The road, which had been winding along in a valley, here mounted a sharp rise, on the very brow of which stood a hamlet of some twenty houses.

It had already been deserted by the inhabitants, and the houses were taken possession of by the workers.

Those facing the brow of the hill were loopholed, as were the walls along the same line.

Men were set to work to build a great barricade across the road, and to run breastworks of stones right and left from the points where the walls ended along the brow.

Other parties loopholed the houses and walls of the village, and formed another barricade across the road at the other end.