They listened with parted lips, the night wind blowing through Simon Burden's few teeth as through the ruins of Stonehenge. From far down on the lower levels came the noise of wheels and the tramp of horses upon the turnpike road.
'Well, there must be something in it,' said Miller Loveday gravely.
'Bob, we'll go home and make the women-folk safe, and then I'll don my soldier's clothes and be off. God knows where our company will assemble!'
They hastened down the hill, and on getting into the road waited and listened again. Travellers began to come up and pass them in vehicles of all descriptions. It was difficult to attract their attention in the dim light, but by standing on the top of a wall which fenced the road Bob was at last seen.
'What's the matter?' he cried to a butcher who was flying past in his cart, his wife sitting behind him without a bonnet.
'The French have landed!' said the man, without drawing rein.
'Where?' shouted Bob.
'In West Bay; and all Budmouth is in uproar!' replied the voice, now faint in the distance.
Bob and his father hastened on till they reached their own house.
As they had expected, Anne and her mother, in common with most of the people, were both dressed, and stood at the door bonneted and shawled, listening to the traffic on the neighbouring highway, Mrs.
Loveday having secured what money and small valuables they possessed in a huge pocket which extended all round her waist, and added considerably to her weight and diameter.
''Tis true enough,' said the miller. 'he's come. You and Anne and the maid must be off to Cousin Jim's at King's-Bere, and when you get there you must do as they do. I must assemble with the company.'
'And I?' said Bob.
'Thou'st better run to the church, and take a pike before they be all gone.'
The horse was put into the gig, and Mrs. Loveday, Anne, and the servant-maid were hastily packed into the vehicle, the latter taking the reins; David's duties as a fighting-man forbidding all thought of his domestic offices now. Then the silver tankard, teapot, pair of candlesticks like Ionic columns, and other articles too large to be pocketed were thrown into a basket and put up behind. Then came the leave-taking, which was as sad as it was hurried. Bob kissed Anne, and there was no affectation in her receiving that mark of affection as she said through her tears, 'God bless you!. At last they moved off in the dim light of dawn, neither of the three women knowing which road they were to take, but trusting to chance to find it.
As soon as they were out of sight Bob went off for a pike, and his father, first new-flinting his firelock, proceeded to don his uniform, pipe-claying his breeches with such cursory haste as to bespatter his black gaiters with the same ornamental compound.
Finding when he was ready that no bugle had as yet sounded, he went with David to the cart-house, dragged out the waggon, and put therein some of the most useful and easily-handled goods, in case there might be an opportunity for conveying them away. By the time this was done and the waggon pushed back and locked in, Bob had returned with his weapon, somewhat mortified at being doomed to this low form of defence. The miller gave his son a parting grasp of the hand, and arranged to meet him at King's-Bere at the first opportunity if the news were true; if happily false, here at their own house.
'Bother it all!' he exclaimed, looking at his stock of flints.
'What?' said Bob.
'I've got no ammunition. not a blessed round!'
'Then what's the use of going?' asked his son.
The miller paused. 'O, I'll go,' he said. 'Perhaps somebody will lend me a little if I get into a hot corner?'
'Lend ye a little. Father, you was always so ******!' said Bob reproachfully.
'Well--I can bagnet a few, anyhow,' said the miller.
The bugle had been blown ere this, and Loveday the father disappeared towards the place of assembly, his empty cartridge-box behind him. Bob seized a brace of loaded pistols which he had brought home from the ship, and, armed with these and a pike, he locked the door and sallied out again towards the turnpike road.
By this time the yeomanry of the district were also on the move, and among them Festus Derriman, who was sleeping at his uncle's, and had been awakened by Cripplestraw. About the time when Bob and his father were descending from the beacon the stalwart yeoman was standing in the stable-yard adjusting his straps, while Cripplestraw saddled the horse. Festus clanked up and down, looked gloomily at the beacon, heard the retreating carts and carriages, and called Cripplestraw to him, who came from the stable leading the horse at the same moment that Uncle Benjy peeped unobserved from a mullioned window above their heads, the distant light of the beacon fire touching up his features to the complexion of an old brass clock-face.
'I think that before I start, Cripplestraw,' said Festus, whose lurid visage was undergoing a bleaching process curious to look upon, 'you shall go on to Budmouth, and make a bold inquiry whether the cowardly enemy is on shore as yet, or only looming in the bay.'
'I'd go in a moment, sir,' said the other, 'if I hadn't my bad leg again. I should have joined my company afore this; but they said at last drill that I was too old. So I shall wait up in the hay-loft for tidings as soon as I have packed you off, poor gentleman!'
'Do such alarms as these, Cripplestraw, ever happen without foundation. Buonaparte is a wretch, a miserable wretch, and this may be only a false alarm to disappoint such as me?'
'O no, sir; O no!'
'But sometimes there are false alarms?'
'Well, sir, yes. There was a pretended sally o' gunboats last year.'
'And was there nothing else pretended--something more like this, for instance?'
