"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. "See what?" and then ensued a sound of shuffling and scraping, as if the whole party was crowding to the side of the bridge. "Why yes, for sure we does," said the native of the place, and whom Ruth recognized by his voice to be a workman in the malt-yard named Barber. "I doubt if each on us had but one eye apiece, like the measter's, we could see the moon a shoinin' on the stream." Ruth breathed again. "But there is no moon. 'Tis gone." "Starlight, then." "That is too faint to cast any such reflections," objected Colonel Walcot. "And see how it flashes: there! close up against the steps, as bright and sharp as forked lightning." "Or a silver serpent," put in another voice. "Or an eel," laughed Lord Howard; "come, colonel, let's push on." "Nay, nay, bide a minute," cried another voice, which Ruth knew to belong to the foreman of the malting-yard. "The colonel's grace is right. There is summat lyin' in the stream. And 'tis nayther fire nor fish, and if I might be speakin' out my moind afore your lordship's worship, I should say as 'tis for all the world like a swoord, or one o' they skewer sort o' murdrous wepn's--" "A rapier do you mean?" said Howard. "Noa, noa, my lord, not just that, but a new sort o' blood-spillin' invenshun that--" "Save us!" shiveringly ejaculated the other maltster. "What if so be that 'tis a shadder, or some evil sperrit warnin' us of the wickedness of our ways, afore it be too late." "Coward! white-livered loon!" savagely hissed Lord Howard. "What have we to do with shadows, who fear neither man nor--" "Oh, oh! Hush, hush, my lord," interrupted a cringing unmelodious voice, "ye speak unadvisedly." "So do you, Master Ferguson," wrathfully cried my lord, "as you'll find when we string up your lean crow's neck for you to Master Sheppard's sign yonder, if you don't keep your cant till we ask for it. Come, quick march." Then with stealthy, but quick and measured tramp, the whole party passed on. Cramped in every joint, for she had scarcely dared to draw breath, much less to stir, Ruth ventured now to raise one corner of her cloak, and peer after this strange company. [Sidenote: Strange guests for the "King's Arms."] One by one she saw their black figures disappear from the flood of yellow light upon the road, within the deep porch of the inn.