 12 Of certain Passages upon the Moor13 Chapter 13 Of Sir Gervas Jerome, Knight Banneret of the County of Surrey14 Chapter 14 Of the Stiff-legged Parson and his Flock15 Chapter 15 Of our Brush with the King's Dragoons16 Chapter 16 Of our Coming to Taunton17 Chapter 17 Of the Gathering in the Market-square18 Chapter 18 Of Master Stephen Timewell, Mayor of Taunton19 Chapter 19 Of a Brawl in the Night20 Chapter 20 Of the Muster of the Men of the West21 Chapter 21 Of my Hand-grips with the Brandenburger22 Chapter 22 Of the News from Havant23 Chapter 23 Of the Snare on the Weston Road24 Chapter 24 Of the Welcome that met me at Badminton25 Chapter 25 Of Strange Doings in the Boteler Dungeon26 Chapter 26 Of the Strife in the Council27 Chapter 27 Of the Affair near Keynsham Bridge28 Chapter 28 Of the Fight in Wells Cathedral29 Chapter 29 Of the Great Cry from the Lonely House30 Chapter 30 Of the Swordsman with the Brown Jacket31 Chapter 31 Of the Maid of the Marsh and the Bubble which rose from the Bog32 Chapter 32 Of the Onfall at Sedgemoor33 Chapter 33 Of my Perilous Adventure at the Mill34 Chapter 34 Of the Coming of Solomon Sprent35 Chapter 35 Of the Devil in Wig and Gown36 Chapter 36 Of the End of it All37 Appendix