A scream came from the sofa, followed by
murmurings and mournings. "Oh, England!
Oh, Pierce! Oh, wretched, wretched Janet!"

"I will send some one to sit with you," said
Miss Madge, over her shoulder. Then, "Come,"
she said to Hester, "I see you are willing for
work!" And grasping Hester's hand she led
her off out of the room.

"We shall have to sort the people you know,
my dear," said Miss Madge. "See how they
begin to pour in! We shall have to set up a
nursery, and dormitories for the sickly old men.
Not that I expect there will be much sleep to
be had here to-night, but it is better to be in
order. Sir Archie is busy getting the guns
fixed at the windows. I don't know that we
can help him much at that. But there may be
wounds to be dressed during the night. Do
you happen, to know anything of dressing a
wound?"

"I have seen them dressed at the hospital,"
said Hester.

"My dear, that is most fortunate. We shall
prepare some linen bands, and I will boil some
healing herbs."

They went out to a kitchen garden to pluck
the herbs, on a high ground away at the back
of the castle. A solemn moon had risen, and
the world was calm and cool. The soft velvet
outline of the hills rose darkly against the
mellow sky. All the perfume was streaming
out of the flowers with the dew. The hammering
at the windows where the guns were
getting fixed was the only sound heard, except
now and then at intervals the lowing of the
cattle, coming down with its homely echo from
the mountains.

Hester mounted on a bench, and looked
around her. "What are those lights, Miss
Madge," she said, fearfully—" those lights that
are smouldering on the hills? How they spring
up! And another, and another! Good God!
the flames are everywhere!"

"Those are the cottages—fired," said Miss
Madge. " Don't faint, child—don't faint, I tell
you. You can be brave if you wish. Will you
be brave? Are you brave?"

"Yes," gasped Hester. "It is only the first
shock."

"Good girl!" said Miss Madge, approvingly,
brandishing her bunch of fresh herbs in Hester's
face to revive her. "My dear, we are living in
history—in the history of our time."

CHAPTER XXVI. FIRE AND SWORD.

THE enemy was approaching. The people
kept pouring in, frantic with terror, crouching
into the corners which Miss Madge assigned
to them. Wailing children, fainting mothers,
mourning old men, and weeping girls. The
windows were barricaded, except just where
the guns protruded. Sir Archie, with his few
assistants, stood ready at their posts. After a
horrible spell of suspense the soldiers could be
heard mustering without, more and more
arriving, trampling of hundreds of feet, prancing
and floundering and terrible jingling ot cavalry,
shouting of fierce orders, oaths and triumphant
menaces, and hideous mirth, and, finally, the
opening roar of the guns.

Sir Archie replied gallantly to the salute. A
hurried glance below smote his heart with the
forlornness of his hope. Yet his courage did
not fail. How were the soldiery to know that
but a crowd of helpless people and a handful of
strong men were all the force that opposed
them from those windows? If but the fire
could be kept up! Every morsel of metal
about the castle was seized upon as treasure,
and Hester and Miss Madge got a lesson in
making bullets. A crippled old soldier, who
had fought bravely for England in his youth,
taught them and helped them. And so the
night wore on. A piteous crowd half dead
with fear, and so, happily, dumb; half a dozen
grim desperate men feeding their guns; two
screaming women, mad with terror, shut up in
their several rooms with their attendants; two
other women, pallid faces soiled with smoke,
low steady voices, hearts braced up with courage
for the emergency, swift steps and blackened
hands, toiling over a fire in a kitchen making
bullets; nimble-footed boys, who were the
making of brave men, running swiftly up and
down, carrying fragments of new-found lead,
bearing the newly-fashioned slugs up to the
gunners; barricaded windows, darkness, deadly
silence, smothered shrieks, muttered prayers,
groans, and again silence, with over all the
sickening, maddening roar of the assault, with
the pressing, and the trampling, and the threatening
of the assailants. These things were known
within the castle. A glimpse of the scene without
was like the opening up of hell: the glare
of fire everywhere upon hosts of devilish faces,
upturned, thirsting for blood.

"Miss, miss!" said a voice at Hester's elbow.
It was Pat, the good-natured butler.

"I'm makin' bould to spake up sharp to you,
miss," said Pat. "There's not a blessed minute
to be lost. I tell ye this is a more sarious business
than we tuk it for at the startin'. There's
swarms and swarms o' them out bye, an' there's
new ones comin' on, hivir' over the lawns, an'
the roads. I tell ye, miss, it's Sir Archie they
want, an' ye must coax him to make off. I ax
yer pardon, miss, but there's nobody could coax
him but yerself. There's a smart trusty boy,
with a stout bit of a boat, lyin' waitin' at the
shouldher of the bay. He can get off out o'
the back, an' creep along the ould moat. The
divil a sight they'll see o' him, an' we'll keep
the guns blazin'. The sea's like Lough Neagh,
an' there's not a breath o' wind. A stout couple
o' oars will take him across to the Mull o'Cantire
afore he's missed!"

"I'll tell him," said Hester.

"An' miss, I ax yer pardon. I mane ye well;
feth I do! But it 'd be as good if ye'd go with
him. They're havin' it goin' that it was stories
ye wrote to England that has brought down the
murther on the masther. An' if the boys comes
to believe it, they'll want to tear ye!"

"That is nonsense," said Hester. "A wild