“Why, Samson,” said Fred, with a sad smile, “every one says you two are so like.”
“So we are, sir, to look at,” replied Samson, grinning; “but I never said I was good-looking, did I?”
“Yes, I’m ready,” said Fred, rising from his heather couch. “Oh, how stiff and cold I am!”
“You’ve just wakened; that’s why. You’ll be as fresh as fresh soon. Come along, sir, and we’ll give that rascal such a bullying.”
“With care and chicken,” said Fred, with a miserable attempt at being jocose.
“Now, don’t I keep telling you it’s only to make him strong, so as he can feel it all the sharper when I give him the big beating I’ve promised him? Come along, sir.”
Fred made a few inquiries as to the state of affairs; learned that the camp was quite at rest, and that he was not likely to be called on duty, and then, with a terrible depression of spirits, increasing at every step, he walked on beside Samson on as dark a night as he could recall.
“Dark, sir?” said the ex-gardener, in response to a remark. “Well, yes, sir, it is; but it don’t make any difference to us. We could find our way where we are going with our eyes shut.”
The darkness was not their only difficulty: they had to avoid the sentinels again, and neither could say for certain whether any changes had been made.
Still, both had been on moorland, over bog, and through the deepest woods in the dark on trapping expeditions times enough. They had even been in the darkness on the dangerous cliff slopes again and again, so that they had no hesitation in going rapidly on till the lake had been skirted and the wilderness reached, without their being challenged. Then the dense undergrowth was entered, and they stood listening for a few moments.