“No, I suppose not, Miss Hannay; but it gives a sort of interest to one's work. I have blistered my hands horribly, but I suppose they will get hard in a day or two.”
“I wish we could work at something,” Isobel said. “Now that we have finished with the bags and bandages, the time seems very long; the only thing there is to do is to play with the children and try to keep them good; it is fortunate there is a bit of garden for them to play in.”
“It is not much of a garden, Miss Hannay. We had something like a garden when I was a boy at home; the governor's is a jolly old rectory, with a splendid garden. What fun we used to have there when I was a young one! I wonder what the dear old governor and mater would say if they knew the fix we were in here. You know, sometimes I think that Forster's plan was the best, and that it would be better to try and make a dash through them.”
“We are in your way, Mr. Wilson; you wouldn't be able to do much fighting if you had one of us clinging to you.”
“I don't know, Miss Hannay,” Wilson said quietly, “what my fighting powers are, but I fancy if you were clinging to me I could cut my way through a good deal.”
“I am sure you would do anything that anyone could do,” the girl said kindly; “but whatever you might feel, having another person behind you could not but hamper you awfully. I would infinitely rather try to escape on foot, for then I should be relying on myself, while if I was riding behind anyone, and we were pursued or attacked, I should feel all the time I was destroying his chances, and that if it were not for me he would get away. That would be terrible. I don't know whether we were wise to stay here instead of trying to escape at once; but as uncle and Mr. Hunter and the others all thought it wiser to stay, I have no doubt it was; but I am quite sure that it could not have been a good plan to go off like that on horseback.”
Another day passed quietly, and then during the night the watch heard the sounds of blows with axes, and of falling trees.
“They are clearing the ground in front of their battery,” the Major, who was on the watch with his party, said; “it will begin in earnest tomorrow morning. The sound came from just where we expected. It is about in the same line as where they made their first attempt, but a hundred yards or so further back.”
At daylight they saw that the trees and bushes had been leveled, and a battery, with embrazures for six guns, erected at a distance of about four hundred yards from the house. More sandbags were at once brought up from below, and the parapet, on the side facing the battery, raised two feet and doubled in thickness. The garrison were not disturbed while so engaged.
“Why the deuce don't the fellows begin?” Captain Forster said impatiently, as he stood looking over the parapet when the work was finished.