Andy and Hortense, telling the others to wait, did as suggested. Creeping cautiously through the bushes, they could hear the little soldiers talking together before they could see them. Unfortunately, Andy stepped on a dry stem which broke with a snap. The soldiers ceased talking at once and Andy and Hortense lay still, scarcely daring to breathe.
"What was that?" asked one of the soldiers at last in a low voice.
"It must have been a bird," said the other. "I saw a great owl only a moment ago."
Then they resumed their talk.
"Well, it makes our work easier to have them gone," said one. "The short fat fellow was always eating the strawberries instead of putting them in his basket, and the tall one wouldn't work when he had a rhyme to find."
"And now," said the other, "they are to wear fine clothes and have nothing to do. It must have been the Queen who interceded for them."
"I don't call it nothing to do to make jokes all day or to write a poem when ordered," said the first.
"True," his companion replied. "I should rather pick berries. Meanwhile I'm going to take a nap. The Captain won't be back for hours."
"Me, too," the other agreed. "We'll lay our breastplates and helmets to hand and slip them on when we hear him coming."
Thereupon silence ensued, and Hortense and Andy lay still. It was evident, Hortense was thinking, that Highboy and Lowboy had been ordered back to court, and to help them escape would be difficult, for how dared she and Andy go near it, escaped prisoners as they were?