Gloucester, his helmet bruised and dinted, but the boar's teeth still
gnashing wrath and horror from the grisly crest. But direst and most
hateful of all in the eyes of the yet undaunted earl, thither, plainly
visible, riding scarcely a yard before him, with the cognizance of
Clare wrought on his gay mantle, and in all the pomp and bravery of a
holiday suit, came the perjured Clarence. Conflict now it could
scarce be called: as well might the Dane have rolled back the sea from
his footstool, as Warwick and his disordered troop (often and aye,
dazzled here by Oxford's star, there by Edward's sun, dealing random
blows against each other) have resisted the general whirl and torrent
of the surrounding foe. To add to the rout, Somerset and the on-guard
of his wing had been marching towards the earl at the very time that
the cry of "treason" had struck their ears, and Edward's charge was
made; these men, nearly all Lancastrians, and ever doubting Montagu,
if not Warwick, with the example of Clarence and the Archbishop of
York fresh before them, lost heart at once,--Somerset himself headed
the flight of his force.

"All is lost!" said Montagu, as side by side with Warwick the brothers
fronted the foe, and for one moment stayed the rush.

"Not yet," returned the earl; "a band of my northern archers still
guard yon wood; I know them,--they will fight to the last gasp!
Thither, then, with what men we may. You so marshal our soldiers, and
I will make good the retreat. Where is Sir Marmaduke Nevile?"

"Here!"

"Horsed again, young cousin! I give thee a perilous commission. Take
the path down the hill; the mists thicken in the hollows, and may hide