s, "I felt just now as
if I hated you!"

"Just you say that again!" he cried, laughing grimly. "You forget, you
young dog, that I have you by the hip. You are my patient, and I have
as tight a hold of you as an old baron in the good old times had of his
prisoners. There! He is coming to, and I sha'n't have to hurt him any
more to-day."

"Will he have to lose his leg, doctor?" I whispered.

"What! Because of that hole? Pshaw, boy! The bullet is out, and
nature has begun already to pour out her healing stuff to make it grow
together. I'll make him as sound as a roach before I have done. Now we
must see to getting our wounded under cover. I didn't think the Gap
would ever be turned into such a hospital as this. Why, Sep, it's quite
a treat to get such a morning's practice in surgery. There! I'll go
and wash my hands, and I must have some breakfast or I shall starve."

Breakfast! Starve! At such a time as this! I looked at him in horror,
and he read my thoughts and laughed.

"Why, you young goose!" he exclaimed, "do you think I can afford to be
miserable and have the horrors because other people suffer? Not a bit
of it. I'm obliged to be well and hearty and--unfeeling--eh? Ah, well,
Sep! I'm not such an unfeeling brute as I seem; and I'd give fifty
pounds now to be able to find those poor fellows breakfast and shelter
at once."

The doctor was able to supply his patients with refreshments without the
expenditure of fifty pounds, for Mother Bonnet had just come up to
announce that she had been back to the cottage to find it untouched,
after going away in alarm when the Frenchmen landed, and she said that
she had the fire lit and coffee and tea on the way for every one who
wanted it.

"Mother Bonnet, you're a queen!" cried the doctor; and then turning to
me: "Rather strange that they should have spared the cottage and old
Jonas's goods, eh, Sep? There's something behind all this."

We were not long in finding out what was behind all this. I had my own
suspicions without the doctor's, and they were soon confirmed by the
coming of the big three-masted lugger, which was brought close in by the
man-o'-war's men, who landed with a lieutenant at their head, and came
up the Gap to see our condition.

He was a bright, manly fellow, and my father and he became friends at
once, while he was quite humorous in his indignation.

"The cowardly scoundrels!" he cried. "Oh, if we had only been here!
How de