Mass' George Part 66

"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?"

I explained that I had come to see our housekeeper.

"Asleep," he said. "Don't disturb her. Let's have a look at your wound."

He drew me into his rough room, and gave me no little pain as he rebandaged my leg, Pomp standing by and looking on.

"Oh, that's all right, my lad," said the doctor. "Smarts, of course, but you'll soon mend up. Very different if it had gone into your chest.

Now, Ebony, let's look at your hand."

"Pomp, sah," said the boy with dignity, "not Eb'ny."

"Oh, well then, Pomp. Now then. How's the hand?"

"On'y got lil hole in um, sah. Hurt lil bit. Oh! Hurt big bit, you do dat."

"Yes, I suppose so," said the doctor, examining and rebandaging the wound. "There, that will soon be well if you do not use it. Well, young Bruton, so they burnt you out, did they, last night?"

"Yes," I said, bitterly.

"Oh, never mind. You heard what was said. Well, let's go and see what they are doing. We're non-combatants, eh?"

We walked out into the open square, after the young doctor had admonished the black woman who had been appointed the first nurse to be watchful and attentive to her patient.

There was something going on down by the gate, and I forgot all about the pain in my leg as I accompanied the doctor there, continuing my breakfast on the second slice of bread Pomp handed to me.

We soon learned what caused the bustle. A strong party of well-armed scouts was out in the direction of the forest, which lay some distance back from the block-house now, as clearing after clearing had been made, and turned into plantations; and these scouts, with a second line in support, were ready to give the alarm and arrest the first attack, their orders being to fall back slowly to the gate, so that ample time would be given at the alarm of the first shot for the busy party now being sent out to retreat and get under cover. For now that every one was safe, it had been decided to try and bring in, as far as was practicable, the most valuable things from the nearest houses.

I was not long in mounting to a good place inside the great palisade, where I could command a view of what was going on, and soon saw that a couple of lines of men had been made with military precision, extending from the gate to the General's house, which had been voted the first to be cleared; and between these lines, under the command of Colonel Preston, a strong body of the slaves--men only at first, but as the work went on women too--were soon going and coming, bearing the most valuable of the household chattels, and these were so stacked in the centre of the enclosure that they would be safe so long as the palisade kept the enemy at bay, and would afterwards act as a line of defence.

In little over half an hour another house was treated in the same way, and all through that day the work went on, till a goodly stack of the best of the things had been brought in, along with stores of provisions, that in the first hurry had been left behind. As this went on the people who had been sick at heart and despondent began to look more hopeful, and family after family had their goods arranged so that they were able to make comfortable bivouacs out in the middle of the square; but these were all arranged under the orders of the General and his officers, so as to form places of defence, to which the defenders of the palisade could flee and be under cover, the whole of the new barricade being arranged so that a way was left leading up to the main entrance of the block-house.

I grasped all this from my position of looker-on, Pomp never leaving my side, and asking questions which I tried to answer, so that he could understand.

And he did comprehend too, much better than I should have expected, for toward evening, after the day had pa.s.sed, with the scouts relieved twice over without having seen the slightest token of Indians being near, all at once he said to me--

"When Injum come an' shoot an' get over de big fence, all dat make great big fire."

My father's words about the great enemy we had to fear came back to me at this, and it was with a curiously uncomfortable feeling that I left my look-out place for the second time to go and partake of the food that had been prepared.

For the garrison of the fort were rapidly settling down to make the best of their position, and all was being done as to the serving out of food with military precision, the General having drilled his followers in the past, so that they might be prepared for such an emergency as this; and it was quite wonderful how soon the confusion and disorder of the first hours had changed to regular ways.

And now the night would soon be here--a time looked forward to with the greatest of anxiety by all.

The scouts were called in by sound of bugle, and at sundown the gates were barricaded, and sentries placed all round our defences. Fires were put out, and as darkness fell, and the customary chorus of the reptiles arose from the forest and distant swamps, a curious feeling of awe came over me where I sat watching by my father, who, after a long and arduous day's work was sleeping heavily, Morgan close at hand, with Pomp and Hannibal too.

I could not sleep, for there was a dull, gnawing pain in my wound; and so I sat in discomfort and misery, thinking that though the sentries were all on the watch, the place would not be so safe now that my father was asleep.

The moon was hidden, but the stars shone down brightly, and I sat back, leaning against Sarah's big bundle, in which some of the arrows were still sticking, gazing up at the spangled heavens, listening to the bull-frogs, and thinking how far off they sounded as compared to when I had heard them at home.

I was listening and wondering whether the Indians would come, when I heard a rustling sound close by, and directly after a low muttering.

But I did not pay any heed, thinking that Morgan or one of the blacks had turned in his sleep; but the noise came again and again, and then there was a loud e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, and directly after I heard a familiar voice exclaim--

"Bodder de ole han'! Oh, how um do hurt!"

"Can't you sleep, Pomp?" I whispered, as I crept softly to his side.

"Dat you, Ma.s.s' George?"

"Yes; I say, can't you sleep?"

"Yes, Ma.s.s' George. Pomp can't sleep ebber so, but dis 'tupid han'

won't let um."

"Does it hurt?"

"Yes. Big hot fly in um keep goin' froo. Pomp goin' take off de rag."

"No, no; let it be; it will soon be better. Go to sleep."

"Han' say no go sleep. Let's go an' try find de c.o.o.n."

"No, no; we are not at home now. We can't go out of the fort."