text:  All the skill of the gardener's wife and as many other women as could be pressed into the service was put into requisition to prepare a dinner for such unexpected guests; but as if by some half miraculous foreknowledge of events preparations seemed to have been made on a great scale at Howkey; and on hearing of the accident the good-natured Mrs Smith had despatched a light luggage cart filled with cold pies preserved soups and joints of meat as if in anticipation of a blockade--in this respect imitating the good French marshal who besieged Gibraltar and supplied old Elliot with provisions