Chapter 48. How Samson Tried To Pass The Sentinels

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_ CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT. HOW SAMSON TRIED TO PASS THE SENTINELS

"Samson!" cried Fred, the next morning, in a fit of excitement, "oh, if we had properly looked over that cave in the old days, and seen what it was like!"

"Well, sir, I s'pose it would have been better, sir. All the nicer, too, for Sir Godfrey, if we'd reg'larly furnished it, and set up a couple of four-post bedsteads, and had down carpets and such."

"Do you mean this for banter, sir?"

"No, sir; I was only thinking it was stoopid of you to talk in that way."

"Samson!"

"Master Fred! How are we to know what's going to happen so as to be prepared? Human folks aren't seeds, as you know what they'll do. If I puts in a bean, it comes up beans; but you never know what we're going to come up."

"Don't ramble on like that. Now, listen to me. We must get them to the cave at once."

"Right, sir."

"Then what shall we do first?"

"First thing's wittling the place, and putting in some stores."

"Now, that sounds sensible. Quite right. We must get some blankets."

"From the Manor, sir?"

"Right again, Samson. And all the food we can. Why, Samson--"

"Yes, sir; I know what you are going to say. We've got to tell the ladies at the old home to hold their tongues, and say nothing to nobody, but go up to the Rill Head with a basket o' wittles, and enjoy themselves, looking at the ships sailing by on the sea, and not eat nothing themselves, but tumble everything down that hole, with blankets and pillows, too, if they like, and do it every day."

"Samson," said Fred, joyously, "I did not think of half that, and I'll never call you a stupid again. The very thing."

"Ah, I am a clever one, I am, sir, when you come to know me. But how are you going to get to the Manor?"

"You will have to go with a message from me to my mother. Yes, this very day; but don't tell them whom the provisions are for, and bid them be very cautious."

"You leave that to me, sir," said Samson. "And now, how are you going to get them to the cave?"

"We shall want a rope."

"I'll have it ready, sir. When?"

"This very night."

"Yes, sir."

"And we'll take them some of our men's caps and cloaks."

"Good, sir, and a pair of shears."

"What for?"

"No use to dress 'em up as our men when they've got long hair. Did you see our Nat, sir?"

"Yes, of course; but what do you mean?"

"Hair sprouted all over his head like a badly cut hedge, sir. He's been trying to grow like a Cav'lier, and he looks more like a half-fledged cuckoo."

"Don't waste time in folly. Can you get over to the Manor this afternoon?"

"Yes, sir, if you get me leave."

"And I will get the caps and cloaks."

"Don't want a donkey, I suppose, sir?"

"No, Samson; we must risk getting our horses there behind the Hall."

"Risky's the name for it, sir."

"Yes; but the poor wounded men cannot walk. We can do it no other way, and at any cost it must be done."

"Will they shoot us if we're caught, sir?"

"Don't talk about it. Leave the consequences, and act."

"Right, Master Fred; but I hope they won't catch and shoot us for being traitors."

"Don't call our act by that ugly name."

"Right, sir; but if we are caught and I am shot, you see if my brother Nat don't laugh."

"Why, man, why?"

"Because he'll say I was such a fool."

"So shall I, Samson, if you talk like that. Now, I cannot ask my father for leave to go across to the Manor without his questioning me as to why I wish you to go. You must get leave to go, so do what is necessary and get off at once."

"Don't you fear about that, Master Fred. And about poor Sir Godfrey, Master Scar, and that brother of mine? They must be terribly hungry."

"They must wait. We cannot go near them to-day. What we left must do, and they will be watching the more eagerly for us, all ready?"

"Then you mean it to-night, sir, without fail?"

"Without fail, Samson. Sir Godfrey must be got away to-night."

"Rope, wittles, blankets, and anything they like," said Samson, as he parted from his master; and after hesitating a little about asking leave to quit the camp, he came to the conclusion that it would be wiser to get permission from his officer to fish, and then, after selecting a spot where the trees overhung the water, steal off through the wood.

This he proceeded to put in force at once, to be met with a stern rebuff from the officer in question, a sour-looking personage, who refused him point-blank, and sent Samson to the right-about, scratching his head.

"This is a nice state of affairs, this is!" he grumbled to himself. "Here's Master Fred, thinking me gone off to carry out his orders, and I'm shut up like a blackbird in a cage. Whatever shall I do? It's no use to ask anybody else."

