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We'll give the message, but she'll go all the same." With a sudden spring, for which Fanny was not prepared, Hester loosened her hand from Fanny's arm. The next minute she had caught Sylvia's hand, and the two were speeding away in the direction of the lower garden and the fascinating company of old Birchall. Fanny could have stamped her foot with rage.
"Oh," said Hetty, "you shouldn't say that, Sylvia! Birchall is nice, but he isn't a patch upon Donald Macfarlane." "If you want to see Birchall, I will walk with you," said Fanny. "You can't object to my doing that, can you?" "We mean to run," said Hetty. "Oh no, you don't!" said Fanny. Here she took Hetty's hand, pulled it violently through her arm. "You've got to talk to me, both of you.
"I want to show you where some heather grows. It is certainly not rich, nor deep in color, nor beautiful, like yours; but it has grown in that particular spot for two or three years. I am quite sure that Birchall will say that the soil round that heather is the right sort of earth to plant your Scotch heather in." "Well, come, and let's be very quick," said Betty.
"Don't it make you feel good?" he demanded sharply. "It's the last guess answered, unless there's a guess when that boy, Birchall, comes along. Anyway, you don't figger ther's much guess to that, with the mill runnin' full, an' every boom crashed full of logs. No. Here, Bull!" he cried, with sudden vehemence. "Turn around, man. Turn right around an' get a grip on it all.
"I don't think they will," she said after a pause. "But I'll tell you what we must do, Betty: we must get the right sort of soil for them just the sandy soil they want. We'll go and consult Birchall; he is the oldest gardener in the place, and knows something about everything.
The 4th Canadian battalion at one moment came under a particularly withering fire. For a moment it wavered. "Its most gallant commanding officer, Lieut.-Col. Birchall, carrying, after an old fashion, a light cane, coolly and cheerfully rallied his men and at the very moment when his example had infected them, fell dead at the head of his battalion.
"There's things we can take a joy in remembering. But this isn't one of 'em. No. The thing for us now is work. Plenty of work. The mill needs to be in full work inside a week. We haven't an hour to lose, with young Birchall coming along over. Skert's promised us power in twenty-four hours. He's at it right now. The camps on the river'll be working full, and making up lost time.
Birchall, who had taken a circuitous route, arrived late, whilst the band of sailors arrived early. They numbered, moreover, forty-six as against eleven gangsmen and two officers. Four to one was a temptation the sailors could not resist. They attacked the gangs with such ferocity that out of the thirteen only one man returned to the rendezvous with a whole skin.
The day happened to be a field-day, and as Birchall crossed the market square to wait upon the magistrates at the City Hall, he was "given to understand what might be expected in the evening," for one of the artillerymen, striking his piece, called out to his fellows: "Now for a running ball! There he goes!" with hissing, booing and execrations.
Men say that at times the lines seemed to waver and almost to break; that the whole advancing force, small and scattered though it was, seemed to bend backward as cornstalks in wind, but always they saw the colonel ahead and recovered balance. Colonel Birchall fell dead on the parapet of the German trench, but he got what he had come after. His men were with him.
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