m into the
soft transparent night.

"Ah, that's delicious!" he exclaimed as we walked a little way down the
Gap, and then struck up the path leading to the high cliff track.

It was very dark, but at the same time clear; and as we paused after a
time there were the lights below us in the new cottages, while above the
stars shone out brilliantly and twinkled as if it was about to be a
frost.

"What a calm peace there is over everything!" said my father
thoughtfully. "Why, Sep, my very weariness seems to be a pleasure, it
is so full of the promise of rest."

"I'm tired too," I said. "I've been walking a good way to-day. How
plainly you can hear the sea!"

"Yes, the wind must be from the north. But how soft, and sweet, and
gentle it is! What is that?"

"What?" I replied listening, for I had not detected a sound.

"That noise of trampling feet. Don't you hear?"

I listened.

"Yes, it is as if some people were coming along from the beach."

"What people should be coming along from the beach?" exclaimed my father
in an excited manner.

"Or is it the murmur of the waves, father?" I said.

"No," he whispered after listening; "there are people coming, and that
was a sharp quick order. Run down to the cottages and warn the foreman.
Follow out the regular orders. You know. If it is a false alarm it
will not matter, for it will be exercise for getting the men together
against real trouble."

"Right, father," I said, and I was just about to run off to give the
alarm to the foreman, who would alarm another man while I went to a
fresh house. Then there would be four of us to alarm four more, who
would run up to the rendezvous while we alarmed four more, and so the
gathering would be complete, and the men at the counting-house and armed
in a very few minutes.

I say I was just about to rush off, when a dark figure made a rush at
us, and caught hold of my father's arm.

"Quick, captain!" he whispered. "The French. Landed from a big sloop.
Coming up the Gap."

"Are you sure?" said my father in a low voice.

The answer came upon the soft breeze, and I stopped for no more, but ran
down the slope as hard as I could go, dashed into the foreman's cottage,
gave the alarm, and he leaped up, his wife catching up her child and
following to go along the Gap, as already arranged, the woman knowing
that the others would follow her so as to get to a place of safety in
case of the enemy getting the upper hand.

I