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It must be here or hereabouts (by all information) that the Earl of Cleveland kept his quarters. The light shone into our eyes through a drawn blind which told nothing; and Margery was dragging me forward to knock at the door when it opened and two men stepped quickly across the threshold and passed down the lane. They crossed the bar of light swiftly and were gone into the dark; and they trod softly–so softly that we listened in vain for their footfalls.

Then, almost before I knew it, Margery had dragged me across a gap in the hedge and was rapping at the cottage door. No one answered. She lifted the latch and entered, I at her heels. The kitchen–an ordinary cottage kitchen–was empty A guttered candle stood on the table to the right, and beside it lay a feathered cap. Margery stepped toward this and had scarce time to touch the brim of it before a voice hailed us in the doorway behind my shoulder.

“Hullo!”

It was our brother Mark.

“Well, of all–” he began, and came to a stop; his face white as a sheet, as well it might be.

Margery rounded upon him. She must have been surprised, but she began without explanation running to him and kissing him swiftly–

“Mark–dear Mark, we have news for thee, instant news! Sure, Heaven directed us to-night that you should be the first to hear it. Mark, we passed the rebel cavalry in the valley, and for certain they will attempt to break through to-night.”

“Yes, yes,” said he peevishly, pulling at an end of his long love-locks, “we have had that scare often enough, these last few nights.”

“But we passed them close–saw them plainly in rank below Lostwithiel bridge, and every man in saddle. Even now they will be moving–“

Mark swung about and passed out at the open door. He had not returned Margery’s kiss. “I must be off, then, to visit my videttes,” said he quickly, and then paused as if considering. “For you, the cottage here will not be safe: it stands close beside the line of march and I must get down a company of musketeers. You had best follow me–” he took a step and paused again: “No, there will not be time.”

“Tell us in what direction to go and we will fend for ourselves and leave you free.”

“Through the garden, then, at the back and into the woods–the fence has a gap and from it a path leads up to a quarry among the trees; you cannot miss. The quarry is full of brambles–good hiding, in case we have trouble. No cavalryman will win so far, you may be sure.”

Margery gathered her skirts about her, and we stole out into the darkness. At the door she turned up her face to Mark. “Kiss me, my brother.” He kissed her, and breaking away (as I thought) with a low groan, strode from us up the lane.

“Now why should he go up the lane?” mused Margery: and I too wondered. For the first alarm must needs come from the lower end towards which he had been walking with his other visitor, when we first spied on the cottage through the bushes.

But ’twas not for us to guess how the troops were disposed or where the outposts lay. We made our escape through the little garden, and, blundering along the woodland path behind it, came at length to a thicket of brambles over which hung the scarp of the quarry with a fringe of trees above it pitch-black against the foggy moonlight. Here on the soaked ground I found a clear space and a tumbled stone or two, on which we crouched together, sleepless and intently listening.

For an hour we heard no sound. Then the valley towards Lostwithiel shook with a dull explosion, which puzzled us a great deal. (But the meaning, I have since learnt was this:–Two prisoners in the church there had contrived to climb up into the steeple and, pulling the ladder after them, jeered down upon the rebels’ Provost Marshal, who was now preparing for a night retreat of the Infantry upon Fowey and in a hurry to be gone. “I’ll fetch you down,” said he, and with a barrel of powder blew most of the slates off the roof but without harming the defiant pair who were found still perched on the steeple next morning.)