“Sorry for me?” he said. “Why, you’re a miserable rebel, that’s what you are.”
“Not I, Natty; not a bit miserable. If you was not here, I should lie back and sing.”
“Shall you sing when they take you out and hang you?”
“Not going to hang me, Natty; not ugly enough. Now, if it had been you— I say, Nat, I should like to have you hung up in the Manor garden to keep away the birds.”
“What?”
“To scare ’em. You do look such an old Guy Fawkes. I say, who cut your hair?”
Nat’s hand went involuntarily to his freshly shorn head, and a dull red glow came into his cheeks.
“You wait till I get better, and I’ll crop it for you neatly. Why, you don’t look one thing nor the other now. Cavaliers wouldn’t own you, and I should be ashamed to set aside you in our ranks.”
“Go on,” said Nat, grinning viciously. “That’s your nastiness; but it don’t tease me. I’m sorry for you, Samson. What a pass for a respectable Dee to come to, only you never was respectable. But there’s an end to all things. Made your will?”
“Nay, Natty, not yet.”