Part 21 (2/2)

”Then come, child, come. Thou art of the right stuff; and I will never hold thee back. Go, and may the G.o.d of battles be with thee, and give thee part in the glory of victory!”

A short time later there emerged from that cottage a goodly youth in the Gordon kilt, and with all the weapons that a Highland lad carries with him into the battle. The bonnet was set upon a ma.s.s of tawny floating curls, and the great grey eyes were full of fire and light.

[Ill.u.s.tration: She set herself in their ranks, and went charging down the hill.

_Page 237._]

Lillyard's great beauty was well known throughout the district. ”Fair Maid Lillyard” had been the sobriquet ever since she had been a child.

There was something almost dazzling in her aspect to-day, as she stood for a moment in the glory of the golden suns.h.i.+ne, and gazed across towards where the sounds of clas.h.i.+ng swords and the booming of guns told her that the battle was raging; and then, with her light broadsword in her hand, she made a forward dash, and was soon in full sight of the fiercely fought fight.

The apparition of this fair girl, who was instantly recognised for her beauty and peculiarly lofty bearing, dressed as a soldier, and with a sword in her hand, evoked a yell of enthusiasm and joy from the whole of the Scotch ranks. It seemed to the men almost as though some angelic being had come down to their aid.

”Maid Lillyard! Maid Lillyard!” was the shout that went up; and when she set herself in their ranks, and went charging down the hill to meet the advance of the enemy, the fury of that charge was something so tremendous, that the ranks of the English were split into a score of scattered bodies, each flying back to the main body for safety, whilst the victorious Scotch pursued them with shouts almost to their own camp.

Who can remember or describe the fierce joy, the fearful peril, the wild exaltation of hand-to-hand fighting? Lillyard was in the thick of the most furious onslaughts, on whatever part of the field they took place.

Attached to no company, under no authority, she seemed like a spirit of the battle, free, and with a charmed life, as she hurried hither and thither. All men saw her. A hundred voices testified to the prodigies of valour she performed; but it was only after she had seen the dead body of Alan Gordon lifted from beneath a pile of English corpses--men that he had slain--that that Berserker fury fell upon Lillyard, which has given her name to posterity, and caused the very name of the battle of Ancram Moor to be more generally known as the battle of Lillyard's Edge.

Was it her hand which slew the English leader, Evers, who perished on that field? Many declared it was so; but whether or no this was the case, there is no manner of doubt that Lillyard's strong right arm and dauntless heart carried her through the fierce fight, and that she inflicted her full share of death and wounds upon her country's foes.

As the tide of battle set in favour of the Scotch arms, numbers of those who had borne the Red Cross, and had fought in the English ranks, tore off their badges and went boldly over to the other side, seeing now greater safety there than in the ranks of the alien conqueror.

Of these time-servers were Duncan and Gregory. The latter had little of the soldier-nature in him, and had kept, as far as possible, out of the thick of the fight; but when he saw the Scotch arms victorious all over the field, he eagerly s.n.a.t.c.hed off his badge, and made a dash for his countrymen. He was hotly pursued by half a dozen enraged English soldiers, but being fleet of foot, he might have escaped them had he not caught his foot in what was nothing more nor less than a heap of slain and wounded, and come heavily to the ground, yelling aloud in his terror.

Suddenly he was aware of a great tumult close about him. He raised his head and looked up. What strange vision was it that his eyes rested upon?

A young lad, as it seemed to him for a moment, had raised himself partially from the heap of dead and dying on which he lay. He seemed to be too terribly wounded to stand; and yet, with his swinging sword, he was keeping at bay the English soldiers who were in pursuit of Gregory; and there was something so strange and unearthly in his aspect that the men cried one to another:

”It is no human thing! It is some demon of the battle! I have heard that a spirit is abroad in the Scotch camp to-day. Let us leave it and be gone!”

They turned and fled, and the strange fighter, parting the ma.s.s of hair, partly clotted with blood, that hid its face, looked full into Gregory's eyes, whilst he shrank away, crying out in fear:

”It is Lillyard!--it is Lillyard!--or her wraith!”

She bent her clear, strange gaze upon him steadfastly.

”Not her wraith--yet, Gregory. Lillyard herself.” The voice, though quite steady, was very weak. ”It is not always the woman who fears the stress of the battle. Where wert thou when the fight was raging so fiercely?”

She looked him over from head to foot, and half-unconsciously glanced downwards at herself. The contrast was so marked that a glow of shame flamed in Gregory's face. He cried eagerly:

”I have pulled off my Red Cross, Lillyard. I will fight now beside thee.

Thou shalt show me how to be brave!”

She gave him a long glance; a faint smile flickered over her face; then her eyes grew dim, and a ghastly pallor overspread her face.

”I shall fight no more,” she said, in labouring gasps. ”Lay me beside Alan. The battle-field was our marriage feast. Let our bridal bed be the quiet graveyard.”

With that she fell p.r.o.ne upon the heap of corpses where he had found her, whence she had risen, though so mortally wounded, to beat off the pursuing foes who else would have slain her brother.

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