ns, and destroy what
was left.

Detachment E would set fire to the corn and the hayricks.

Detachment F would horse themselves and ride inland to warn the towns
and villages, and make all possible preparations for blowing up the
bridges and otherwise impeding the enemy's advance after the
rearguard's passage. And so on.

Gunner Sobey, though but a volunteer, possessed that simplicity of
intellect which we have come to prize as the first essential in a
British soldier. It was not his to reason why; not his to ask how
the French had gained a footing in Talland Cove, or how, having
gained it, they were to be dislodged. Once satisfied of their
arrival, he left them, as his soldierly training enjoined, severely
alone. Deplorable as he might deem the occurrence, it had happened;
and _ipso facto_, it consigned him, in accordance with general
orders, to Detachment D, with the duties and responsibilities of that
detachment. On these then--and at first on these, and these only--he
bent his practical, resolute mind. It will be seen if he stopped
short with them.

Picking himself up from the dry ditch, intent only on heading for
home, he was aware of a dark object on the brink above him; which at
first he took for a bramble bush, and next, seeing it move, for a
man.

It is no discredit to Gunner Sobey that, taken suddenly in the
darkness, and at so hopeless a disadvantage, he felt his knees shake
under him for a moment.

"Parley-voo?" he ventured.

The proverb says that a Polperro jackass is surprised at nothing, and
this one, which had been browsing on the edge of the ditch, merely
gazed.

"I--I ax your pardon," went on Gunner Sobey, still slightly unhinged.
"The fact is, I mistook you for another person."

The jackass drew back a little. It seemed to Gunner Sobey to be
breathing hard, but otherwise it betrayed no emotion.

"Soh, then! Soh, my beauty!" said Gunner Sobey, and having clambered
the ditch, reached out a caressing hand.

The donkey retreated, backing, step by step: and as Gunner Sobey
stared a white blaze on the animal's face grew more and more distinct
to him.

"Eh? Why, surely--soh, then!--you're Jowter Puckey's naggur? And if
so--and I'll be sworn to you, seein' you close--what's become of th'
old mare I sold him last Marti'mas?"

The beast still retreated. But Gunner Sobey's wits were now working
rapidly. If Jowter Puckey pastured his jackass here, why here then
(it was reasonable to