CHAPTER IV.

THE BATTLE.

Raw, cold, and dismal dawned the morning of the fourteenth of April.
The heavy mist still covered both armies, but their hum and stir was
already heard through the gloaming,--the neighing of steeds, and the
clangour of mail. Occasionally a movement of either force made dim
forms, seeming gigantic through the vapour, indistinctly visible to
the antagonistic army; and there was something ghastly and unearthlike
in these ominous shapes, suddenly seen, and suddenly vanishing, amidst
the sullen atmosphere. By this time, Warwick had discovered the
mistake of his gunners; for, to the right of the earl, the silence of
the Yorkists was still unbroken, while abruptly, from the thick gloom
to the left, broke the hoarse mutter and low growl of the awakening
war. Not a moment was lost by the earl in repairing the error of the
night: his artillery wheeled rapidly from the right wing, and, sudden
as a storm of lightning, the fire from the cannon flashed through the
dun and heavy vapour, and, not far from the very spot where Hastings
was marshalling the wing intrusted to his command, made a deep chasm
in the serried ranks. Death had begun his feast!

At that moment, however, from the centre of the Yorkist army, arose,
scarcely drowned by the explosion, that deep-toned shout of
enthusiasm, which he who has once heard it, coming, as it were, from
the one heart of an armed multitude, will ever recall as the most