Nell had been kneeling beside Mark's prostrate form, but at Charlotte's call she laid his head on Harriet's breast and flung herself against my arm outstretched to receive and restrain her.
"Now, Nickols, steady! I'll lift them past the beam," said the parson, as he braced himself in the door space which had been crushed into a narrow opening.
"Charlotte, take the baby from Mikey and hand her to me first," he commanded. "Where are you caught, Mikey?"
"Me leg," wailed Mikey and his wail was echoed by poor little Mrs. Burns.
"Here," said the parson, as he handed the brown swaddled bundle to Nell, who caught it in her arms and sank shuddering to my feet.
"Now, Charlotte, I want you to get all the other children who are not caught into line and make them walk carefully, just as you did here to me," said the parson in a perfectly calm voice, the one he had used to command his small congregation in the weeks of the drill.
"They are all crying and got their heads covered up," answered Charlotte in despair. "They won't get up and march." Loud wails of fear and anguish accompanied this statement, as if to corroborate it.
"Sing with me, Susan, sing the march," came the command without an instant's delay from the lips of the beloved Minister.
"Onward, Christian soldiers
Marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus
Going on before—"
came wee Sue's high, sweet voice which rose from the cavern and joined with the parson's in the old song that has led strong men through many a death watch.