obody; I did it out of my own head."

"And pray why?"

"Because I thought, if ever you came back, it would make you mad."

"So it has. How would you like me to come and rout about in your
garden?"

"Dunno. Come and try."

"Well, I would ha' put in that row o' beans straight if I did."

"Straight enough, Natty; it's your eyes are crooked. Come back to
stop?"

"No; going back to furren abroad."

"Then what's the good of my master building up the house again?"

"What? Did he?"

"Ay; came and see me doing up your garden as it had never been done up
before, and went away and ordered in the workpeople."

"Hum!" said Nat.

"Ha!" said Samson.

"Well, aren't you going to shake hands?"

"Ay, might as well. How are you, Nat?"

"Quite well, thank you, Samson. How are you?"

"Feel as if I should be all the better for a mug o' cider. What says
you?"

"Same as you."

"Then come on."

And Nat came on.

For peace was made, and though rumours of the next war at the
Restoration came down to the west, those who had been enemies stirred
not from the ingle-side again till Fred Forrester was called away; but
Scarlett had become a student and a scholar, and the young friends met
no more in strife. When they did encounter, and ran over the troubles
of the past, it was with a calm feeling of satisfaction in the present,
and the old war time as years slipped by seemed to them both as a dream.

"Yes," cried Sir Godfrey, eagerly, as he laid his hand on Colonel
Forrester's shoulder; "some day, with all my heart."

"I am very glad," said the stern colonel, smiling at a group by the
house where the ladies were seated, and Fred and Lil, so intent on each
other's converse, that they did not perceive that they were watched.

But other eyes had noted everything during the past year, and it was
evident that the time would come when Fred Forrester and Scarlett
Markham would be something more than friends.

THE END.

End of Project Gutenberg's Crown and Sceptre, by George Manville Fenn

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