Micah Clarke by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle — Read

All Bridgewater was in a ferment as we rode in, for King James's forces / were within four miles, on the Sedgemoor Plain, and it was likely that / they would push on at once and storm the town. Some rude works had been / thrown up on the Eastover side, behind which two brigades were drawn / up in arms, while the rest of the army was held in reserve in the / market-place and Castle Field. Towards afternoon, however, parties of / our horse and peasants from the fen country came in with the news that / there was no fear of an assault being attempted. The Royal troops had / quartered themselves snugly in the little villages of the neighbourhood, / and having levied contributions of cider and of beer from the farmers, / they showed no sign of any wish to advance.

The town was full of women, the wives, mothers, and sisters of our / peasants, who had come in from far and near to see their loved ones once / more. Fleet Street or Cheapside upon a busy day are not more crowded / than were the narrow streets and lanes of the Somersetshire town. / Jack-booted, buff-coated troopers; scarlet militiamen; brown, / stern-faced Tauntonians; serge-clad pikemen; wild, ragged miners; / smockfrocked yokels; reckless, weather-tanned seamen; gaunt cragsmen / from the northern coast -- all pushed and jostled each other in a thick, / many-coloured crowd. Everywhere among them were the country women, / straw-bonneted and loud-tongued, weeping, embracing, and exhorting. / Here and there amid the motley dresses and gleam of arms moved the dark, / sombre figure of a Puritan minister, with sweeping sad-coloured mantle / and penthouse hat, scattering abroad short fiery ejaculations and stern / pithy texts of the old fighting order, which warmed the men's blood like / liquor. Ever and anon a sharp, fierce shout would rise from the people, / like the yelp of a high-spirited hound which is straining at its leash / and hot to be at the throat of its enemy.