I hope, ere long, my father will let me enter, but he
is waiting to see what comes of it. No. I have been idle enough. Well, of
course, I know all the officers in the cavalry now, and pretty nearly all
the officers in the camp, and then, with these constant skirmishes and
attacks by your people and ours, there is always plenty to interest one.
General Hamilton has been conducting the siege lately, but General Rosen
returned yesterday and took the command; but there's really not much to
do. We know you cannot hold out much longer."
"I don't know," John said quietly. "I think that, as long as a man has
strength enough to hold his arms, Derry will not surrender. When you
march in, it will be to a city of dead people. We had such hopes when the
fleet came. If the people could have caught Kirk, they would have torn
him in pieces. He had five thousand soldiers on board, and, if he had
landed them, we could have sallied out and fought, instead of dying of
hunger."
"Yes," Walter agreed, "we should have retired at once. We have only seven
or eight thousand men here now, and if five thousand English soldiers had
landed, we must have raised the siege at once. I can tell you that,
though he is on the other side, I was almost as angry at Kirk's cowardice
as you must have been.
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