and two companies from other
regiments were ordered to attack it. Our officers were all shot down
before we reached the stockade, but we got in, and went at the
Burmans with the bayonet. But such a crowd came at us from the rear
of the stockade that we had to go out again, and we ran down the
hill. Our ranks were broken, and we had no time to rally before a
lot of horsemen were among us. My bayonet was broken, and I had
nothing but my empty musket to fight with. I warded off the sabre
cuts with it right and left, so, dodging among the horses, and I was
not once wounded. It was all over in a hot minute or two, but, when
the supports came up, and we were afterwards mustered, only five men
of our company answered the roll-call. Of course I was one of them,
and the barrel of my musket was notched like a saw by all the strokes
I had parried with it." The last time Philip saw Summers he was
hammering bluestone by the roadside. The pomp and circumstance of
glorious war had left him in hisold age little better than a beggar.

Philip found Nyalong without much trouble, and renewed the
acquaintance begun at Bendigo with Mr. Barton and the other diggers.
To all appearance his promotion was not worth much; he might as well
have stayed at the Waterholes. Mr. McCarthy acted as school director
--an honorary office--and he showed Philip the school. He said:

"It is not of much account, I must acknowledge; we were short of
funds, and had to put it up cheap. Most of the wall, you see, is
only half a brick thick, and, during the sudden gusts that come
across the lake, the north side bulges inward a good deal; so, when
you hear the wind coming you had better send the children outside
until the gale is over. That is what Mr. Foy, the last teacher did.
And, I must tell you also this school has gone to the dogs; there are
some very bad boys here--the Boyles and the Blakes. When they saw
Mr. Foy was going to use his cane on them they would dart out of the
school, the master after them. Then there was a regular steeplechase
across the paddocks, and every boy and girl came outside to watch it,
screaming and yelling. It was great fun, but it was not
school-teaching. I am afraid you will never manage the Boyles and
the Blakes. Mr. McLaggan, the minister, once found six of them
sitting at the foot of a gum tree, drinking a bottle of rum. He
spoke to them, told them that they were young reprobates, and were
going straight to he