"Wait!" peremptorily commanded a third voice in soldier-like tones. "Don't let us make any mistake."
"Oons!" impatiently grunted the second speaker; "I tell you, colonel, 'tis the spot, if I knows it, and I were born here. Yonder stands the Rye House 'telle'e, and yonder to to'ther side o' the road—"
"Road!" interrupted the military voice rather contemptuously, "you call it a road? Why 'tis scarce broad enough for a couple of broad-shouldered loons like you to walk abreast. Road forsooth!"
"King's highway, then," laughed the first speaker, whose accent was refined but disagreeably sarcastic.
A low chorus of laughter greeted this remark.
"That he'll be lying low enough upon," went on the first speaker, "before Oak Apple Day. And is yonder gabled house the King's Arms, friend?"
"Ay it be, my Lord Howard."
Something in the water.
"Forward then. Come, Walcot, if you've done mooning. What ails you, man? Staring at the water as if you saw your own double in it!"
"Do you see that?" hurriedly returned the soldier.