Chapter Thirty Four.
It was a miserable scene upon which I gazed, in spite of its being a bright clear morning; but as I grasped where I was, and shook off the drowsy confusion, there was a feeling of thankfulness in my heart, for the dark night had passed away, and we had not been attacked by the Indians.
But the moment I had felt more cheerful, down came a depressing cloud, as I remembered our row for life, our narrow escape, and the reflection of the fire I had seen.
“Poor old house!” I sighed to myself, for it was so terrible that the beautiful little home should have been utterly destroyed; and it all seemed to come up before me with its high-pitched gable ends, the rough pine porch, the lead-paned windows that came over from England; and as I saw it all in imagination once more, I fancied how the passion-flowers and other creepers must have looked crisping and curling up as the flames reached them; and what with my miserable thoughts, the stiffness I felt from my previous day’s exertions, and the pain from my little wound, if ever I had felt horribly depressed, I did then.
“Mass’ George hungly?” said a familiar voice; and there was Pomp’s contented face before me, as he came up hugging to him some slices of bread.
“No,” I said, ill-humouredly, “I can’t eat; my leg hurts me so.”
“Pomp can,” he said; “and him hand hurt too. Missie Morgan want to see Mass’ George.”
I took one of the pieces of bread Pomp gave me, and began to eat mechanically as I walked across the enclosure by the various little groups of settlers and their families, to where my father was busy with the other officers superintending the construction of a barricade outside the gate, so as to divide the Indians in case of an attack, and force them to come up to the entrance one by one.
“Ah, my boy,” said my father, quickly, “how is the leg?”