"You said you never would see one again," he urged triumphantly. "Belike your speech about dying was no whit truer."
Andreas had no further words, but lifted his hand weakly upward, and Dickon knelt down and took it in his own hard palms.
Thus the two boys kept silence for a period—silence which spoke many things to both—and looked at the little rush-dips fluttering on the boughs against the curtain of black night.
Of a sudden, the stillness which had tenderly enwrapped them was roughly broken. If there had been warning sounds, the lads had missed them—for their hearts almost stopped beating with the shock that now befell.
A violent crushing of the bushes, a chance clank of metal—and two fierce-faced bowmen in half-armor stood in the firelight before their frightened gaze.
"Stir not—on your lives!" cried one of these strange intruders, with the cold menace of a pole-axe in his mailed hand. "What mummery is this?"
Somehow it dawned upon Dickon's consciousness that these warlike men, for all their terrifying mien, were as much frightened in their way as he was. This perception came doubtless from the lessons of a life spent with bold soldiers who yet trembled at sight of a will o' the wisp. He kept his jaw from knocking together with an effort, and asked as if at his ease:
"What mean you, good sir? No mummery is here."
"There! there!" shouted the other man-at-arms, pointing with his spear to where the rush-lights—or what remained of them—twinkled fitfully in the tree.
"Oh, that," said Dickon, with nonchalance. "It is a trick of foreign parts, made by me to gladden the heart of this poor lad, my master, who lies here sore stricken with sickness. Wist you not it is Christmas? This is our Tonnybow, meet for such a time."