“Don’t be hard on a poor fellow, captain,” he said, just as Roy was ready with a prepared speech about being sorry to see the man in so grievous a condition.
“Hard upon you, Sam! What for?”
“Sneaking out o’ all the fun like this here! ’Taren’t my fault, you know. I didn’t want to stop in bed; but my lady says I must, and that she’ll report me to you if I don’t obey orders. I say, let me get up, sir. It’s just foolishness me lying here.”
“Foolishness! What! with that bad wound?”
“Bad, sir? Why, you don’t call that bad. If he’d cut my head off, I’d ha’ said it was.”
“How?” cried Roy, unable to repress a smile.
“How, sir? Why—oh! o’ course not. Didn’t think o’ that; I s’pose I couldn’t then. But I say, Master Roy, sir—I mean cap’n, I’m just ashamed o’ myself letting her ladyship wait on the likes o’ me!”
“Why should you be, Sam? Haven’t you been risking your life to defend us?”
“Me? No, sir, not as I knows on,” said the man, staring.
“Well, I do know; and now you are not to talk.”