Samson had another scratch at his head, and then another, and all in vain; he could not scratch any good idea into it or out of it; and at last, in sheer despair, he walked slowly away, with the intention of evading the outposts, and, being so well acquainted with the country round, dodging from copse to coombe, and then away here and there till he was beyond the last outpost, when he could easily get to the Manor.

Now, it had always seemed one of the easiest things possible to get out of camp. So it was in theory--"only got to keep out of the roads and paths, cross the fields and keep to the moor, and there you are."

But when, after making up his mind which way to go, Samson tried to practise instead of theorise, he found the task not quite so easy. His plan was to go out of the park to the south, and then work round to the west; but he had not gone fifty yards beyond the park, and was chuckling to himself about how easy it was, and how an enemy might get in, when, just as he was saying to himself, "Sentinels, indeed! Why, I'd make better sentinels out of turnips!"

"Halt!" rang out, and a man appeared from behind a tree.

"Halt? What for? You know me."

"Yes," said the sentry. "I know you. Can't go out of the lines without a pass."

"What! Not for a bit of a walk?"

"Where's your pass?"

"Didn't get one. No pass wanted for a bit of a ramble."

"Go back."

"Nonsense! You won't turn a man--"

"Your pass, or go back."

"Go back yourself."

Samson took a step forward, and the man blew the match of his heavy piece, and presented it.

"Back, or I fire!" he cried.

"Yes; you dare, that's all!" cried Samson. "Such nonsense!"

But the man was in earnest, that was plain enough; and, seeing this, Samson went growling back, made a long _detour_, and started again.

This time he thought he had got through the chain of sentinels, and, congratulating himself on his success, he made for a little grove of birch-trees.

"Only wanted a little trying," he said.

"Stand!"

He started back in amazement, for he had walked right up to the muzzle of a firelock, the man who bore it proving more stern and severe than the one he had before encountered.

Samson went back, growling savagely; and this was the first line of sentinels! A second would have to be passed, and beyond that there were patrols of cavalry guarding the camp in every direction.

"Well, Master Fred shan't say I didn't try," he muttered, as he made now for the back of the Hall, where the great groves of trees sheltered the place from the north and easterly winds.

Here he again hoped to be successful, and, feeling assured at last that he had avoided the the sentries, he was about to make for a narrow coombe on ahead, when once more a man stood in his path, and asked for his pass.

"Haven't got it here," said Samson, gruffly.

"Then go back."

"Go back yourself," growled Samson; and, putting in effect a west-country wrestling trick, he threw the sentry on his back, and dashed down the slope toward the coombe. "He daren't go and tell," muttered the fugitive, "for he'd get into trouble for letting me go by."

_Bang_!

Samson leaped off the ground a couple of feet, and on coming down upon the steep slope, staggered and nearly fell. Not that he was hit, but the bullet sent to stop him cut up the turf close to his legs, and startled him nearly out of his wits.

"I'll serve you out for that, my lad," he muttered, "I shall know you again."

He ran on the faster though, and then to his disgust, found that another sentry was at the bottom of the coombe, and well on the alert, running to intercept him, for the shot fired had spread the alarm.

Seeing this, Samson dodged into the wood that clothed the western side of the coombe, and by a little scheming crept out a couple of hundred yards from where the sentry was on the watch.

"Tricked him this time," said Samson, chuckling, and once more starting, for a bullet whistled by his ear, and directly after there was the report.

But he ran on feeling that he had passed two of the chains of sentries, and that now all he had to do was to clear the mounted patrols.

This he set himself to do with the more confidence that there was no horseman in sight; and, with his hopes rising, he kept on now at a steady trot, which he changed for a walk as he reached the irregular surface of the moor, scored into hundreds of little valleys running into one another, and the larger toward the sea.

"Nothing like a bow, after all," muttered Samson, as he ran. "Shoot four or five arrows while you're loading one of those clumsy great guns. Got away from you this time, my lad. Ay, you may shout," he muttered as he heard a hail. "Likely! You'd have to holloa louder to bring me back, and--Well, now, look at that!" he grumbled, as he got about five hundred yards away, and suddenly found that he was the quarry of two of the mounted men, who had caught sight of him, and were coming from opposite directions, bent on cutting him off. "Well, I think I know this bit o' the country better than you do, and if I aren't mounted on a horse, I'm mounted on as good a pair o' legs as most men, and deal better than my brother Nat's."

