“Getting better, sir. He’s as tough as fifty-year-old yew. Nothing couldn’t kill him; but look, sir, look! See how they’re getting up to the terrace. Ah!”
This exclamation was made as a white puff suddenly seemed to dart from one of the windows of the Hall, and then there was another, and another, the reports seeming to follow, and then to echo from the next hill.
But no one in the attacking force seemed to fall, neither did it check them. On the contrary, they appeared to be spurred into action, and instead of creeping on as it were in a slow steady march, they broke up into little knots, and dashed forward, while a second line kept steadily on.
“Look at them! look at them, Master Fred! Don’t it make you feel as if you wished you was in it?” cried Samson, excitedly. “That’s it; fire away; but you won’t stop ’em. All Coombeland boys, every man-jack of ’em, and you can’t stop them when they mean business.”
“No,” said Fred between his teeth, as he tried to keep down the feelings of elation engendered by the gallantry of the attack, by forcing himself to think of how it would be were he Scarlett Markham, and these men enemies attacking his home. “Look, look, Samson!” he whispered, with his throat dry, his tongue clinging to the roof of his mouth, and the scar of his worst wound beginning to throb.
“Yes, I’m a-looking, sir,” said Samson, in as husky a voice. “There, they’ve got a ladder up against the big long window, and they’re swarming up it. They’ll be indirectly, and drive the long-haired gentlemen flying like leaves before a noo birch broom.”
“No,” said Fred, shading his eyes with his hands; “no. Ah, did you hear the crash? How horrible! Some of them must be killed.”
“Not they, Master Fred. But I don’t see how they did it. Fancy turning the ladder right back with seven or eight lads running up it! But it was well done.”
“Can you see whether any one is hurt?”
“Not at this distance, sir. Not they, though, unless they’ve got any of those long thin swords skewered into them. I’ve tumbled twice that height out of apple-trees, and no one to fall upon. They’d all got some one to tumble on, except the bottom one, and I don’t suppose he’s much hurt.”