"Barclay o' Far Wrangham," said Barclay unsteadily, going forward on his hands again.
"Ah 've 'eard tell on ye," the figure remarked. "Gan yer ways wi' ye. Yon 's yer road. Come, be movin'."
For some moments Barclay rocked silently on his all fours, as though thinking deeply.
"Which way div ah want to be?" he commenced again, after awhile, and there being no immediate response, embraced the opportunity for a little slumber.
Having slumbered pleasantly for a space on his hands and knees without interruption, his head swaying in circles close to the grass as though he were browsing, he awoke of a sudden, under consciousness that he had received no response to this question, and working the muzzle of his hat diligently in all directions about him, found to his surprise that he was alone.
The discovery troubled him, first of all, so that he muttered darkly in his throat like distant thunder. Then the brewing turned to sparkles, and he laughed deliciously on the grass, rolling over on to his back, and sprawling with limbs in air as though he were a celestial baby, brought up from the bottle of pure bliss. Lastly, his mind darkened to anger, and he rose to all fours, roaring defiance after his departed enemy. It took him some time to find his hat after this, which had rolled away from him during his Elysian laughter, but his knee trod on it at last, and the moments expended in its discovery were doubled in his efforts to apply it to his head.
A dozen times he clapped it down, sideways forward, and the same number it rolled off him, and had to be resought.
Last of all: "Nay, ah weean't be pestered wi' ye!" he cried indignantly. "Gen ye can't be'ave yersen proper, an' stay where ye 're put, ye 'll 'a to gan."
And "gan" it did, sure enough, into the hedge bottom.
"Lig [lie] there, ye ill-mannered brute!" he shouted after it, and filled with righteous wrath, picked up the waggon-rope and staggered to his feet for departure.