While the
father and son were dressing they fancied that a glare seemed to be
rising in the sky in the direction of the beacon hill. Not wishing to
alarm Anne and her mother, the miller assured them that Bob and himself
were merely going out of doors to inquire into the cause of the report,
after which they plunged into the gloom together. A few steps' progress
opened up more of the sky, which, as they had thought, was indeed
irradiated by a lurid light; but whether it came from the beacon or from
a more distant point they were unable to clearly tell. They pushed on
rapidly towards higher ground.

Their excitement was merely of a piece with that of all men at this
critical juncture. Everywhere expectation was at fever heat. For the
last year or two only five-and-twenty miles of shallow water had divided
quiet English homesteads from an enemy's army of a hundred and fifty
thousand men. We had taken the matter lightly enough, eating and
drinking as in the days of Noe, and singing satires without end. We
punned on Buonaparte and his gunboats, chalked his effigy on
stage-coaches, and published the same in prints. Still, between these
bursts of hilarity, it was sometimes recollected that England was the
only European country which had not succumbed to the mighty little man
who was less than human in feeling, and more than human in will; that our
spirit for resistance was greater than our strength; and that the Channel
was often calm. Boats built of wood which was greenly growing in its
native forest three days before it was bent as wales to their sides, were
ridiculous enough; but they might be, after all, sufficient for a single
trip between two visible shores.

The English watched Buonaparte in these preparations, and Buonaparte
watched the English. At the distance of Boulogne details were lost, but
we were impressed on fine days by the novel sight of a huge army moving
and twinkling like a school of mackerel under the rays of the sun. The
regular way of passing an afternoon in the coast towns was to stroll up
to the signal posts and chat with the lieutenant on duty there about the
latest inimical object seen at sea. About once a week there appeared in
the newspapers either a paragraph concerning some adventurous English
gentleman who had sailed out in a pleasure-boat till he lay near enough
to Boulogne to see Buonaparte standing on the heights among his marshals;
or else some lines about a mysterious stranger