And soon amid this confusion of sounds was a stamping of horse, the tread of feet and presently voices within the mill itself; one in especial that poured out a flood of oaths and fierce invective upon rain and wind and all things in general.
"O burn me, and must we wait here, shivering in the darkness with a curse on't and me wet to the bone——"
"Content ye, my lushy cove, the others aren't far."
"The others, curse 'em! And what o' me shivering to the bones o' me as I'm a roaring lad——"
"What, Jerry," cried another voice, "is the Captain wi' you?"
"Aye, here I am—show a light!"
"Why so I will an ye gimme time. So we're all met, then—all here, Nick?" Followed the sound of flint on steel, a flash, a glow, a light dazzling in its suddenness, a light that revealed four masked men, mud-splashed and bedraggled, thronged about a lanthorn on the uneven floor.
"Now mark me all," said Joseph pushing up his vizard. "You, Jerry and the Captain will ride to the cross-roads, the finger-post a-top o' the hill. The coach should reach thereabouts in half an hour or so. Benno and I strike across the fields and join my gentleman's coach and come down upon you by the cross-roads. So soon as you've stopped the coach, do you hold 'em there till we come, then it's up wi' the lady and into my gentleman's coach wi' her. D'ye take me?"
"No we don't!" growled Jerry, shaking the rain from his hat, "how a plague are we t' know which is the right coach——"
"By stopping all as come your way——"