Our House Was Unfortunately On The Main
Road Running South From The Capital, And Directly In The Way Of The
Coming Rabble.
That the danger was a real and very great one we could
see in the anxious faces of our elders; besides, nothing was now
talked of but the coming army and of all we had to fear.
At this juncture my brother took it upon himself to make preparations
for the defence of the house Our oldest brother was away, shut up in
the besieged city, but the three of us at home determined to make a
good fight, and we set to work cleaning and polishing up our firearms-
the Tower musket, the awful blunderbuss, the three fowling-pieces,
double and single-barrelled, and the two big horse-pistols and an old
revolver. We collected all the old lead we could find about the place
and made bullets in a couple of bullet-moulds we had found - one for
ounce and one for small bullets, three to the ounce. The fire to melt
the lead was in a shelter we had made behind an outhouse, and here one
day, in spite of all our precautions, we were discovered at work, with
rows and pyramids of shining bullets round us, and our secret was out.
We were laughed at as a set of young fools for our pains. "Never
mind," said my brother. "Let them mock now; by and by when it comes to
choosing between having our throats cut and defending ourselves, they
will probably be glad the bullets were made."
But though they laughed, our work was not interfered with, and some
hundreds of bullets were turned out and made quite a pretty show.
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