“‘See how they run! see how they run!’
“And then, in my excitement, I blazed away at them with the other barrel. But they were so far off that only one of them got struck, and in the back, and with a spent ball, for I saw him stop suddenly, with a great howl, clap his hands behind him, bend backward, and then run faster than before.”
“I call that a brilliant victory,” said Farmer Fielding, nodding toward his friends.
But the Lutheran minister and his daughter were too gravely interested in Elfie’s narrative to express any admiration of her feat.
“I am not proud of the victory,” said Elfie, candidly. “I was delighted with it—elated with it—but not proud of it. How could I be? For it is true, I was one girl against three men, yet I had the great advantage of fighting behind my entrenchments, while they were exposed. I had also firearms, which they had not. No, I don’t think I have any reason to vaunt myself for this easy victory.”
“But the man you shot from the pole! Oh, my dear Elfie, I hope—I hope he was not killed!” said Erminie, clasping her hands in the earnestness of her anxiety.
“As soon as the other two men had run away, I set the old gun up in its place, and ran downstairs to the hall, where I found my faithful Ned guarding the door with an old blunderbuss.
“‘Miss Allfrida!’ he said, ‘I told you we’d have a fight for the old flag, and we’s had it; and it won’t be the last, nuther. They’re gone now, but they’ll come back to-night in stronger numbers.’
“‘I don’t care, Ned,’ I said; ‘come one, come all, this house shall fly from off its firm ground as soon as I!’
“And then I told him to open the door, for I wanted to go out and look after our wounded prisoner. Lor’, Minie, when I went up to him I thought he was dead, sure enough! He was lying on his stomach, with his head, arm and leg doubled under him. Ned was frightened, too.