ow crowded
into the vacant rooms in the empty part of the house, had taken
possession of their respective quarters for the night. In the meantime
a hearty supper was provided for the traveller in the library, the
bullet-proof window-shutters of which room, and indeed of all the
others on that side of the building, having first been closed, in order
that lights might be used, without drawing a shot from the adjoining
forest.

"We are very safe, here," observed the captain, as his son appeased his
hunger, with the keen relish of a traveller. "Even Woods might stand a
siege in a house built and stockaded like this. Every window has solid
bullet-proof shutters, with fastenings not easily broken; and the logs
of the buildings might almost defy round-shot. The gates are all up,
one leaf excepted, and that leaf stands nearly in its place, well
propped and supported. In the morning it shall be hung like the others.
Then the stockade is complete, and has not a speck of decay about it
yet. We shall keep a guard of twelve men up the whole night, with three
sentinels outside of the buildings; and all of us will sleep in our
clothes, and on our arms. My plan, should an assault be made, is to
draw in the sentinels, as soon as they have discharged their pieces, to
close the gate, and man the loops. The last are all open, and spare
arms are distributed at them. I had a walk made within the ridge of the
roofs this spring, by which men can run round the whole Hut, in the
event of an attempt to, set fire to the shingles, or fire over the
ridge at an enemy at the stockades. It is a great improvement, Bob;
and, as it is well railed, will make a capital station in a warm
conflict, before the enemy make their way within the stockade."

"We must endeavour not to let them get there, sir," answered the
major--"but, as soon as your people are housed, I shall have an
opportunity to reconnoitre. Open work is most to the taste of us
regulars."

"Not against an Indian enemy. You will be glad of such a fortress as
this, boy, before the question of independence, or no independence,
shall be finally settled. Did not Washington entrench in the town?"

"Not much on that side of the water, sir; though he was reasonably well
in the ground on Long Island. _There_ he had many thousands of
men, and works of some extent."

"And how did he get off the island?" demanded the captain, turning
round to look his son in the face. "The arm of the sea is quite hal