"If 'twas awnly another party!" thought the girl. "Doan't be such a fule," she said.
"That's what everybody have been advisin' me of late," he answered calmly, without the least annoyance or shame. "'Tis the state of my mind. Things come between me an' my work—a very ill-convenient matter. But, whether or no, I'll be proud of that coat now."
She sat comfortably beside him, and presently, after further silence, Henry lolled over towards her, and, taking a straw, sought with clumsy pleasantry to stick it into her hand under the white cotton glove which she was wearing.
"What be about?" she asked sharply. "Go along with 'e! Doan't 'e knaw me better than to think I be so giddy?"
Thus repulsed, Mr. Collins apologised, explained that in reality he did know Sally better, that his action was one of pure inadvertence, and that he admired her character by special reason of its sobriety. Silence again overtook them, and, while Sally fidgeted impatiently, the man's owl eyes roamed from off her face to the woods, from the woodland back again to her. He stuffed his pipe slowly, then returned it to his pocket; he sighed once or twice, tied up his boot-lace, and cleared his throat. After a painful pause the woman spoke again.
"Be us at a funeral or a junketing? You look for all the world as if you'd catched something hurtful. Wheer's your manners? What's in your mind now?"
Henry gulped, and pointed to an oak immediately opposite them—a great tree bound about in a robe of ivy.
"Was just considerin' 'bout thicky ivydrum, an' what gude sneyds for scythe-handles her'd make."
"Then you'd best to bide here with your scythe-handles, an' I'll go back-along to the company. I didn't come out to sit an' stare at a ivybush if you did."
"Doan't 'e be so biting against me, woman!" said Collins indignantly. "I be comin' to it so fast as I can, ban't I? 'Tedn' so easy, I can assure 'e. Maybe chaps as have axed a score o' females finds speech come quick enough; but I've never spoke the word to wan afore in all my life; an' 'tis a damn oneasy job; an' I ban't gwaine to be hurried by you or any other."