"'Ah, well,' says he, 'think the best you can o me. You're much the man I'd ha been, if God had been gooder to me. Good-bye, Reube,' says he. 'All the luck.'
"And somehow he seemed a bit o choky; and somehow I felt the same myself.
"So cardingly they march me away to the top o the coombe, where it's steep as a ship's side, and gave me a shove.
"Down I sprawls, rolly-bowly, anyhow all among the jumping hares, and brought up in the shadows at the bottom.
"And as I was feeling to see if my head still set on my shoulders, a chap on horse-back comes cantering up the shoulder of the coombe above me, black against the light….
"That was the first o this here Gentleman all the talk's on…."
V
The mist was blowing by in huge white puffs like the breath of a giant.
"That was the beginning," continued Reuben. "It warn't the end though not by no means. Many's the time since then them words of his about the blockade-chaps, and his queer way o sayin em's come back to me."
"Why?" asked the boy.