The Warwickshire Avon

The Warwickshire Avon

In the stubble the crack! crack! of a stray gun speaks, now and again, of partridge-time. Over the pastures, undulating with ridge and furrow, where the black oxen feed, patches of gloom and gleam are scurrying as the windwesterly, with a touch of northchases the light showers under a vivid sun. Along the drab road darts a bullfinch, his family after him; pauses a moment among the dogrose berries; is off again, and lost in the dazzle ahead. A high grassy ridge stands up from the plain; and upon it, white and salient against a dark cloud, the spire of a village church. From its belfry, says the sexton, you may spy forty parishes: but more important are the few cottages immediately below. They seem conspicuously inglorious: yet their name is written large in the histories. It speaks of a bright June day when along this ridgethen unenclosed and scattered with broom and heath flowersthe rattle of musketry and outcries of battle rolled from morning to late afternoon, by which time was lost a king with his kingdom. For the village is Naseby. Here, by the market green, the Parliamentarians ranged their baggage. Yonder, on Mill Hill and Broad Moor, with just a hollow between, the two armies faced each other; the royalists with bean-stalks in their hats, their enemies with badges of white linen. To the left, Sulby hedges were lined with Iretons dragoons. And the rest is an old story: Rupert, tardily returning from a headlong charge, finds no cause left to befriend, no foe to fight. While his men were pillaging, Cromwell has snatched the day. His Majesty is flying through Market-Harborough towards Leicester, and thither along the dusty roads his beaten regiments trail after him, with the Ironsides at their heels, hewing hip and thigh. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 64801
Author: Quiller-Couch, Arthur
Release Date: Mar 12, 2021
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Illustrator: Parsons, Alfred, 1847-1920