After a time the hurry and excitement quieted down, for after scouts and patrols had done their work, the whole alarm was traced to one of the sentinels, who had heard whispering in the wood near which he was stationed, and had fired at once, his nearest fellow having taken up the signal, fired, and slowly fallen back.
“Better too much on the qui vive than too drowsy,” said the general, at last, good-humouredly. “I was afraid, Forrester, it was an attempt on the part of the enemy to escape.”
“And we could clear it all up with a word, Samson,” said Fred, who was full of self-reproach.
“But don’t you speak it, Master Fred,” whispered Samson, who had contrived to get another jerkin. “If you tell, they’ll go down to the wood, and find that brother of mine, and bring him in, and here he’ll be lying in clover, and doctored up, and enjoying himself, while poor we are slaving about in sunshine and rain, and often not getting anything to eat, or a rag to cover us.”
“I shall not speak, Samson, for there was no harm done,” said Fred, quietly; “but I wonder at your covering your enemy from the cold.”
“Needn’t wonder, sir. Didn’t I always cover my tender plants from the cold? It wasn’t because I liked them, but so as they’d be useful by-and-by. My brother Nat will be useful by-and-by. I want him. I shall give him such a lesson one of these days as shall make him ashamed of himself.”
A trumpet rang out again on the night air, and men dismounted, picketed their horses once more, and some lay down to snatch a few hours’ rest, while others sat together talking and asking one another questions about the attack they foresaw would most probably take place that day, for the night was waning, and they knew that before long the dawn would be showing in the east, and that it would be morn; while, in spite of plenty of sturdy courage and indifference to danger, there were men there who could not refrain from asking themselves whether they would live to see the next day.
It was somewhere about sunrise when Fred fell asleep, to dream of being in the dense thicket, carrying Nat, the Hall gardener, on his back to the hole broken through into the secret passage, where he threw him down, and covered him up with bushes to be out of the way till he got better; but, as fast as he threw him down, he came back again, rebounding like a bladder, till Samson came to his help, drew his sword, and pricked him, when he sank down to the bottom and lay still. Then Scarlett seemed to come out of the hole and reproach him for being a coward and a rebel, seizing him at last and shaking him severely, and all the while, though he struggled hard, he could not free himself from his grasp. So tight was his hold that he felt helpless and half strangled, the painful sensation of inability to move increasing till he seemed to make one terrible effort, seized the hands which held him, looked fiercely in his assailant’s eyes, and exclaimed, “Coward, yourself!”
“Well, sir, dare say I am,” was the reply; “but what can you expect of a man when you take him out of his garden and make a soldier of him all at once.”
“Samson!”