“And see if your brother is better?”
“Nay, nay; I’m not going to take all that trouble ’bout such a fellow as him, sir. ’Tis ’bout that food I’m thinking. Shall we go, sir?”
“Yes, Samson, yes; and look here: don’t try to deceive me like this, because it will not do.”
“Oh well, it never was no use to argue with you, sir, when you was a schoolboy. Now you’re a young officer, you’re harder still. There, I’m not going to say any more; but is it likely I should do all this ’bout an enemy, unless it was to make him a prisoner? There, I’m off to get them rods and worms.”
Samson went across to the Hall garden, and shortly afterwards reappeared with a pot and basket.
“We can get the two rods somewhere down by the lake,” he said; and one of the sentinels as he stood, firelock in hand, smiled grimly, and thought of how he would like to leave his monotonous task, and go down to the lake side to fish, after the fashion he had so loved when a boy.
This man watched them right to the edge of the water, where he saw Samson select and cut two long willow rods, and strip them clean of leaf and twig before shouldering them, and marching on beside his master.
“It’s well to be them,” grumbled the man, “for who knows whether in these days of bloodshed a lad may ever have a chance to fish again?”
He shouldered his firelock, and continued his slow tramp to and fro, looking out for the enemy, but more often turning his gaze toward his fishing friends.
“Bring the hooks and lines, Master Fred?” said Samson, as they went on toward the west end of the lake.