A great beacon blaze upon Portsdown Hill was the first news that we had of it, and then came a rattling and a drumming from Portsmouth, where the troops were assembled under arms.

Mounted messengers clattered through the village street with their heads low on their horses' necks, for the great tidings must be carried to London, that the Governor of Portsmouth might know how to act.

(Note B, Appendix.) We were standing at our doorway in the gloaming, watching the coming and the going, and the line of beacon fires which were lengthening away to the eastward, when a little man galloped up to the door and pulled his panting horse up.
'Is Joseph Clarke here ?' he asked.
'I am he,' said my father.
'Are these men true ?' he whispered, pointing with his whip at Saxon and myself.

'Then the trysting-place is Taunton.

Pass it on to all whom ye know.