"Yes," muttered the old soldier, "a good sleep will do the boy good--
harden his legs. I said my old soldiering was coming back; I wish my
old legs would come back and be the same as they used to when I could
walk for weeks, instead of aching like this when I haven't had to walk,
but have been riding all day. Hah!" he sighed, as he lowered himself
down into the back of the chariot to lean against the side once more.
"I can keep watch over him just as well sitting down as standing up. I
don't see that I need watch at all when the boy's got a pillow with a
set of teeth like a rat trap that will take fast hold of anyone who came
to interfere with him. But there's the master. We have got to meet
some day, and I shall have to give an account of myself. `What were you
doing away from the farm?' he'll say. `Watching over your boy, master,'
says I. That will have him on the hip. That's my only chance, the only
thing that will save me."

Serge's grim face relaxed, and he rolled about in his seat, chuckling
softly.

"It will get me off," he said; "it will get me off with the master. He
won't be very hard on me after that. It aren't quite honest, for I
never thought a bit about the boy when I went away. But I did mean to
take him back, and I'd have done it too, and stopped with him, only he
was too much for me. Ah, he's a clever one. He's only a boy, but he's
got a lot of man in him, and when he gets ripe, you mark my words," he
said, softly, staring hard at the dimly-seen driver the while, "he'll be
as big a man as his father. I don't mean as to size; like as not he'll
be bigger. I mean as to his head. It aren't quite fair, and maybe it's
a bit like deceiving the master to answer him like that when he says,
`What are you doing there?' and I says, `Watching over your boy,
master,' But I am going to watch over him, and I'll stick to him, and
I'll die for him if I'm obliged; and you can't say that arn't honest."

Serge bent forward and literally glared at the sleeping driver, who
muttered something in reply.

"Ah, you may say what you like," muttered Serge, "but that will be
honest; and if you put that in one side of the balance, and my forsaking
the old place when I was told to stay, in the other, they'll weigh
pretty much alike. Yes, I'll watch over him, master, like a man, just
as I would have done if he had been my own, for somehow I always seemed
to like him, and I suppose I should have felt just about