"You should have seen this young fellow half an hour ago," declared the doctor. "You would have thought him a ghost. He has a bad wound in his shoulder that has not been properly treated, and healed up on the outside too soon. I have a carriage here at the door. When Patty heard the story she insisted that I should bring Ralston home at once. We have plenty of room, and, after all, have not been so hard hit."
Young Stafford, they found, had a cousin who was a major in the English army. He had been quite enamored of a soldier's life, had been attached to the staff, and was a sort of private secretary to his cousin. But the romance of war had been driven from his youthful brain by his first battle, that of Bladensburg.
"But you must have better soldiers than those raw recruits," he exclaimed, "when you have done such wonderful things! Still, everything is so strange—"
He glanced furtively at the two men, not knowing how far it was safe to confess one's feelings. The ruin at Washington had filled him with shame and dismay, and he did not wonder that people on every hand were execrating the British. Even the old negro woman had denounced them bitterly.
"Most of our real soldiers were elsewhere. There is a great stretch of country to protect. We have the Indians for enemies, the French occasionally, but we shall come out victorious in the end," said the doctor confidently.
"Where are the Admiral and General Ross?" asked Stafford.
"At Baltimore now, where there is a prospect of their being defeated. We were not prepared as we should have been, to our shame be it said."
Then they lapsed into silence.
"I am afraid I have forgotten my way," the youth admitted as they passed a partly overgrown branch road, used mostly for the convenience of farmers. "I tried to mark it by some sign. There was a tree that had been struck by lightning. And a clump of oaks."
"There is a clump of oaks farther on."