“Mrs. Williams Trelethin was know every tide From England to Greenland without guide. Mrs. Williams Trelethin was take the spy-glass, And then she cry out—There they Wass!” The three tall ships sailed on calmly, with the clear shining of the sea around them, dark objects in all that flood of light. They went northward—along our Pembrokeshire coast, where (had Providence so willed it) they might have made shipwreck on the sharp rocks anywhere. However the day was too fair to admit of any such hope. The alarm spread quickly; men and boys came bounding over the gorse in every direction; even the women, with the curiosity of their sex, came forth from their homesteads, leaving the cawl {51} and the children to mind themselves, while their natural caretakers gaped open-mouthed at the tall ships filled with untold dangers. The crowd on the cliffs followed in the direction of the ships, keeping them ever in sight. Helter-skelter we ran along, crossing deep gullies, then along bare headlands covered only with gorse and large grey stones, then passing under a great mass of rock, like to some gaunt castle or fort (but alas, lacking cannon), then, at rare intervals, where a stream ran into the sea, we would dip suddenly into a smiling little valley filled with trees and bushes. But the stones and crags prevailed greatly over the softer scenes. I had now entered so fully into the spirit of this race that all thought of my studies passed away; the fear of the dominee was merged in the far greater fear of the French. And yet it was not wholly fear that possessed me, but a sort of tremor of excitement, and curiosity as to what might happen next. Noon passed, but none stopped for food—nor even (till we came to a village) for a Welshman’s comfort in perplexity—a glass of cwrw da. {52} At two o’clock, for no apparent reason, the Frenchmen came to anchor. This was opposite to a rocky headland called Carn Gwastad, which forms a portion of Fishguard Bay, some distance to the west of the town of that name, and, by reason of an intervening headland, quite invisible from it, and in truth from most other places. We had now come from St. David’s Head, a distance of full ten miles, and I, for one, was glad to sit down on a gorse-bush and meditate a little as to what all these things might mean and where they were like to end, which I hardly dared to hope might somehow take the form of a bit of dinner for myself. To stay hunger I composed my mind for a nap while I reflected dreamily that my elders were taking more definite steps for the defence of their country; and the knowledge of this was gratifying to me. [Picture: Carregwastad] CHAPTER II. THE LANDING.