felt
that there was nothing left for him to do but confess all he had done to
his father, he encountered Samson.

"Why, Master Fred!" he exclaimed, "you look as if you'd got the worries
on you."

"Worry? Why, man, we have to march almost directly, and those poor
people in the cave are--"

"What poor people? in what cave? Only wish I was one of 'em. Having it
luscious, that's what they're a-having, Master Fred, sir. Chicken and
eggs, and butter and new bread, and milk and honey, and nothing to do.
Blankets to wrap 'em in, and cider and wine, and ladies to go and talk
to 'em."

"Samson, are you sure of this?" cried Fred, joyfully.

"Wish I was as sure as all this human being cock-fighting was nearly
over, Master Fred."

"Then you've been over?"

"'Course I have, sir. I aren't like the colonel, about here all these
weeks, and never going home nor letting you go. I got leave this time,
for I met the general, and told him how near I was to my garden, and how
anxious I was about the weeds, and he laughed and give me a pass
directly."

"And my mother?"

"Your mother, Master Fred? Why, I couldn't get to know about them in
the cave for her asking me questions about the colonel and her boy! She
would call you a boy, sir, though you think you're a man, and no more
muscle in your arms than a carrot."

"But the people in the cave, Samson?"

"Don't I tell you they're all right, sir--right as right can be; and
first chance there's going to be a boat round from Barnstaple to take
Sir Godfrey and Miss Lil and my lady away across the sea to France, and
Pshaw! I never heard the like of it; they're going to take that great
rough ugly brother of mine with them. They're all right."

Many weeks of busy soldiering followed, by which time the king's power
was crushed, and the Parliamentary forces had swept away all opposition.
Regiments were gradually disbanded, and the Forresters at last returned
to the Manor, from which Colonel Forrester's stern sense of duty had
kept him away, as much as the calls of his military life.

"There, Samson," he said, smiling, as they rode home, "you may sheathe
your sword, and sharpen your rusty scythe; while you, Fred--what are we
to do with you? Send you back to school?"

"No, father, I must be what I am--a soldier still," said Fred, proudly;
"but I hope in peace more than in war."

"Yes; we have had enough of war for years to come."

The colonel drew rein that sunny afternoon a