By this time, the trench was dug, most of the timber was prepared, and the business of setting up the stockade was commenced.  Each young tree was cut to the length of twenty feet, and pointed at one end.  Mortices, to receive cross-pieces, were cut at proper distances, and holes were bored to admit the pins.  This was all the preparation, and the timbers were set in the trench, pointed ends uppermost.  When a sufficient number were thus arranged, a few inches from each other, the cross-pieces were pinned on, bringing the whole into a single connected frame, or bent.  The bent was then raised to a perpendicular, and secured, by pounding the earth around the lower ends of the timbers.  The latter process required care and judgment, and it was entrusted to the especial supervision of the deliberate Jamie, the major having discovered that the Yankees, in general, were too impatient to get on, and to make a show.  Serjeant Joyce was particularly useful in dressing the rows of timber, and in giving the whole arrangement a military air.

“Guid wark is far better than quick wark,” observed the cool-headed Scotchman, as he moved about among the men, “and it’s no the fuss and bustle of acteevity that is to give the captain pleasure.  The thing that is well done, is done with the least noise and confusion.  Set the stockades mair pairpendic’lar, my men.”

“Ay—­dress them, too, my lads”—­added the venerable ex-serjeant.

“This is queer plantin’, Jamie,” put in Joel, “and queerer grain will come of it.  Do you think these young chestnuts will ever grow, ag’in, that you put them out in rows, like so much corn?”

“Now it’s no for the growth we does it, Joel, but to presairve the human growth we have.  To keep the savage bairbers o’ the wilderness fra’ clippin’ our polls before the shearin’ time o’ natur’ has gathered us a’ in for the hairvest of etairnity.  They that no like the safety we’re makin’ for them, can gang their way to ’ither places, where they ’11 find no forts, or stockades to trouble their een.”

“I’m not critical at all, Jamie, though to my notion a much better use for your timber plantation would be to turn it into sheds for cattle, in the winter months.  I can see some good in that, but none in this.”

“Bad luck to ye, then, Misther Sthroddle,” cried Mike, from the bottom of the trench, where he was using a pounding instrument with the zeal of a paviour—­“Bad luck to the likes of ye, say I, Misther Strides.  If ye’ve no relish for a fortification, in a time of war, ye’ve only to shoulther yer knapsack, and go out into the open counthry, where ye’ll have all to yer own satisfaction.  Is it forthify the house, will we?  That we will, and not a hair of the missuss’s head, nor of the young ladies’ heads, nor of the masther’s head, though he’s mighty bald as it is, but not a hair of all their heads shall be harmed, while Jamie, and Mike, and the bould ould serjeant, here, can have their way.  I wish I had the trench full of yer savages, and a gineral funeral we’d make of the vagabonds!  Och!  They’re the divil’s imps, I hear from all sides, and no love do I owe them.”