I had no
time to ask any questions of your sergeant, for we were called up
and sent off five minutes after he arrived with the news that you
with three men were beleaguered here by a party of peasants."
Malcolm related the whole incidents which had befallen him since
he had been suddenly felled and made captive by the women in the
hut in the village. The Swede laughed over this part of the adventure.
"To think," he said, "of you, a dashing captain of the Green Brigade,
being made captive by a couple of old women. There is more than one
gallant Scot, if reports be true, has fallen a captive to German
maidens, but of another sort; to be taken prisoner and hid in a
straw yard is too good."
"It was no laughing matter, I can tell you," Malcolm said, "though
doubtless it will serve as a standing jest against me for a long
time; however, I am so thankful I have got out of the scrape that
those may laugh who will."
When Malcolm finished his story Captain Burgh said: "You have
managed marvellously well indeed, Graheme, and can well afford to
put up with a little laughter anent that matter of the women, for
in truth there are few who would with three men have held a post
against four or five hundred, as you have done --ay, and fairly
defeated them before I came on the scene. That thought of yours of
laying the door upon the stairs was a masterly one, and you rarely
met and defeated every device of the enemy.
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