Micah Clarke by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle — Read

The church of Gommatch was a small ivy-clad building with a square / Norman tower, standing in the centre of the hamlet of that name. Its / great oaken doors, studded with iron, and high narrow windows, fitted / it well for the use to which it was now turned. Two companies of / Dumbarton's Foot had been quartered in the village, with a portly Major / at their head, to whom I was handed over by Sergeant Gredder, with some / account of my capture, and of the reasons which had prevented my summary / execution.

Night was now drawing in, but a few dim lamps, hung here and there upon / the walls, cast an uncertain, flickering light over the scene. A hundred / or more prisoners were scattered about upon the stone floor, many of / them wounded, and some evidently dying. The hale had gathered in silent, / subdued groups round their stricken friends, and were doing what they / could to lessen their sufferings. Some had even removed the greater part / of their clothing in order to furnish head-rests and pallets for the / wounded. Here and there in the shadows dark kneeling figures might be / seen, and the measured sound of their prayers rang through the aisles, / with a groan now and again, or a choking gasp as some poor sufferer / battled for breath. The dim, yellow light streaming over the earnest / pain-drawn faces, and the tattered mud-coloured figures, would have made / it a fitting study for any of those Low Country painters whose pictures / I saw long afterwards at The Hague.