Chapter 8 THE GATHERING AT GOODWICK.

Nor many hours did the little den hold me after all, for in the early morning I woke with the feeling that something strange was astir. Then came a vague terror-the memory of my yester-morn's awakening, and then a sense of jubilant triumph as I recalled the Frenchmen's offer and the stout answer of our chief. Surely they would capitulate now without more talking or more fighting. I should have liked to have witnessed a little fighting well enough-from a distance.

But then a fight is a very uncertain thing, it twirls about so, you never know where it will get to next, or where you are sure to be in it, or still more, safe to be out of it.

The men quartered in our house were astir early, and perhaps their heavy footfalls had more to do with rousing me than my own excitability. Still quick-silver seemed to be running about all over me as I hastily swallowed my breakfast-which, however, I did full justice to-and then rushed out of the house to join everybody else on the road to Goodwick. What a throng there was! Every man, woman, and child in Fishguard and all the country round seemed to have turned out, and to be making for the great sands at Goodwick. The people gathered from every direction, east, west, and south, until the semi-circle of hills was dark with them. Chiefly, however, the throng came from the east and south, for Trehowel lay to the west, and there were but few of the natives left in that direction; besides which the steep white road that mounts the hill on that side of the sands was left clear for the descent of the enemy. No one wished to interfere with them needlessly; quite the contrary: at all events, till they had got within reach of our trained men. In the meantime we would give them a wide berth lest they should turn and rend us.

Suddenly a wild voice and a wild figure smote our senses-both eyes and ears.

"The dream, the dream!" it yelled. "The dream is coming true!"

"What dream? What is it?" asked every one, but there were more askers than answerers.

"Use your ears and listen!" continued the wild voice. "Use your eyes and see!"

"Whoever is he, Jemima?" I asked, finding myself near a reliable woman. Nancy stood some little way off leaning against a cart.

"Why, it's old Enoch Lale," said Jemima. "I know him well enough, he lives over there under Trehowel, by Carreg Gwastad, just where these blacks landed."

Why Jemima always persisted in calling the French "blacks," I know not; possibly because they were foreigners, possibly she meant blackguards.

"My dream! I told it to ye, unbelieving race, aye, thirty years ago!" yelled the old man.

"'Deed, that's true for him," remarked Jemima. "I heard him tell it many a time, years and years ago. Well, I always thought he was soft, but now he seems real raving."

"Thirty years ago I had the vision, and you know it, men and neighbours."

"Yes, yes, true for you, Enoch Lale," answered many a voice in the crowd; chiefly this response came from elderly persons who had doubtless heard the tale many a time.

"But I haven't heard it. I wasn't born then," I remarked.

Whether Enoch Lale heard this gentle protest, or whether he was resolved not to be baulked of his story, I cannot say. "I only know," he continued, "I had a vision of the night, and the future was revealed to me in a dream; yea, and more than a dream, for I rose up out of my bed and went down on to the rocks and there-on Carreg Gwastad-the French troops landed, and I saw them-aye, as plain as ever any of you saw them two days ago. And that was thirty years ago, yet it has come true! But wait, and listen! and ye shall hear the brass drums sounding, as I heard them sound that night! Listen! Listen!"

"Come down off that cart and be quiet, Enoch Lale, or you'll be having a fit. We all know, you've told your dream often enough; why you woke me up that very night to tell it."

And the prophet was taken possession of by a quiet elderly woman, his better half.

"Well, we got rid of old I-told-you-so rather suddenly," I observed to Jemima. "But it is very queer about his dream."

"There's a many things," replied Jemima, "as we don't know nothing about-and dreams is one of them."

It was marvellous to watch the gathering of troops and people. The hills to the south of the bay were covered with peasant men, and the red-whittled women who had done such good service to their country, and whose conduct has never been rewarded by any faintest token of gratitude or even of recognition by that country.

At the foot of these hills came a marsh, bounded by a road on the other side of which were the famous sands-where were stationed in a compact body the Castle Martin Yeomanry Cavalry. Ere long these men were drawn out of their trim ranks for a difficult and dangerous duty; but of that anon.

