‘Only that he’s here with his tens of thousands, and that we are to ride to meet him sword in hand as soon as we have assembled in the town ahead here.’
‘O Lord!’ said Noakes, with a slight falling of the lower jaw.
‘The man who quails now is unworthy of the name of yeoman,’ said Festus, still keeping ahead of the other troopers and holding up his sword to the sun. ‘O Noakes, fie, fie! You begin to look pale, man.’
‘Faith, perhaps you’d look pale,’ said Noakes, with an envious glance upon Festus’s daring manner, ‘if you had a wife and family depending upon ye!’
‘I’ll take three frog-eating Frenchmen single-handed!’ rejoined Derriman, still flourishing his sword.
‘They have as good swords as you; as you will soon find,’ said another of the yeomen.
‘If they were three times armed,’ said Festus—‘ay, thrice three times—I would attempt ’em three to one. How do you feel now, my old friend Stubb?’ (turning to another of the warriors.) ‘O, friend Stubb! no bouncing health to our lady-loves in Oxwell Hall this summer as last. Eh, Brownjohn?’
‘I am afraid not,’ said Brownjohn gloomily.
‘No rattling dinners at Stacie’s Hotel, and the King below with his staff. No wrenching off door-knockers and sending ’em to the bakehouse in a pie that nobody calls for. Weeks of cut-and-thrust work rather!’
‘I suppose so.’