Polly as thowt that way first, and Luke as thinks as she does.
However it be, she be dead set agin them, and she's said to me jest the
same thing as thou'st been a-saying; anyhow, it be sartain as Polly
ha' said no to John Stukeley, not as she said nowt about it, and no one
would ha' known aboot it ef he hadn't gone cussing and swearing down at
the 'Dog.'

"I thinks. Maister Ned, as we shall ha' trouble afore long. The men
ha been drilling four or five years now, and oi know as they ha' been
saying, What be the good of it when nowt is done and the wages gets
lower and lower? They have preachments now out on t' moor on Sunday,
and the men comes from miles round, and they tells me as Stukeley and
others, but him chiefly, goes on awful agin t' maisters, and says,
There's Scripture vor it as they owt to smite 'em, and as how tyrants
owt vor to be hewed in pieces."

"The hewing would not be all on one side, Bill, you will see, if they
begin it. You know how easily the soldiers have put down riots in other
places."

"That be true," Bill said; "but they doan't seem vor to see it. Oi don't
say nowt one way or t' other, and oi have had more nor half a mind to
quit and go away till it's over. What wi' my brothers and all t' other
young chaps here being in it, it makes it moighty hard vor oi to stand
off; only as oi doan't know what else vor to do, oi would go. Oi ha'
been a-thinking that when thou get'st to be an officer oi'll list in
the same regiment and go to the wars wi' thee. Oi am sick of this loife
here."

"Well, Bill, there will be no difficulty about that if you really make
up your mind to it when the time comes. Of course I should like to
have you very much. I have heard my father say that each officer has
a soldier as his special servant; and if you would like that, you see,
when we were alone together we should be able to talk about Varley and
everything here just as we do now. Then I suppose I could help you on
and get you made first corporal and then a sergeant."

"Very well, Maister Ned, then we will look on that as being as good as
settled, and as soon as thou gets to be an officer oi will go as one of
your soldiers."

For an hour they walked across the moor, talking about a soldier's life,
Ned telling of the various parts of the world in which England was at
that time engaged in war, and wondering in which of them they would
first see service. Then they came back to the village and there parted,
and Ned,