you and your Protestant neighbours, and entreat that
no measures be taken against your estate. Should we not prevail, be
assured that I will look after the comfort of the ladies, as if they were
of my own family.

"I can well understand that Mrs. Davenant, the elder, would not accept
the shelter of our roof, whatever her extremity. She belongs to the
generation of my father, and cannot forget the past; but I will see that
they are well lodged in Bray, and have every protection from molestation
and annoyance there. Should I find, as, alas! may be the case, that the
spirit of religious persecution is fiercely abroad, I will consult with
them, as to whether they may wish to cross the sea until you can join
them, and will make arrangements, as they may direct, for their passage."

"I am truly obliged to you," Captain Davenant said. "It will make me
comfortable to know that, whatsoever may befall me, they will have a
friend in these stormy times."

"Say nought about it," Jabez replied. "Did not you and your son succour
my boy in his extremity? If I do all, and more than all that I can in
this matter, I shall not deem that we are quits."

The Irish army moved forward to the Boyne, which William was approaching
from the north. James's officers endeavoured to dissuade him from setting
everything on the hazard of the battle. They represented that his army,
though now quite unequal to the contest, was rapidly improving in skill
and confidence in itself; that reinforcements were every day expected
from France, which would at least make them equal to the enemy in
numbers; that they were in want of arms, artillery, and stores, all which
might be expected also from France, in a short period; and that their
policy was clearly to protract the war, and wear out the enemy by a
contest of posts and sieges.

Unskilled as his troops might be in the field, they had proved themselves
steady and resolute in the defence of fortified places. They held all the
great fortresses of the kingdom, and it would be easy to provide for the
defence of these, and to occupy William's army in small affairs, till the
winter, when the climate would do execution upon the invaders, while the
Irish would suffer little. Then would be the time to fight.

In the meantime, it was urged, the intrigues the French were actively
carrying out in Britain would have produced some effect. The French fleet
was, every day, expected on the coast of England, and William wou