midst of these pools of water, covered with long grass,
rushes, and reeds, were seen solid spots of ground, formerly
used as the kitchen-garden, the park, the pleasure-gardens,
and other dependencies of the abbey, looking like one of
those great sea-spiders, whose body is round, whilst the
claws go diverging round from this circumference.
The kitchen-garden, one of the longest claws of the abbey,
extended to Monk’s camp. Unfortunately it was, as we have
said, early in June, and the kitchen-garden, being
abandoned, offered no resources.
Monk had ordered this spot to be guarded, as most subject to
surprises. The fires of the enemy’s general were plainly to
be perceived on the other side of the abbey. But between
these fires and the abbey extended the Tweed, unfolding its
luminous scales beneath the thick shade of tall green oaks.
Monk was perfectly well acquainted with this position,
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Newcastle and its environs having already more than once
been his headquarters. He knew that by day his enemy might
without doubt throw a few scouts into these ruins and
promote a skirmish, but that by night he would take care to
abstain from such a risk. He felt himself, therefore, in
security.
Thus his soldiers saw him, after what he boastingly called
his supper — that is to say, after the exercise of
mastication reported by us at the commencement of this
chapter — like Napoleon on the eve of Austerlitz, seated
asleep in his rush chair, half beneath the light of his
lamp, half beneath the reflection of the moon, commencing
its ascent in the heavens, which denoted that it was nearly
half past nine in the evening. All at once Monk was roused
from his half sleep, fictitious perhaps, by a troop of
soldiers, who came with joyous cries, and kicked the poles
of his tent with a humming noise as if on purpose to wake
him. There was no need of so much noise; the general opened
his eyes quickly.
“Well, my children, what is going on now?” asked the
general.
“General!” replied several voices at once, “General! you
shall have some supper.”
“I have had my supper, gentlemen,” replied he, quietly, “and
was comfortably digesting it, as you see. But come in, and
tell me what brings you hither.”
“Good news, general.”
“Bah! Has Lambert sent us word that he will fight
to-morrow?”
“No, but we have just captured a fishing-boat conveying fish
to Newcastle.”
“And you have done very wrong, my friends. These gentlemen
from London are delicate, must have their first course; you
will put them sadly out of humor this evening, and to-morrow
they will be pitiless. It would really be in good taste to
send back to Lambert both his fish and his fishermen, unless
—- ” and the general reflected an instant.
“Tell me,” continued he, “what are these fishermen, if you
please?”
“Some Picard seamen who were fishing on the coasts of France
or Holland, and who have been thrown upon ours by a gale of
wind.”
“Do any among them speak our language?”
“The leader spoke some few words of English.”
The mistrust of the general was awakened in proportion as
fresh information reached him. “That is well,” said he. “I
wish to see these men, bring them to me.”
An officer immediately went to fetch them.
“How many are there of them?” continued Monk; “and what is
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their vessel?”
“There are ten or twelve of them, general, and they were
aboard of a kind of chasse-maree, as it is called —
Dutch-built, apparently.”
“And you say they were carrying fish to Lambert’s camp?”
“Yes, general, and they seem to have had good luck in their
fishing.”
“Humph! we shall see that,” said Monk.
At this moment the officer returned, bringing the leader of
the fishermen with him. He was a man from fifty to
fifty-five years old, but good-looking for his age. He was
of middle height, and wore a justaucorps of coarse wool, a
cap pulled down over his eyes, a cutlass hung from his belt,
and he walked with the hesitation peculiar to sailors, who,