g's party? I was too young
for any employment worthy of my station in life. I had neither the
strength nor the skill for manual labour. Who would employ a boy of my
age on a farm or in a factory? All that I could hope would be to get
away to sea, to a life which I had already found loathsome. As to going
back to my uncle's house, I doubt if I would have gone, even had I had
the certainty of getting to it safely. When a boy has once taken to an
adventurous life, nothing but very ill health will drive him back to
home-life. Yet there was the thought of Aurelia. Somehow the thought
of her was a stronger temptation than any fear of defeat. I would have
liked to have seen that old enemy of mine again.

I was thinking over the letter, wondering what would come to the Duke's
cause, when the valley below me began to ring with firing. A heavy
fire had begun there. It thundered in a long roll, which died down,
momentarily, into single sputterings through which one could hear
shouting. About twenty minutes after the beginning of the shots, when
all the party on the hill-top were edging nearer to the battle, taking
a few steps at a time, on tenter-hooks to be engaged, we heard a great
gallop of horses' hoofs coming to us at full tilt. At first we
were scared by this, for the noise was tremendous, too great, we
inexperienced soldiers thought, to be caused by our little troop of
cavalry. We thought that it was the Bridport militia charging down on
us, after destroying our friends. The mist by this time was all blowing
clear, though wisps of it clung along the hedgerows in unreal rolling
folds. The day above was breaking in the sultry blue summer dimness. We
could see, I suppose, for a quarter of a mile, straight down the road.

We had swung round, facing towards Lyme, when the noise of the hoofs
first came to us. When the turn of the road showed us a squad of cavalry
coming to us at the charge, led by half a dozen riderless horses, we
waited for no more. We spurred up our nags in a panic, till we, too,
were going full tilt for Lyme, shouting out as we went any nonsense
which came to our heads. We were in a panic fear; I believe that the
horses in some way felt it too. We galloped back to Chideock as though
we were chased by witches, while the gun-firing at Bridport steadily
grew less, till at last it stopped altogether. At Chideock, some of the
cavalry came up with us. They were our own men, our own troop of horse,
not an enemy afte