“Your mother, sir, ’fore we” (nick, nick) “started for the wars at first.” (Nick, nick) “I shall never get a light.”
Samson was down upon his knees, striking a piece of flint sharply upon a thin bar of steel turned over at each end, so as to form a double hook, which the operator grasped in his left hand, while Fred stood gazing straight before him, sword drawn, and the point held over his man’s head, ready to receive any attack.
At every stroke with the flint, a number of sparks shone out for a moment, lighting up the striker’s face, but though he kept on nicking away, there was no result.
“Why, Samson,” whispered Fred, as he mastered a curious sensation of emotion at the man’s words, which brought up the memory of a pair of tender, loving eyes gazing into his at the moment of farewell, “you have forgotten the tinder!”
The nicking sound ceased on the instant, and Samson began indignantly—
“Well, I do like that, Master Fred. I mayn’t be a scholar, and I never larnt Latin, and that sort of stuff, but I’ll grow vegetables and make cider with any man in Coombeland.”
“What has making cider to do with tinder, you great oaf!” cried Fred, angrily, so as to hide his emotion.
“Nothing at all, sir; only you seem to think I’m such a bog-walker that I haven’t sense to know how to strike a light.”
“Well, where is the light? and how can you expect to get one without tinder?”
“I don’t. Here’s the tinder in a box, but all the sparks are blown over it by the draught.”