A fierce burst of laughter came out of the darkness, followed by a long cry of pain.
“All-hallows be with us!” cried Aylward. “What is that?”
“As like as not some poor devil has fallen into their clutches, even as I did. Come this way, Samkin, for there is a peat-cutting where we may hide. Aye, here it is, but deeper and broader than of old. Now follow me close, for if we keep within it we shall find ourselves a stone cast off the King’s house.”
Together they crept along the dark cutting. Suddenly Simon seized Aylward by the shoulder and pushed him into the shadow of the bank. Crouching in the darkness, they heard footsteps and voices upon the farther side of the trench. Two men sauntered along it and stopped almost at the very spot where the comrades were lying. Aylward could see their dark figures outlined against the starry sky.
“Why should you scold, Jacques,” said one of them, speaking a strange half-French, half-English lingo. “Le diable t’emporte for a grumbling rascal. You won a woman and I got nothing. What more would you have?”
“You will have your chance off the next ship, mon garçon, but mine is passed. A woman, it is true—an old peasant out of the fields, with a face as yellow as a kite’s claw. But Gaston, who threw a nine against my eight, got as fair a little Normandy lass as ever your eyes have seen. Curse the dice, I say! And as to my woman, I will sell her to you for a firkin of Gascony.”
“I have no wine to spare, but I will give you a keg of apples,” said the other. “I had it out of the Peter and Paul, the Falmouth boat that struck in Creux Bay.”
“Well, well your apples may be the worse for keeping, but so is old Marie, and we can cry quits on that. Come round and drink a cup over the bargain.”
They shuffled onward in the darkness.
“Heard you ever such villainy?” cried Aylward, breathing fierce and hard. “Did you hear them, Simon? A woman for a keg of apples! And my heart’s root is sad for the other one, the girl of Normandy. Surely we can land to-morrow and burn all these water-rats out of their nest.”