four o'clock
Here the King 's troops had been quite lately , and their fires were still burning ; but the men themselves had been summoned away by the night attack of the rebels . Hence I procured for my guide a young man who knew the district thoroughly , and who led me by many intricate ways to the rear of the rebel army . We came upon a broad open moor striped with sullen water courses , shagged with sedge , and yellow iris , and in the drier part with bilberries . For by this time it was four o'clock , and the summer sun , rising wanly , showed us all the ghastly scene . Would that I had never been there ! Often in the lonely hours , even now it haunts me : would , far more , that the piteous thing had never been done in England ! Flying men , flung back from dreams of victory and honour , only glad to have the luck of life and limbs to fly with , mud-bedraggled , foul with slime , reeking both with sweat and blood , which they could not stop to wipe , cursing , with their pumped-out lungs , every stick that hindered them , or gory puddle that slipped the step , scarcely able to leap over the corses that had dragged to die .