“Well, while I ha’ got hands to get my living I don’t want gold nor silver: I never heard one of your rich folk whistle in all my born days; and as for your madams, why my Madge has a laughing face that shames them. Dang it, I wish I were back with her, and you might soldier and the Roundheads might preach long enough afore I’d come among ye.”
“Why I don’t say any thing for those fellows that pray and preach; and sometimes I am afraid they’ll stand between a good soldier and his right, and wo’n’t let him have his fair share of plunder. There’s that grave, demure leeftenant they call Cuthbert drove me and two more out of the parson’s orchard this very afternoon before I mounted duty. He looks too sharp after other people’s business, that godly rogue; and if ever I catch him tripping in a thick smoke, I’ll give him a rap on the sconce shall make him sleep sound enough ever after.”
“Thou shalt never hurt a hair of his head while I am by,” said the rustic soldier: “he’s a kind, fair-spoken gentleman as ever stepped in shoe-leather.”
“Tut! you’re both of a kidney—both fools alike—I’ve been throwing away my breath on. Keep your own path, and keep moving,” said the musketeer, and resumed his own cross beat in a surly silence.
Warned by this adventure that Parliament soldiers were quartered for the night in Old Beech, and by the mention of Cuthbert’s name, and the anecdote connected with it, that he had a friend among the hostile party, who would, as far as possible, protect his interests, Juxon instantly resolved to pass round by another road, and put up at a detached farm-house a quarter of a mile to the north of the village, where he could gain more accurate information of their doings, and judge how to act in the morning. He was turning about quietly, to steal off and get back to his horse, when his attention was again arrested by the musketeer saying suddenly and bluntly to the pikeman, “You want to be off home, I’m sure.”
“You’re right enough there, and no conjurer:—I told you so.”
“I mean, you want to desert.”
“No, I doant.”
“Yes you do, and you’ll run off when the fighting comes.”