The Governor’s house, the alarm-post, was to become the head of a long line of signal-stations.
CHAPTER VIII
PETER NIMBLE AND DENNIS IN THE ALARM-POST
Peter, after being entrusted with Dennis’s secret of the hidden powder, walked about like one whose head was in the air. If he stuck pumpkin-seeds into corn-hills, he did so with a machine-like motion. He had listened to the singing of the birds in the cedars, but he forgot the bird-singing now; though he loved rare wild flowers, a white orchid bloomed among the wintergreens by the ferny brookside, but he did not see it now; the sky, the forests, and everything seemed to have vanished away.
He watched Dennis after their return as the latter came out of the alarm-post over the way and went to the tavern or the war office.
Dennis for a time merely bowed to him and passed him by, day by day, when on duty; and the corn grew, and the orioles flamed in the air. But one thought held him—a picture of the light in the window in the cedars, guarding some unknown cave that contained the lightnings and the thunder of the battle-field. What would come of that service?
He at last felt that he must see Dennis. He could stand the suspense no longer.
So one night he crept up to Dennis’s chamber under the rafters.