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Updated: June 1, 2025
This time there was no halt at the Château-Renaud. Through the little straggling village they rode at a hand-gallop, and except to bait or breathe the horses on a hill-crest, no rein was drawn until the dawn had slipped from grey to glory and a new day lay broad upon the fields.
At about three o'clock on the morning after the first fight, shooting began in our front and there was an alarm of a Spanish advance. I was never more pleased than to see the way in which the hungry, tired, shabby men all jumped up and ran forward to the hill-crest, so as to be ready for the attack; which, however, did not come.
I lingered in thought for a minute, then turned me to ride up higher, And as a man most wary up over the bent I rode, And nigh hid peered o'er the hill-crest adown on the Hunding abode; And forsooth 'twas the fire wavering all o'er the roof of old, And all in the garth and about it lay the bodies of the bold; And bound to a rope amidmost were the women fair and young, And youths and little children, like the fish on a withy strung As they lie on the grass for the angler before the beginning of night.
He was thinking hard the while, and calculating his chances when the hunters should come up. While he appeared to be studying the track so closely, he yet was watching the hill-crest ahead. He knew the men were rapidly approaching, for the rumble of galloping horses was quite distinct to his well-trained ears. He wanted his intentness to be at its closest when the gang first discovered him.
And Cortlandt had been so decent to him! It was significant that this gave him the most discomfort of all. He had betrayed a man's friendship, and the thought was unbearable. No punishment could be too severe for that! He was still sitting there cramped and stiff when the first faint flush of dawn stole over the hill-crest behind him. Then he rose to wander toward the water-front.
Sam felt that for another hour at least Peter was safe, and therefore, with the same precaution as before, he crept away from his hiding-place, through the village, and over the hill-crest, to the place where he had made his fire. The logs were burning well, but gave out but little smoke. Sam looked at the sky. "Dusk cum on berry fast," he said; "another hour Massa Tom come on with soldiers.
And sure back to the rear it soon was for them, back till the hounds were mere glintin' specks flyin' across a distant hill-crest, the riders' red coats noddin' poppies; back till only faint echoes reached them of the swellin', quaverin' chorus of the madly racin' pack; back for all but him or her whom old Sol had his will of, for rider never lived could hold me to the wrong jump or throw me from my stride, nor was fence ever built I'd not find a place to leap without layin' a toe on it.
Up, through the lowering smoke, lit with the Enemy's incessant discharges in the woods beyond, the brave Highlanders jauntily march, and, with Cameron and their colors at their head, charge impetuously across the bloody hill-crest, and still farther, to the front.
Then we came to the hill-crest and to the last of our trenches, and, standing there, looked down upon the villages of Vaux and Curlu, separated by a piece of marshy water. In the farthest village were the Germans, and in the nearest, just below us down the steep cliff, our own men. Between the two there was a narrow causeway across the marsh and a strip of woods half a rifle-shot in length.
They were sitting on the spacious piazza at Hill-crest, the country home of the Clarkes, the massive foundation of which was popularly supposed to rest upon bottles.
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