jerkins--bareheaded
too, since on mounting the rise above the valley-fog we had done off
our morions (for fear of the moonlight) and hidden them in a
furze-brake, where belike next summer the heather-bees found and made
hives of them.

Fog, rolling up from the sea--seven or eight miles away--filled all
the valley below us: and this fog was the reason of our riding.
For the valley formed the neck of a trap in which the King held our
general with two thousand five hundred horse, six thousand infantry,
and I know not how many guns. His own artillery lined the heights
under which we rode--that is, to left or east of the river; he had
pushed across a couple of batteries to the opposite hills, and
between them easily commanded the valley. It was just the ease of it
that made him careless and gave us our chance. He had withdrawn the
better part of his horse to the coast, to make a display against our
scattered base; and our general, aware of this, was even meditating
an assault on the heights when the sudden fog changed his plans and
he resolved to march his horse, under cover of it, straight through
the trap. The risk, to be sure, was nearly desperate; since, for
aught he knew, the King was marching back his troops under the same
cover, and to be caught in that narrow valley (which was plashy,
moreover, and in places flooded) would mean the total loss of his
cavalry. Yet he had spoken cheerfully when I took leave of him and
rode off with my seven men--our business being to watch along the
enemy's lines for any movement, to sound a warning if necessary, and,
if surprised or caught, so to behave as to lead suspicion away from
the movement of the main body.

The enemy kept loose watch up here. We could see his camp-fires
dotted on the ridge between us and the dark woods of Boconnock, where
the owls hooted; but either we were lucky or his outposts had been
carelessly set. Clearly no alarm had reached these encampments.
But Heaven knew what might be happening, or preparing to happen, in
the valley. There at any moment the report of a single musket might
tell us that all was lost.

Penkevill--a good lad--insisted that all was well. Our men had been
due to start at two o'clock, and all delay allowed for, by this time
they should be past the gut of the valley, where an opposing force
would certainly choose to post itself.

My answer to this was that, even allowing it, we must wait for the
sound of fighting at Respryn B