Part 69 (1/2)

”I don't like being beaten like this, Master Fred,” grumbled Samson, leaning over to smooth the reeking coat of the horse his young master rode; ”and it's all your fault.”

”My fault? How?”

”Holding me back as you did, and letting that brother of mine get away sneering and sn.i.g.g.e.ring at me, with his nose c.o.c.ked up in the air, and swelling with pride till he's like the frog in the fable.”

”How do you know he was sneering at you?” said Fred, who felt stiff, sore, and as if he would give anything to dismount and lie down among the soft elastic heather.

”How do I know, sir? Why, because it's his nature to. You don't understand him as I do. I can't see him, because I can't look through that hill, but I know as well as can be that he's riding on his horse close to Master Scarlett, and going off.”

”Going off?”

”Yes, sir, in little puffs of laughing. It's his aggravating way. And he's keeping on saying, 'Poor old Samson!' till it makes my blood bile.”

”What nonsense! He is more likely to be riding away jaded, and sore, and disheartened.”

”Not he, sir, because he aren't got no heart, and never had none-- leastways, not a proper sort of heart. I can feel it, and I always could. He's a-sneering at us all, and thinking how he has beaten us, when, if you had let me have my head, I could have gone at him sword in hand--”

”And cut his head off?”

”Cut his head off, sir? Why, it aren't worth cutting off. I mean to keep my sword, which is a real good bit o' stuff, and as sharp as a scythe, for better heads than his. I wouldn't stoop to do it. No, Master Fred, I tell you what I'd have done: I'd have ridden up to him right afore 'em all, and I should have said, 'Nat, my lad, your time's come;' and I should have laid hold of him by the scruff of the neck, and beat him with the flat of the blade till he went down on his knees and said he wouldn't do so any more.”

”Do what any more, Samson?”

”Everything as he have been doing.”

”And suppose he wouldn't have let you beat him before all the others?”

”Wouldn't have let me, Master Fred? He'd have been obliged to. I should have made him.”

”You are too modest, Samson,” said Fred, laughing.

”Oh no, I'm not, sir--not a bit. I wish sometimes I was a bit more so.

But you should have let me go at him, sir. I'd have made him run, like a sheep with a dog at his heels.”

”Ah, Samson,” cried Fred, wearily, ”it's sore work when brothers are fighting against each other.”

”No worse, sir, than two such friends as you and Master Scarlett was.

Why, you was more than brothers. Oh, I don't like this here at all.”

”What?”

”Running away with our tails between our legs, like so many dogs with stones thrown at 'em.”

”It is miserable work, but better than being taken prisoners.”

They rode on down into the coombe, and followed its wanderings with rear and advance guards, though they felt but little fear of pursuit, and for a long time hardly a word was spoken along the ranks. The horses were going at a foot-pace, and as they went the troopers played surgeon to each other, and bound up the slight wounds they had received, for these were many, though not enough to render them beyond fighting if necessity should occur.

Once the general called a halt, and posted scouts on the hills around, while he gave his men an opportunity to water their horses at the running stream at the bottom of the coombe, and to attend to the wounds the poor beasts had received, many a sword-cut intended for the rider having fallen upon his horse.