Peninnah Penelope Anne, although restored to private life and the maternal domicile, having retired from statecraft and the functions of linguister to the embassy, did not altogether escape public utility in these bellicose preparations.  The young gunner, who had had the opportunity of observing her during the march hither, shortly applied to her for assistance in his professional devoir.  He wanted a deft-handed young person to construct the cartridge-bags for the ammunition which he was fixing for the little piece and the two coehorns.  And thus it chanced that she found herself in the blockhouse, cheek by jowl with the little cannon, its grisly muzzle now looking out of the embrasure where she herself had once been fond of taking observations of the stockade entrance; the men came and went and speculated upon the chances of the scouting quest, now about to set forth, while spurs clanking, ramrods rattling down into gun-barrels, voices lifted in argument or joyous resonance, made the whitewashed walls ring anew.  The gunner, seated at a table carefully and accurately measuring out the powder, now and again urged strict cautions against the lighting of pipes or striking of sparks from gun-flints.  When he applied himself briskly to the cutting out of more bags from flannel for his cartridges, he looked very harmless and domestic in his solicitude to follow his wooden pattern, or “pathron” as he called it, for the creature was Irish.  He gave minute and scrupulous directions to Peninnah Penelope Anne to sew the cylinder with no more than twelve stitches to the inch, and to baste down the seams, “now, moind ye that!—­ivery wan!—­that no powther might slip through beyant!”

In the pride of the expert he was chary of commendation and eyed critically the circular bottom of every bag before he filled it with powder.

“See that, now,” he said, snipping briskly with the scissors; “that string of woolen yarn that yez left there, a-burnin’ away outside, might burst the whole gun, an’ ivery sowl in the blockhouse would be kilt intirely,—­moind ye that, now!—­an they would n’t be the Frenchies, nayther!” He gave her a keen warning glance at rather close range, then once more renewed his labors.

The mockingbirds were singing in the woods outside.  The sun was in the trees.  The leafage had progressed beyond the bourgeoning period and the branches flung broad green splendors of verdure to the breeze.  The Great Smoky Mountains were hardly less blue than the sky as the distant summits deployed against the fair horizon; only the nearest, close at hand, were sombre, and showed dark luxuriant foliage and massive craggy steeps, and their austere, silent, magnificent domes looked over the scene with solemn uplifting meanings.  Oh, life! life was so sweet, and love and friendship were so easy to come by and so hard to part withal, and glad, oh, glad was she that no men of the French nation or any other were on their march hitherward to be torn in cruel lacerations by