It was a miserable scene upon which I gazed, in spite of its being a
bright clear morning; but as I grasped where I was, and shook off the
drowsy confusion, there was a feeling of thankfulness in my heart, for
the dark night had passed away, and we had not been attacked by the
Indians.
But the moment I had felt more cheerful, down came a depressing cloud,
as I remembered our row for life, our narrow escape, and the reflection
of the fire I had seen.
"Poor old house!" I sighed to myself, for it was so terrible that the
beautiful little home should have been utterly destroyed; and it all
seemed to come up before me with its high-pitched gable ends, the rough
pine porch, the lead-paned windows that came over from England; and as I
saw it all in imagination once more, I fancied how the passion-flowers
and other creepers must have looked crisping and curling up as the
flames reached them; and what with my miserable thoughts, the stiffness
I felt from my previous day's exertions, and the pain from my little
wound, if ever I had felt horribly depressed, I did then.
"Mass' George hungly?" said a familiar voice; and there was Pomp's
contented face before me, as he came up hugging to him some slices of
bread.
"No," I said, ill-humouredly, "I can't eat; my leg hurts me so."
"Pomp can," he said; "and him hand hurt too. Missie Morgan want to see
Mass' George."
I took one of the pieces of bread Pomp gave me, and began to eat
mechanically as I walked across the enclosure by the various little
groups of settlers and their families, to where my father was busy with
the other officers superintending the construction of a barricade
outside the gate, so as to divide the Indians in case of an attack, and
force them to come up to the entrance one by one.
"Ah, my boy," said my father, quickly, "how is the leg?"
"Hurts," I said, in an ill-used tone.
"Naturally," he cried with a laugh. "There, don't be down-hearted about
a little pain. I came and had a look at you, but you were asleep.
There, do you see how we are getting ready for your Indian friends? We
hope to give them such a severe lesson that they will leave us alone in
future."
"Then you think they will attack us, father?" I said. "Some one just
now told me that all was quiet, and that the Indians had gone."
"That is the very reason why I think they will attack us, my boy, and
the sooner the better, George. It must come, and I should like them to
get their sharp lesson and go; for I want to hang this up for an
ornament or to turn it into a pruning-hook."
He touched his sword as he spoke, and turned to Morgan, who came up.
"How is she?"
"Doctor says she's very feverish, sir, but he thinks she is going on all
right."
"I am very, very sorry, Morgan," said my father, sadly. "I feel as if I
were to blame for bringing you people out to this wilderness."
"I teclare to cootness, sir," began Morgan, in a high-pitched Welsh
fashion; but he checked himself and smiled. "There, sir, don't you talk
like that. Wilderness? Why, it's a pleasure to do a bit of gardening
here. See what rich deep soil it is, and how the things rush up into
growth."
"Very poor consolation for your wife, Morgan," said my father, dryly.
"All that does not make her wound the more bearable."
"Bah! Nonsense, sir! She don't mind. Why, as she said to me just now,
she wouldn't have got a wound from an Indian's arrow if she had stopped
at home, but the knife might have slipped, and she might have cut
herself, or upset a pot of boiling water over her, or failed down the
cellar steps and broken a dish and run a piece into her side."
"Well, that's good philosophy, Morgan, and very comforting to me. What
do you say, George, are you sorry you came?"
"No, father, not at all," I replied, for unwittingly I had finished the
big slice of bread, and felt all the better for the food. "I only wish
I were a man, and could fight."
"Don't wish that, my lad," he said quickly. "There is nothing more
glorious in life than being a boy. But there, I have no time to waste
in preaching to you about that," he said, laughing. "It would be labour
thrown away. No boy can believe it. He has to grow into a man, and
look back: then he does. There, don't worry yourself till your leg is
better, but do any little thing to be useful, and if an attack is made,
keep with Morgan. You can load."
"Yes, I can load," I said to myself, as I limped off with Pomp following
me, looking very proud of his hand being in a sling, and we went into
the part of the block-house where poor Sarah was lying.
As I crossed the enclosure I seemed to understand now why it had been
contrived as it was to form an outer defence, which, if taken, only
meant that the enemy had a more formidable place to attack, for the
block-house seemed to my inexperienced eyes to be impregnable.
As I quietly entered the place, I encountered the doctor.
"Ha!" he said; "come to see me?"