be any protection to the women-folk, but to be ready at least to
give an alarm should insult be offered. But we had to do with decent
men, who showed themselves friendly not only in the house but in their
camp down by the ford, whither, after the first morning, Lizzie and
I trudged it twice a day with baskets of provisions. Lizzie indeed
talked freely with them, but I held my tongue and glowered (I dare
say) in my foolish hate. Margery kept to the house.

'Twas, I think, on August 15th that the first hope of release came to
us, by the King's troops seizing the ford-head across the river; and
this happened as suddenly as our first surprise. Lizzie and I were
carrying down our baskets at four o'clock that day, when we heard a
sound of musketry on the St. Veep shore and on top of it a bugle twice
blown. Running to the top of a knoll from which the river spread in
view, I saw some rebels of our detachment splashing out from shore in
a hurry. The leaders reached mid-stream or thereabouts, and paused.
Doubtless they could see better than I what was happening; for after
they had stood there a couple of minutes, holding their fire--the
musketry on the St. Veep bank continuing all the while--some twenty
men came running out of the woods there and fled across towards us,
many bullets splashing into the water behind them. They reached their
comrades in the river-bed, and the whole body stood irresolute, facing
the shore where nothing showed but a glint of steel here and there
between the trees. Thus for ten further minutes, perhaps, they
hesitated; then turned and came sullenly back across the rising water.
In this manner the royal troops won the ford-head, and kept it; for
although the two cannon opened fire that evening from the earthwork
above us, and dropped many balls among the trees, they did not
dislodge the regiment (Colonel Lloyd's) which lay there and held one
of the few passes by which the rebels could break away.

For--albeit I knew nothing of this at the time--by withdrawing his
headquarters to Lostwithiel and holding our narrow ridge with Fowey at
the end of it seaward, the Earl had led his army into a trap, and
one which his Majesty was now fast closing. Already he had drawn his
troops across the river-meadows above Lostwithiel; and, whatever help
the Earl might have hoped to fetch from the sea at his base, he was
there prevented by the quickness of Sir Jacob Astley in seizing a
fort on the other side of the harbou