FIGHTING FO^ -THB CROW3^ 193 



gave way before the onset of the Ironsides. Within its 

 plain, broad band of gold was engraved the legend 



BE . PAITHFVL . VNTO . DEATH, 



words, doubtless, that some high-born lady had whispered 

 in her lover's ear, to be the lode-star of his life whose 

 echo, it may be, was still, on that fatal morning, sounding 

 in his ears, above the roar of Roundhead guns with call 

 more clear than rallying trumpet. A thousand cavaliers 

 that day proved with their blood that they were " faith- 

 ful unto death," and somewhere in the Doctor's Meadow 

 his bones have long since mouldered in a common grave. 

 "What matter? Were he any better lapped in lead 

 under a marble monument, side by side with his knightly 

 ancestors in the old church at home, than lying here 

 under the wide changing sky, to rot, a nameless skeleton, 

 on Naseby Field ? " 



PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. 

 LONDON AND EDINBURGH 



