"See if you can improve on it."
By this, under orders from the sergeant, two or three dragoons were
creeping under the wagon to fire from behind the wheels. I dropped a man
standing at the horses' heads and then, in the nick of time and on second
thoughts, made sure of the mare and hit her in the neck. She squealed,
kicked, and plunged, and the other horse sharing her fears, they began to
drag the wagon off. The sergeant and two or three men leaped at them and
managed to quiet them, and then took them out of the traces to save
further trouble of the sort. The Colonel, meanwhile, having reloaded,
brought down another dragoon with one shot, and ripped open a sack with
another. It was barley.
For perhaps a minute the window had been as safe as her corner, and
Margaret had been quietly watching the scene. Now, with seven or eight men
lying on the top of the sacks, with a stout row of them piled in front as
a bulwark, it was time for us to run to cover again. This time, of her own
accord, she came my side, and nestled beyond me in the nook between the
wall and my body.
The men in the passage still made no sign.
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