CHAPTER XXXIV.
Night and Reflections.
The din of arms was past, and night settled down on the bloody field whereon lay shattered for ever—it would be absurd to say a hated tyranny, for, in spite of the Bungler reaction, there remained nowadays not a vestige of that—but a whole political and social system which had played its part and had its day, and which had how become a nuisance and a pest, blocking the way of a more enlightened civilisation which was waiting to spread far beyond the shores of Great Britain and Ireland.
The fight was over; the brave defenders of the lost cause were slain or dispersed, or worse, were lying huddled together in agonised and moaning heaps. The heavy pall of the battle smoke had even yet not lifted from the hills, but had become mingled with a sea fog, which melted down in a mild drizzle. There was no moon, but a lurid, flickering glare was thrown far and wide over the ghastly scene from the flames of burning Trabolgan, which, in the morning, had been a mansion, and was now a bonfire. The squat, round lighthouse, Roche’s Tower, was no more; its stump showed a few feet above its surrounding ruins, laid low by the artillery; and the tall flagstaff by which our two friends had stood in their excursion a year ago [ref. Chap. XIII.] lay this night across a shoal of corpses. The flickering red light
