The Trumpet-Major by Thomas Hardy

The night which followed was historic and memorable. Mrs. Loveday was / awakened by the boom of a distant gun: she told the miller, and they / listened awhile. The sound was not repeated, but such was the state of / their feelings that Mr. Loveday went to Bob's room and asked if he had / heard it. Bob was wide awake, looking out of the window; he had heard / the ominous sound, and was inclined to investigate the matter. 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 with a foreign accent, / who, after collecting a vast deal of information on our resources, had / hired a boat at a southern port, and vanished with it towards France / before his intention could be divined.

In forecasting his grand venture, Buonaparte postulated the help of / Providence to a remarkable degree. Just at the hour when his troops were / on board the flat-bottomed boats and ready to sail, there was to be a / great fog, that should spread a vast obscurity over the length and / breadth of the Channel, and keep the English blind to events on the other / side. The fog was to last twenty-four hours, after which it might clear / away. A dead calm was to prevail simultaneously with the fog, with the / twofold object of affording the boats easy transit and dooming our ships / to lie motionless. Thirdly, there was to be a spring tide, which should / combine its manoeuvres with those of the fog and calm.

Among the many thousands of minor Englishmen whose lives were affected by / these tremendous designs may be numbered our old acquaintance Corporal / Tullidge, who sported the crushed arm, and poor old Simon Burden, the / dazed veteran who had fought at Minden. Instead of sitting snugly in the / settle of the Old Ship, in the village adjoining Overcombe, they were / obliged to keep watch on the hill. They made themselves as comfortable / as was possible in the circumstances, dwelling in a hut of clods and / turf, with a brick chimney for cooking. Here they observed the nightly / progress of the moon and stars, grew familiar with the heaving of moles, / the dancing of rabbits on the hillocks, the distant hoot of owls, the / bark of foxes from woods further inland; but saw not a sign of the enemy. / As, night after night, they walked round the two ricks which it was their / duty to fire at a signal -- one being of furze for a quick flame, the other / of turf, for a long, slow radiance -- they thought and talked of old times, / and drank patriotically from a large wood flagon that was filled every / day.

Bob and his father soon became aware that the light was from the beacon. / By the time that they reached the top it was one mass of towering flame, / from which the sparks fell on the green herbage like a fiery dew; the / forms of the two old men being seen passing and repassing in the midst of / it. The Lovedays, who came up on the smoky side, regarded the scene for / a moment, and then emerged into the light.

'Who goes there? ' said Corporal Tullidge, shouldering a pike with his / sound arm. 'O, 'tis neighbour Loveday!'

'Did you get your signal to fire it from the east? ' said the miller / hastily.

'No; from Abbotsea Beach.'

'But you are not to go by a coast signal!'

'Chok' it all, wasn't the Lord-Lieutenant's direction, whenever you see / Rainbarrow's Beacon burn to the nor'east'ard, or Haggardon to the / nor'west'ard, or the actual presence of the enemy on the shore?'

'But is he here?'

'No doubt o't! The beach light is only just gone down, and Simon heard / the guns even better than I.'