The infantry was drawn up in a field on the east side of the bay, just under Windy Hill, to which farm the field belonged. The force consisted of the Cardiganshire and Pembrokeshire Volunteers-about three hundred strong: together with the Fishguard Fencibles. Numerically weak we were indeed, but on our own ground and with right on our side. Added to which we had had the pleasing news of the enemy's faint-heartedness: so that altogether we felt ourselves animated by the courage of lions.

Major Ackland had had his promised interview with General Tate in the early morning at the French headquarters in the old house of Trehowel. The interview had been a short one, and much to the point; he declined altogether to parley, or parlez-vous. He insisted on instant and unconditional surrender; then sticking spurs in his horse he galloped away without any compliments.

Lord Cawdor and his staff were riding up and down the sands when the gallant Major appeared bringing the glorious news that the French were coming, and at once, and that they were prepared to surrender at discretion. But the Colonel still continued his work of inspecting the whole of the British troops. He still thought, perhaps hoped, that there might be a passage of arms.

Then came a time of deep silence when each individual among us concentrated his senses in his ears. I, being but a boy, allowed my eyes a little freedom; most other eyes were concentrated on the road where the French would first appear, but I permitted mine to gaze around me, when I at once made a discovery. The cart against which Nancy had leant contained a man, the outline of the back of whose head seemed strangely familiar to me. I could only see the back of his head for he was leaning out of the cart with his face turned away from me, but towards another person who was standing on the other side of the cart. Some bushes, behind which the cart had been drawn up, prevented a clear view, so I shifted my position a little-in fact, went straight up to the group, who seemed to be placing rather a blind confidence in their retired situation, and in the magnetic attraction of the enemy. I rounded the cart; the young man was, as I had imagined, Davy Jones, wounded foot and all; the young woman was, as I had guessed, Nancy George. Their heads were very near together, perhaps they were talking about splints.

"Why, Nancy!" I exclaimed, "is that you?"

"Yes, of course it is, Master Dan-and why shouldn't it be?" cried Nancy, as red as a turkey-cock, and as inclined to show fight.

"Oh, all right. I only thought you must be somebody else," I returned, politely.

Davy broke into a roar of laughter, and Ann, in spite of her indignation, showed her row of white teeth.

"Go away, you tiresome boy, and look out for the French," was her recommendation.

"And not for the-" but my sentence was cut short by a shove from Nan's vigorous arm which sent me flying for some paces.

"Take care of the spoons, Ann!" was my parting shot, as I made my way a little further down the hill.

We all sat down on the ferny slopes and waited and listened. As a general rule nobody talked, which showed how grave was the occasion. In front of us was the sea dark grey to-day as was the sky; the sands sometimes almost golden, were, on this dull February day, only another shade of grey; and the great boulders of rock which cropped up everywhere were of the same colour. And this greyness seemed to suit this scene better than the brightness of Wednesday would have done; for though it was a day of triumph to us we could not forget that it was a day of humiliation and bitterness to these hundreds of men who were approaching us on the other side of the hill. The tide was coming in, but without any sparkle and dash, sullenly; and the south-west wind blew in gusts the strength of which told plainly of power in reserve: one could feel that it was capable of violence.

So were the people who sat waiting-apparently quietly-for their enemies, on the hill-slope, which rose into a natural amphitheatre on all sides (save one) of the scene: whereof the flat sands formed the arena or floor. What a place this would have been for one of the old Roman shows; for a moment I seemed to see the gladiators struggling for life or death, to hear the cruel roar of the lions, to watch the fighting, tearing, and rending in the arena, and to witness what struck me most with awe-the fierce lust for blood which filled the spectators, one and all, as they shouted and craved for more-more blood. I woke up suddenly with a start to find I had been dozing on the hillside, where the people were sitting quietly enough, Britons not Romans, perhaps some of them descendants of these very gladiators who had been

"Butchered to make a Roman holiday."