The first cry from the valley was followed by the appearance of the fugitives from the mill.  These took the way towards the Hut, calling on the nearest labourers by name, to seek safety in flight.  The words could not be distinguished at the rock, though indistinct sounds might; but the gestures could not be mistaken.  In half a minute, the plain was alive with fugitives; some rushing to their cabins for their children, and all taking the direction of the stockade, as soon as the last were found.  In five minutes the roads and lanes near the Knoll were crowded with men, women and children, hastening forward to its protection, while a few of the former had already rushed through the gateways, as Maud correctly fancied, in quest of their arms.

Captain Willoughby was riding among his labourers when this fearful interruption to a tranquillity so placid first broke upon his ear.  Accustomed to alarms, he galloped forward to meet the fugitives from the mill, issuing orders as he passed to several of the men nearest the house.  With the miller, who thought little of anything but safety at that instant, he conversed a moment, and then pushed boldly on towards the verge of the cliffs.  Maud trembled as she saw her father in a situation which she thought must be so exposed; but his cool manner of riding about proved that he saw no enemy very near.  At length he waved his hat to some object, or person in the glen beneath; and she even thought she heard his shout.  At the next moment, he turned his horse, and was seen scouring along the road towards the Hut.  The lawn was covered with the fugitives as the captain reached it, while a few armed men were already coming out of the court-yard.  Gesticulating as if giving orders, the captain dashed through them all, without drawing the rein, and disappeared in the court.  A minute later, he re-issued, bearing his arms, followed by his wife and Beulah, the latter pressing little Evert to her bosom.

Something like order now began to appear among the men.  Counting all ages and both colours, the valley, at this particular moment, could muster thirty-three males capable of bearing arms.  To these might be added some ten or fifteen women who had occasionally brought down a deer, and who might be thought more or less dangerous, stationed at a loop, with a rifle or a musket.  Captain Willoughby had taken some pains to drill the former, who could go through some of the simpler light-infantry evolutions.  Among them he had appointed sundry corporals, while Joel Strides had been named a serjeant.  Joyce, now an aged and war-worn veteran, did the duty of adjutant.  Twenty men were soon drawn up in array, in front of the open gateway on the lawn, under the immediate orders of Joyce; and the last woman and child, that had been seen approaching the place of refuge, had passed within the stockade.  At this instant captain Willoughby called a party of the stragglers around him, and set about hanging the gates of the outer passage, or that which led through the palisades.