"'Tis Lady Felix-Williams. These here conquerin' 'eroes of the
Major's have swarmed down through the woods an' ran foul of the
liquor. The Band in partikler's as drunk as Chloe, an' what with
horning and banging under her ladyship's window, they've a-scared her
before her time. She's crying out at this moment, and old Sir Felix
around in his dressing-gown like Satan let loose. Talk about
Millenniums!"
"Good Lord!" Dr. Hansombody caught up his haversack.
"The Millennium? I'd clean forgot about it!"
Miss Marty gazed at him with innocent inquiring eyes.
"But--but isn't this the Millennium?" she asked.
CHAPTER X.
GUNNER SOBEY TURNS LOOSE THE MILLENNIUM.
Let us return for a while to Talland Cove, and to the moment when
Captain Arbuthnot's Dragoons broke ambush and charged down upon the
Gallants.
Of all our company you will remember that Gunner Sobey passed for the
readiest man. This reputation he now and instantly vindicated.
For happening to be posted on the extreme left in the shadow of the
western cliff, and hearing a sudden cry, "The French! The French!"
he neither fell back with the rest of the crowd nor foolhardily
resisted an enemy whose strength could not yet be measured: but
leaping aside, and by great good luck finding foothold on the rocks
to his left, he wriggled over the low ledge of the cliff and thence--
now clutching at the grass bents or clusters of the sea-pink, now
digging his fingers into the turf, but always flat, or nearly flat,
on his belly--he wormed his way at incredible speed up the slope,
found covert behind a tall furze-bush, and surveyed for a few seconds
the scene below him.
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