"No, but you cheered us for it," answered a dozen voices together.
"And that's more than any other squire in Warwickshire would 'a' done," cried young Wanless.
"Is that you, Tom Wanless?" queried Hawthorn.
"Yes, sir."
"Then you are a damned fool, Tom, and know nothing about it. All Englishmen like to see pluck, don't they, you young rascal?"
The ironical tone of this query was perceptible to all, and raised an answering laugh of irony, amid which Wanless shouted back—
"We ain't Englishmen, we labourers, except when we list and let ourselves be shot by the thousand when some big chap with a handle to his name says, March! An' even then the big chaps get all the rewards, and such o' the common lot as escape hardly get leave to beg. No, no, sir; we ain't Englishmen, we are only Englishmen's slaves."
"Drop that, Tom Wanless," interrupted Hawthorn; "drop it. Good Lord, man, do you suppose I came here to listen to a speech from you, when I kept well without earshot of the parsons. And, Gad, that reminds me—Where are the parsons? Francis! Francis!"
"Yes sir, yes sir," answered that staid person, hurriedly coming forward.
"Humph, making love to the wenches at my very elbow, you graceless dog. Go and tell the vicar with my compliments, that I want to speak to him out here in this old waggon with the bottom half out. Gad, I'll be through it, I do believe, before you get back. Could that shouting fellow have stamped holes in it," he added to himself, as Francis disappeared. "Shouldn't wonder," and chuckling again at the idea, he sat down on the side of the waggon, quite oblivious of the expectant crowd around him. An impatient hum soon broke on his ear, and he lifted his head and called out, "Go home to bed, you mutinous pack; you'll be defrauding your masters of an hour's work to-morrow morning."