With streaming mane, glaring eyes, distended nostrils, he plunged onward. Charlie heard the dead dry boughs crackling behind, and the snorting of the soldier’s horse, so near was his fierce pursuer. On, on Fleetwood dashed, bearing his little master from one piece of woods to another, till the forest became dense and dark. He had now gained some on the soldier; and, seeing ahead a tangled, marshy thicket, Charlie rode right into its midst.
Here he stood five hours without moving.
The soldier, so much heavier with his horse, dared not venture into the swamp. He rode round and round, seeking for some firm spot of entrance. Sometimes he did come very near; but every time sinking into the wet, springy bog he was obliged to give it up; he could not even get a shot at the boy, the brush was so thick, Fleetwood instinctively still as a mouse, and finally, with loud oaths, he rode off.
But the lad and the colt still stood there hour after hour, not knowing whether they might venture out; but at nightfall his mother, who had been watching all the while, with tears and prayers, saw her dear boy cautiously peeping through the edge of the woods. By signs she let him know that the danger was past, and, riding up to the house, he dismounted. Then, leaning against his beautiful colt, his own bright, golden curls mingling with Fleetwood’s ebon mane, the plucky little fellow told his adventures to the eager group.
The Quaker neighbors in this vicinity had at last been driven, by the outrages of the hostile troops, to use some means of defense. They agreed that, whenever a house should be attacked, the family would fire a gun, which would be answered by firing from other houses, and so the neighborhood become aroused.
But Farmer Pattison so abhorred the use of a gun that he would have none in his house. He procured a conch-shell which, when well blown, could be heard a great way.
One night, while Charlie’s family were all soundly sleeping, and, without, the clear November air was unstirred by a breath of wind, suddenly the grum report of the conch boomed in at the windows and alarmed the whole house.
Wakened so unceremoniously, all thought it was a gun; but no one could tell whence it came. The venerable grandfather knelt in prayer; the sick English officer, staring at the house, ordered his two guards to prepare for defence; the mother sat trembling, while the two little girls, Grace and Marcia, hid their faces in their mother’s night-dress.
But our Charlie was brave. He loaded the old firearm, and, going down to the piazza blazed away, loading and firing, to frighten away the unseen foe. Through the still air could be heard the guns of the neighbors, all aroused to defend their homes.