"
Begone, sot!" was the abrupt reply, not over-abundantly expressive of good humour at this disturbance. Will looked again towards the flagon; but great was his dismay on beholding it in the very act of disemboguing its precious contents into another gulf as insatiable as his own. Ralph Newcome, incited thereto by his own discrimination, together with the resistless relish of their guide, as soon as the latter had partially concluded, took up the subject, and long, powerful, and undeviating were the requisitions that he made.
"Plague on thy civility!—A fly will drink from anybody's cup, and so will a Yorkshireman," growled the uncourteous churl.
Ralph had, however, braced himself tightly to the task, and stood with an air of dogged defiance, stoutly confronting his accuser,—though, being a man of few words, the principal weight of the argument rested upon Will, whose eloquence was with difficulty interrupted on any subject.
"Peace," said one of the sleepers, raising himself half-way,—"I think we be like to bide here till our bones rot. There's nought but the same dun sky,—black, black, and unchanging. I should like to see a stiff blaze from some quarter. Our bundle, here, would soon be in a low."
"Hark!" said the other, "'tis something creaking amongst the faggots."
The sentinel rushed out, but the beacon was undisturbed.
"St Mary protect us!—'Tis the same noise I heard last night, and about the same hour."
The stranger here entered the hut. Enveloped in a huge cloak, he sate silent, and apparently inattentive; but the conversation was now abrupt, and broken down into short and interrupted whispers.
"I wish old Hal and his wives were here, with all my heart," said one: "we'd have a rare bonfire. How his fat paunch would swell! But for him and his unlucky women, we had been snug in the chimney-corner, snoring out psalmody, or helping old Barn'by off with the tit-bits in the kitchen."