hy, what does that mean?"

"Mean, sir? Why, I feel as if I could jump out o' my skin."

"Why?"

"Because I'm a-going along o' you, and to show my brother Samson as
we've got some stuff in our family."

"But I didn't say that you were to go."

"No, Master Scar; but you're going to, aren't you?"

Scarlett was silent.

"Oh, Master Scar, sir, don't you run back. Do, do pray take me. Ah, I
see a twinkle at the corner of your mouth. You're only teasing a
fellow. I may go, sir?"

"Yes, Nat; and I'm very, very glad."

Nat startled the horses by throwing his cap to the roof of the stable,
and made them tug at their halters, but it did not seem to matter to
him, for he caught up a pitchfork, shouldered it, and began to march up
and down, shouting rather than singing a snatch of a song he had heard
somewhere in the neighbourhood, where the war fever had been catching
more men than they knew--

"`So it's up with the sword that will fight for the crown,
And down with the--down with the--down with the--'

"I say, Master Scar, what comes next?"

"I don't know at all. But I'll tell you what must come next."

"Yes sir."

"Pack up and be ready for the march to-morrow, and we've got to say
good-bye."

"Yes, Master Scar, and glad I'll be when it's over, for there'll be some
wet eyes in the Hall, both parlour and kitchen, before we set away."

Nat was right. There were tears, many and bitter, for master and man
that night; and next morning when, after tying a scarf round her son's
shoulder, Lady Markham clung to him passionately, till, with a last
hasty kiss to his sister, a final embrace to his mother, Scarlett set
spurs to his sturdy horse, and galloped off across the park to where Nat
was waiting, and there he drew rein to allow his father to come up.

Sir Godfrey rode fast till he was within about twenty yards, when he
signed to them to ride on, and the trio went forward slowly till they
were at the top of the slope, where they instinctively turned to take a
farewell look at the old Hall and the handkerchiefs waving adieu.

"So peaceful and happy," said Scarlett to himself; and then, with a
curious sensation as of a film being drawn over his eyes, he turned
away, pressed his horse's sides, and when he strained round in the
saddle again to look back, it was to see the tops of trees growing about
his home, and the moorland spreading away to the sea. Nothing more.

"Hah! I'm glad that's over, Master Sca