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.

There were distant sounds--the snort of a horse where it was picketed, a
low humming as if some sentry were cheering his dreary watch by
recollections of an old west-country ditty, and then from a little
distance there was the half-hissing, half-grating cry of a white owl, as
it flapped along upon its downy, silent pinions, while, through the
trees at the edge of the wood, there was a dull red light, which showed
where the embers of the great oaken beams of the Hall sent forth their
dying glow.

"Let's go on," whispered Fred, just as something came gliding along the
edge of the wilderness, and as they moved it uttered a piercing screech,
turned, and swept away.

"Ugh!" ejaculated Samson; but Fred's hand was upon his lips, and they
stood close together with throbbing