A small cot-bed was now carried into this room, and up there, after his wound had been dressed by Basha, who, like many old-time women, was skilful in dressing wounds and learned in the properties of herbs and roots, and he had been fed and bathed, the soldier was taken; and a very grateful man he was as he settled himself upon the comfortable bed and looked up with a smiling "thank you," into Basha's face, which was no longer grim and forbidding.
All this time no special notice had been taken of Dorothy and Arthur. They had followed about to watch the bathing, feeding and tending, and when Mrs. Heath turned to leave the secret chamber, she found them behind her, staring in with very wide-open eyes indeed; for, if you can believe it, they never before had even heard of, much less seen, this lovely little secret chamber. It was never deemed wise in colonial families to talk about these hiding-places, which sometimes served so good a purpose, and I doubt if many adults in the town of Hartland knew of this secret chamber in the Heath house.
The panel was closed, and Abram was left to care for the wounded soldier through the night. It was nine o'clock, the colonial hour for going to bed, and long past the children's hour, and Dotty and Arthur in their prayers by their mother's knee, put up a petition for the safety of the stranger.
"Would they hang him if they could get him, mamma?" asked Arty.
"Certainly," she replied. "It is one of the rules of warfare. A spy is always hung."
In the morning, from nine to eleven, Mrs. Heath always devoted to the children's lessons. Arthur, who was eleven, was a good Latin scholar. He was reading Cæsar's Commentaries, and he liked it—that is, he liked the story part. He found some of it pretty tough reading, and I need not tell you boys who have read Cæsar, what parts those were. They had English readings from the Spectator, and from Bishop Leighton's works, books which you know but little about. Dotty had a daily lesson in botany, and very pleasant hours those school hours were.
After dinner, at twelve, they had the afternoon for play. That afternoon, the day after the soldier came, they went berrying. They did this almost every day during berry time, so as to have what they liked better than anything for supper—berries and milk. Occasionally they had huckleberry "slap-jacks," also a favorite dish, for breakfast; not often, however, as flour was scarce.
They went for berries down the road known as South Lane, a lonely place, but where berries grew plentifully. Their mother had cautioned them not to talk about the occurrence of the night before, as some one might overhear, and so, though they talked about their play and their studies, about papa and his soldiers, they said nothing about the soldier.
They had nearly filled their baskets, when a growl from Cæsar startled them, and turning, they saw two horsemen who had stopped near by, one of whom was just springing from his horse. They were in British uniform, and the children at once were sure what they wanted.