He said all this in an angry tone, as he made straight for a patch of woodland at the edge of the moor, when, seeing this, and that the man on foot was steadily running in Samson's track, the two horsemen immediately bore away so as to intercept the fugitive on the further side, and soon disappeared from view.

"I thought you'd do that," said Samson to himself; and he turned sharply round, ran a few yards towards his pursuer, and then turned along one of the courses of a stream, and in a minute was out of sight, but only to double again in quite a different direction along the dry course of another rivulet, which wound here and there to the south.

"Get round 'em somehow," said Samson; and, settling himself into a slow trot, he ran on and on for quite a quarter of an hour, to where the hollow in which he had been running opened out on to open moor all covered with whortleberry and bracken, offering good hiding should an enemy be in sight, and with the further advantage of being only about a mile from the Manor.

"I shall trick 'em now," he said. "Once I've told 'em at the old house, they may catch me if they like; but they won't care to when they see me going back to camp."

"Halt!"

A sword flashed in poor Samson's eyes, and he found that the opening of the dry course was guarded by another mounted man, who spurred up to him and caught him by the collar before he had dashed away a dozen yards.

"Don't choke a fellow. I give in," grumbled Samson, as the man held him, and presented his sword-point at his breast. "There, I won't try to run. It's of no good," he added; and he made no opposition to a strap being thrown round his neck, drawn tight, and as soon as the man had buckled the end to his saddle-bow, he walked his horse slowly back toward the camp.

Before they had gone far, the other two mounted men trotted up, and seemed ready to administer a little correction with the flat of their swords.

"Yes, you do," said Samson, showing his teeth; "and as soon as this bit o' trouble's over, I'll pay you back, or my name aren't what it is."

"Let him alone," said his captor. "Come on, lad."

He spurred his horse to a trot, and Samson ran beside him, while the two others returned to their posts.

As it happened, Fred was riding along the outside of the camp with his father as the prisoner was brought in, and as soon as he saw who it was, the colour flushed to his face, and he felt that it was all over, and that he would have to confess.

"How now, sir!" cried the colonel. "You?"

"Yes, sir. I was only stretching my legs a bit, and this man tried to run me down."

"Are you the man reported by the sentry as trying to desert?"

"Me trying to desert, sir!" cried Samson, indignantly. "Do I look the sort o' man likely to desert, colonel, unless it was to get a good draught o' cider?"

"But you were out of bounds, sir."

"Father," began Fred, who was in agony, "let me--"

"Silence, sir! He is a soldier now, and must be treated as a soldier."

"Yes; don't you say nothing about me, Master Fred, sir. I can bear all I get."

"Go back to your quarters, sir. You are under arrest, mind, I will deal with you to-morrow."

Samson gave Fred a meaning look as he was marched off, and Fred's agony of spirit increased as he asked himself whether he ought not to confide in his father. A dozen times over he was about to speak, but only to hesitate, for he knew that the colonel would sacrifice his friend on the altar of duty, even if he had to sacrifice himself.

"I must save them," muttered Fred, as he went slowly back to his tent. "I am not firm and stern like my father;" and then, as soon as he was alone, he sat down to think of how he was to contrive the escape unaided and alone.

Night came, with his mind still vacillating, for he could see no way out of his difficulty, and, to render his position more difficult, the colonel came to his tent and sat till long after dark chatting about the likelihood of the war coming to an end, and their prospects of once more settling down at the home whose open doors were so near.

"And the Royalists, father? What of them?" said Fred at last.

"Exiles, I fear, my boy, for their cause is lost. They must suffer, as we must have suffered, had our side gone to the wall."

"Father," said Fred, "if you could help a suffering enemy now, would you do it?"

"If it was such help as my duty would allow--yes; if not, no. Recollect, we are not our own masters, but servants of the country. Good night, my boy. I think you may sleep in peace to-night;" and he strode out of the little tent, where his seat had been a horseman's cloak thrown over a box.

"Sleep!" said Fred to himself, "with those poor fellows starving in that hole. I must, I will help them, and ask his forgiveness later on. But how?"

"Pst! ciss!" came from the back of the tent. _

Read next: Chapter 49. Samson Is Not To Be Beaten

Read previous: Chapter 47. At The Point Of The Sword

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