Samson turned over and sat up,
staring in his assailant's face.

"You here?"

"Here, sir, yes; and look what you've done. Don't ketch me sharping
your sword again, if you're going to serve me like that."

He held up his hand, which was bleeding from the fact of his having
seized hold of the blade which had pinned down his hilt.

"But I thought you were one of the enemy--a spy."

"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."

"Well, you are a one!" said Samson, looking at his young master, and
laughing. "Think of a whipper-snapper like you trying to capture a big
chap like me."

Fred winced angrily.

"Well, not so much of a whipper-snapper as Master Scarlett, sir; but you
haven't got much muscle, you know."

"Muscle enough to try."

"Yes, sir," said the ex-gardener, thoughtfully; "but it isn't the muscle
so much as the try. It's the thinking like and scheming. You see a bit
of rock stands up, and you can't move it with muscle, but if you put a
little bit of rock close to it, and then get a pole or an iron bar, and
puts it under the big rock and rests it on the little, and then pushes
down the end, why, then, over the big rock goes, and it's out of your
way."

"Yes, Samson," said Fred, thoughtfully, as he watched the advance; "and
so you didn't care to go to the attack?"

"No, sir, I wouldn't; but it was tempting, though; ay, that it was."

"Tempting?"

"Well, you see, Master Fred, Nat has got some chyce cabbage seed, and
he'd ne