All provisions in the town were given into one common store, to be doled out in regular rations, and so made to last as long as possible; and, as these rations were, from the first, extremely small, the sufferings of the besieged really began from the first day.
John Whitefoot found that there was but little for him to do, and spent much of his time on the walls, watching the throwing up of works by the besiegers.
A regular cannonade was now kept up on both sides; but, though the shot occasionally fell inside the town, the danger to the inhabitants from this source was but slight; for, of the six guns possessed by the besiegers, five were very small, and one only was large enough to carry shell.

All day the various chapels were open, and here the preachers, by their fiery discourses, kept up the spirits and courage of the people who thronged these buildings.

The women spent most of their time there, and the men, when off duty from the walls, however fatigued they might be with their labour, flocked at once to the chapels, to pray for strength to resist and for early succour.

Never were the whole population of the town more deeply animated by religious excitement, never a whole population more thoroughly and unanimously determined to die, rather than surrender.
When not upon the walls or in chapel, John spent much of his time in amusing the children, of whom there were many in the tanner's house.

The change from their country quarters, the crowded town, the privation of milk, and the scantiness and unfitness of their rations, soon began to tell upon the little ones, and John felt thankful, indeed, that his mind had been stored with stories from his varied reading of the last two or three years.