“It's Minty,” he said, replacing the horseshoe on the coals, and setting his powerful arms and the sledge on the anvil with an exaggerated expression of weariness.
“Yes; it's me,” said Minty, “and Creation knows it's time I DID come, to keep that boy from ruinin' us with his airs and conceits.”
“Did ye bring over any o' that fever mixter?”
“No. Bradley sez you're loading yerself up with so much o' that bitter bark—kuinine they call it over there—that you'll lift the ruff off your head next. He allows ye ain't got no ague; it's jest wind and dyspepsy. He sez yer's strong ez a hoss.”
“Bradley,” said Sharpe, laying aside his sledge with an aggrieved manner which was, however, as complacent as his fatigue and discontent, “ez one of them nat'ral born finikin skunks ez I despise. I reckon he began to give p'ints to his parents when he was about knee-high to Richelieu there. He's on them confidential terms with hisself and the Almighty that he reckons he ken run a saw-mill and a man's insides at the same time with one hand tied behind him. And this finikin is up to his conceit: he wanted to tell me that that yer handy brush dump outside our shanty was unhealthy. Give a man with frills like that his own way and he'd be a sprinkling odor cologne and peppermint all over the country.”
“He set your shoulder as well as any doctor,” said Minty.
“That's bone-settin', and a nat'ral gift,” returned Sharpe, as triumphantly as his habitual depression would admit; “it ain't conceit and finikin got out o' books! Well,” he added, after a pause, “wot's happened?”
Minty's face slightly changed. “Nothin'; I kem back to get some things,” she said shortly, moving away.
“And ye saw HIM?”
“Ye-e-s,” drawled Minty, carelessly, still retreating.