Every now and then people would
glance nervously across the Wey, at the meadows towards Chertsey, but
everything over there was still.
Across the Thames, except just where the boats landed, everything
was quiet, in vivid contrast with the Surrey side. The people who
landed there from the boats went tramping off down the lane. The big
ferryboat had just made a journey. Three or four soldiers stood on
the lawn of the inn, staring and jesting at the fugitives, without
offering to help. The inn was closed, as it was now within prohibited
hours.
"What's that?" cried a boatman, and "Shut up, you fool!" said a man
near me to a yelping dog. Then the sound came again, this time from
the direction of Chertsey, a muffled thud--the sound of a gun.
The fighting was beginning. Almost immediately unseen batteries
across the river to our right, unseen because of the trees, took up
the chorus, firing heavily one after the other. A woman screamed.
Everyone stood arrested by the sudden stir of battle, near us and yet
invisible to us. Nothing was to be seen save flat meadows, cows
feeding unconcernedly for the most part, and silvery pollard willows
motionless in the warm sunlight.
"The sojers'll stop 'em," said a woman beside me, doubtfully.
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