I blew my horn thrice, and the sound almost stopped the fight round the house. Up rose the trusty Mell and his men, and one half of them fired. Before the Mulgrave fellows could handle their pieces, four or five saddles were empty and two or three horses were down. The second half of Mell's men fired, while their comrades were reloading, with equal effect. The earl's retainers were not valiant enough to await a third volley, but fled helter-skelter the way they had come, all but those who could neither ride nor run. Mell followed them out of my view, and our scrambling struggle, which had slackened for the last few minutes, went on again fiercely. There was a sort of method in the fighting of the Boswell party: they tried hard to drive or draw us to the rear of the house. Seeing this, I and my bodyguard worked round toward the front, and as we were doing so we heard a shot and a cry, "This way, Belton men!" The voice was John Drury's, I could swear. We rushed round, and for an instant stood as if thunderstricken, for, sure enough, there was John Drury at the landing-place, bare-headed, his face of a death-like pallor, raising gun to shoulder. About fifty yards down stream were three boats filled with men. Some of them fired at us as we ran up to John, but did no hurt to any of us, while his shot brought down its man. Two of our men, who had disengaged themselves from the hurly burly, now loaded their guns and fired on the boats. To my unspeakable relief, Mell and his men ran up to our assistance, and poured such a steady fire on them as quickly drove them out of range. Leaving four men with John to guard against their return, the rest of us ranged ourselves in line at a little distance from the scuffling mass, and I shouted-- "This way, friends, and leave the rascals to us." Most of our men obeyed promptly, and as soon as they had got out of the throng reloaded their guns. We were now the stronger party, about sixty, with firearms. The others had more men disabled than we, so that in numbers we were nearly equal; but they were at a disadvantage in the matter of weapons, and not a little disheartened by rough handling and the discomfiture of the horsemen, as I gathered by the curses which I overheard on "the mongrel curs."