"Well, brothers," said a gruff voice behind them, "are you as sick to get into York as we are? You're late come to the siege, by the well-fed look of you."
"Just as sick," assented Michael cheerfully. "By the look of you, you're one of Lord Fairfax's men at Walmgate Bar. Well, it is pleasant to be among good Puritans again, after the cold welcome given us by the Scots at Micklegate."
So then the trooper talked to them as brother talks to brother. Within five minutes they learned all that the English thought of their Scottish allies, and what they thought would not look comely if set down on paper.
Michael warmed to the humour of it. The man with the heart of a Cavalier and the raiment of a Puritan hears much that is useful from the adversary. He told of their late errand, the safe delivery of their papers, and the contents. He explained—confidentially, as friend to friend—that he had an errand of strategy, and must get into York before sundown. Was there any quiet way of entry?
"Well, there's what they call a postern gate nigh handy," said the trooper, with the burr in his speech that any Wharfedale man would have known. "D'ye hear the mill-sluice roaring yonder? Though it beats me how she can roar at all, after all this droughty season."
"It has been a dry time and a dreary for our friends," put in Michael, with unctuous sympathy.
"Drear? I believe ye. If I'd known what war and siege meant, the King might have bided at Whitehall for ever—Star Chamber taxes or no— for aught I cared. At first it rained everything, save ale and victuals; and then, for weeks on end, it droughted. There's no sense in such weather."
"But the cause, friend—the cause. What is hardship compared with the Parliament's need?"
"Parliament is as Parliament does. For my part, I've got three teeth aching, to my knowledge, and other-some beginning to nag. You're a preacher, by the look o' ye. Well, spend a week i' the trenches, and see how it fares with preaching. There's no lollipops about this cursed siege o' York."
Kit could only marvel at his brother's grave rebuke, at the quietness with which he drew this man into talk—drew him, too, along the bank of Fosse Water till they stood in the deafening uproar of the weir.