But when they advanced and came nearer to us to Preston, and there appeared a greater spirit among the people in their favour, my old doctor, whom I mentioned before, who was a Romish priest, and had married us, inspired me with new zeal, and gave me no rest till he obliged me, with only a good horse and arms, to join them the day before they entered Preston, he himself venturing in the same posture with me.
I was not so public here as to be very well known, at least by any one that had knowledge of me in the country where I lived; and this was indeed my safety afterwards, as you will soon hear. But yet I was known too among the men, especially among the Scots, with some of whom I had been acquainted in foreign service. With these I was particularly conversant, and, passing for a French officer, I talked to them of making a select detachment to defend the pass between Preston and the river and bridge, upon maintaining which, as I insisted, depended the safety of the whole party.
It was with some warmth that I spoke of that affair, and as I passed among them, I say, for a French officer and a man of experience, it caused several debates among them. But the hint was not followed, as is well known, and from that moment I gave them all up as lost, and meditated nothing but how to escape from them, which I effected the night before they were surrounded by the royal cavalry. I did not do this without great difficulty, swimming the river Ribble at a place where, though I got well over, yet I could not for a long while get to a place where my horse could land himself--that is to say, where the ground was firm enough for him to take the land. However, at length I got on shore, and riding very hard, came the next evening in sight of my own dwelling. Here, after lying by in a wood till the depth of night, I shot my horse in a little kind of a gravel pit, or marl pit, where I soon covered him with earth for the present, and marching all alone, I came about two in the morning to my house, where my wife, surprised with joy and yet terribly frighted, let me in; and then I took immediate measures to secure myself upon whatever incident might happen, but which, as things were ordered, I had no need to make use of, for the rebels being entirely defeated, and either all killed or taken prisoners, I was not known by anybody in the country to have been among them; no, nor so much as suspected. And thus I made a narrow escape from the most dangerous action, and most foolishly embarked in, of any that I had ever been engaged in before.
