“Then you’d no business to, sir. I only come up here to see the fight.”
“But I thought you were down in the ranks—gone to the attack.”
“Me? Now, was it likely, sir, as I should go and fight against the Hall? No, sir, my bad brother Nat, who is as full of wickedness as a gooseberry’s full of pips, might go and try and take the Manor, if it was only so as to get a chance to ransack my tool-shed; but you know better than to think I’d go and do such a thing by him. Would you mind tying that, sir?”
Samson had taken a strip of linen out of his morion, and after twisting it round the slight, freely bleeding cut on his finger, held it up for Fred to tie.
“Thank ye kindly, sir. I meant that for a leg or a wing, but it will do again for them.”
“I am very sorry, Samson,” said Fred, giving the knot a final pull.
“Oh, it don’t matter, sir; only don’t try any o’ them games again. So you thought I was a spy?”
“Yes.”
“And what was you going to do with me?”
“Make you a prisoner, and take you down to camp.”