For awhile she lay, turn’d over on her side, with hands guarding her head, as if expecting me to strike her. Then gathering herself up, she came and put her hand in mine, very meekly. “Had lik’d it better had’st thou stamped the life out o’ me, a’most. But there, lad—am thine forever!” ’Twas like a buffet in the face to me. “What!” I cried. She look’d up in my face—dear Heaven, that I should have to write it!—with eyes brimful, sick with love; tried to speak, but could only nod: and broke into a wild fit of tears. I was standing there with her hand in mine, and a burning remorse in my heart, when I heard the clear notes of a bugle blown, away on the road to Launceston. Looking that way, I saw a great company of horse coming down over the crest, the sun shining level on their arms and a green standard that they bore in their midst. Joan spied them the same instant, and check’d her sobs. Without a word we flung ourselves down full length on the turf to watch. They were more than a thousand, as I guess’d, and came winding down the road very orderly, till, being full of them, it seem’d a long serpent writhing with shiny scales. The tramp of hoofs and jingling of bits were pretty to hear. “Rebels!” whisper’d I. Joan nodded. There were three regiments in all, whereof the first (and biggest) was of dragoons. So clear was the air, I could almost read the legend on their standard, and the calls of their captains were borne up to us extremely distinct. As they rode leisurely past, I thought of Master Tingcomb’s threat, and wonder’d what this array could intend. Nor, turning it over, could I find any explanation: for the Earl of Stamford’s gathering, he had said, was in the northeast, and I knew such troops as the Cornish generals had to be quarter’d at Launceston. Yet here, on the near side of Launceston, was a large body of rebel horse marching quietly to the sou’-west. Where was the head or tail to it? Turning my head as the last rider disappear’d on the way to Bodmin, I spied a squat oddly shap’d man striding down the hill very briskly: yet he look’d about him often and kept to the hollows of the ground; and was crossing below us, as it appeared, straight for Joan’s cottage. Cried I: “There is but one man in the world with such a gait—and that’s Billy Pottery!” And jumping to my feet (for he was come directly beneath us) I caught up a great stone and sent it bowling down the slope. Bounce it went past him, missing his legs by a foot or less. The man turn’d, and catching sight of me as I stood waving, made his way up the hill. ’Twas indeed Captain Bilty: and coming up, the honest fellow almost hugg’d me for joy.