We thought it very fine—and so it was; and the words we didn’t understand we thought the finest. After this the French envoys were dismissed, with their white flag still grasped firmly. They were also provided with a strong escort to take them back safely to their own lines, and indeed they required it, for by this time we had quite wakened up; and as the two men were led forth from the inn blindfolded with thick shawls lest they should spy the poverty of the force, we greeted them with a yell which must have made their hearts shake. My countrymen are beyond all comparison better at yelling than at cheering; it was cowardly no doubt of it, considering the difference of our numbers; but when was a mob anything but cowardly? Of course to a boy it was pure delight, and my enjoyment that evening made up for the cramp of the night before. The escort kept us at more than arm’s length, but no friendly force could have kept us from running after these representatives of the enemy, or from shouting at them, or even from throwing a few stones and sticks at them. The men remembered the wine and brandy, the women the slaughtered ducks and geese, and they hurled stones and curses mixed at the two devourers we could get at. The escort certainly received the brunt of the battle and most of the stones, and sent back many objurations at us in return; but we were too hurried to discriminate friend from foe. We ran as far as a place called Windy Hall, {154} from whence there is a wide-stretching view of Goodwick Sands and the most perfectly-exposed down-hill slope that could possibly be desired for the final volley of stones with which we wished them goodnight. I was pretty well tired out by this time, so returned home to see how my parents fared in these strange days, and to have a second supper, and then to bed in my own particular little den, which usually I had only the felicity of occupying in the holidays: and so the Thursday came to an end. FRIDAY. _THE THIRD DAY_. CHAPTER VIII. 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.