Crown and Sceptre: A West Country Story

proceeded to put in force at once, to be met with a stern rebufffrom the officer in question, a sour-looking personage, who refused himpoint-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, andI'm shut up like a blackbird in a cage. Whatever shall I do? It's nouse to ask anybody else."

  Samson had another scratch at his head, and then another, and all invain; he could not scratch any good idea into it or out of it; and atlast, in sheer despair, he walked slowly away, with the intention ofevading the outposts, and, being so well acquainted with the countryround, dodging from copse to coombe, and then away here and there tillhe 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 outof camp. So it was in theory--"only got to keep out of the roads andpaths, 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 topractise instead of theorise, he found the task not quite so easy. Hisplan was to go out of the park to the south, and then work round to thewest; but he had not gone fifty yards beyond the park, and was chucklingto 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 makebetter 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 withouta 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 heavypiece, 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 ofbirch-trees.

  "Only wanted a little trying," he said.

  "Stand!"

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

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

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

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

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

  "Then go back."

  "Go back yourself," growled Samson; and, putting in effect awest-country wrestling trick, he threw the sentry on his back, anddashed 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 uponthe steep slope, staggered and nearly fell. Not that he was hit, butthe bullet sent to stop him cut up the turf close to his legs, andstartled him nearly out of his wits.

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

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

  Seeing this, Samson dodged into the wood that clothed the western sideof the coombe, and by a little scheming crept out a couple of hundredyards 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 thereport.

  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 nohorseman in sight; and, with his hopes rising, he kept on now at asteady trot, which he changed for a walk as he reached the irregularsurface of the moor, scored into hundreds of little valleys running intoone another, and the larger toward the sea.

  "Nothing like a bow, after all," muttered Samson, as he ran. "Shootfour 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 mutteredas he heard a hail. "Likely! You'd have to holloa louder to bring meback, and--Well, now, look at that!" he grumbled, as he got about fivehundred yards away, and suddenly found that he was the quarry of two ofthe mounted men, who had caught sight of him, and were coming fromopposite directions, bent on cutting him off. "Well, I think I knowthis bit o' the country better than you do, and if I aren't mounted on ahorse, I'm mounted on as good a pair o' legs as most men, and dealbetter than my brother Nat's."

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

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

  "Get round 'em somehow," said Samson; and, settling himself into a slowtrot, he ran on and on for quite a quarter of an hour, to where thehollow in which he had been running opened out on to open moor allcovered with whortleberry and bracken, offering good hiding should anenemy be in sight, and with the further advantage of being only about amile 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 megoing back to camp."

  "Halt!"

  A sword flashed in poor Samson's eyes, and he found that the opening ofthe dry course was guarded by another mounted man, who spurred up to himand 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 heldhim, and presented his sword-point at his breast. "There, I won't tryto run. It's of no good," he added; and he made no opposition to astrap being thrown round his neck, drawn tight, and as soon as the manhad buckled the end to his saddle-bow, he walked his horse slowly backtoward the camp.

  Before they had gone far, the other two mounted men trotted up, andseemed ready to administer a little correction with the flat of theirswords.

  "Yes, you do," said Samson, showing his teeth; "and as soon as this bito' 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 twoothers returned to their posts.

  As it happened, Fred was riding along the outside of the camp with hisfather 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, andthat 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 torun 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 thesort o' man likely to desert, colonel, unless it was to get a gooddraught 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,