“It hurts pretty bad, Lafe,” Hadley admitted, wincing when the scout touched the leg which was now inflamed about the wound.
There was a rill nearby, and to this the scout hurried and brought water back in his cap. With the boy’s handkerchief he washed the dry blood away and then, by skilful pressure of his fingers, found the exact location of the imbedded bullet. “Oh, this ain’t so bad,” he said, cheerfully. “We’ll fix it all right in no time. But ye musn’t do much walking for some days to come. Yeou can ride, though, and I’ve got a hoss nearby. First of all, I must git the ball aout and wash the hole. Ye see, Had, the ball lies right under the skin on the back of the leg—so. D’ye see?”
“I can feel it all right,” groaned Hadley.
“Well, it’s a pity it didn’t go way through. Howsomever, if you’ll keep a stiff upper lip for a minute, I’ll get the critter aout. ’Twon’t hurt much ter speak of. Swabbin’ aout the hole, though, ’ll likely make ye jump.”
He opened the knife again and, before Hadley could object, had made a quick incision over the ball and the lead pellet dropped out into his hand. The boy did not have a chance to cry out, it was done so quickly. “So much for so much,” said Lafe, in a business-like tone. “Nothin’ like sarvin’ yer ’prenticeship ter all sorts of trades. I ain’t no slouch of a surgeon, I calkerlate. Now, lemme git an alder twig.”
He obtained the twig in question, brought more water, and then proceeded, after having removed the pith from the heart of the twig, to blow the cool water into the wound. Hadley cried out at this and begged him to desist, but Lafe said: “Come, Had, yeou can stand a little pain now for the sake of being all right by and by, can’t yeou? It’s better to be sure than sorry. P’r’aps there warn’t no cloth nor nothin’ got inter that wound, but ye can’t tell. One thing, there warn’t no artery cut or ye’d bled ter death lyin’ under them bushes all night. I ’spect many a poor chap did die in yander after the retreat. Anthony Wayne’ll have ter answer for that. They say he’s goin’ ter be court-martialed.”
Having cleaned the wound, Holdness bound it up tightly with strips torn from the boy’s cotton shirt, and then brought up the horse which he had hidden hard by. He helped the boy into the saddle and walked beside him until they were through the American picket lines. The wounded had been sent on to Philadelphia, for there were few conveniences for field hospitals. “Yeou take that hoss and ride inter Philadelphy, Had,” said Holdness. “Leave it at the Queen and take yourself to this house”—he gave the wounded lad a brief note scrawled on a bit of dirty paper—“and the folks there’ll look out for ye till the laig’s well. I’ll git another hoss somewhere else that’ll do jest as well. Yeou can’t go clean back to Jarsey with your laig in that shape.”
It was a hard journey for the wounded youth, and before he crossed the Schuylkill and followed Chestnut Street down into the heart of the town, he was well-nigh spent. He fairly fell off the horse in front of the Indian Queen Tavern, and the hostler had to help him to the address which Holdness had given him. Here the good man and his wife—Quaker folk were they, who greatly abhorred the bloodshed of the war, yet were stanch supporters of the American cause—took the boy in and cared for him as though he was their own son. For a night and a day he kept to his bed; but he could not stand it any longer than that. The surgeon who was called to attend him declared the wound had been treated very well indeed by the scout, and that it was healing nicely; so what does Master Hadley do but hobble downstairs to the breakfast table on the second morning, determined no longer to cause the good Quakeress, Mistress Pye, the extra trouble of sending his breakfast up to him.
He was anxious to learn the news, too. Affairs were moving swiftly these days in Philadelphia. The uncertainty of what the next day might bring forth forced shops to close and almost all business to cease. The Whigs were leaving by hundreds; even the men who held authoritative places in the council of the town had departed, fearful of what might happen when the redcoats marched in. And that Washington could keep them out for long, after the several reverses the American troops had sustained, was not to be believed.
A sense of portending calamity hung over the city like an invisible cloud. A third of the houses were shut and empty. Many of the others were occupied solely by servants or slaves, the families having flown to the eastward. Hadley did not get outside the door of the Pye house that day, for he was watched too closely. But early on the morning of the 26th the whole street was aroused by the swift dash of a horseman over the cobbles; and a cry followed the flying messenger: