“Thought you might like to leave any clothes you’ve got to your brother.”
“Well, I did think about it, Natty; but, you see, my brother’s grown to be such a high and mighty sort of chap as wouldn’t care for anything that wasn’t scarlet and gold. I say, Natty, I have got something though as you may as well have—hidden away in the roof of my tool-shed.”
“Eh? What is it?” said Nat, who was betrayed into eagerness by the idea that perhaps his brother had a pot of money hidden away in the thatch.
“Perhaps I’d better not let you have it. You’re proud enough as it is.”
“You can do as you like with it, of course,” said Nat, with assumed indifference.
“Ah, well, it will be useful to you, if what you say’s true about me. It would be a pity for any one else to get it, wouldn’t it?”
“Well, I am your brother, after all,” said Nat, quietly.
“Yes, so you are, Natty; and you’re just the chap to be proud of it, and wear it stuck in your steel pot. Look here, you go into the tool-shed at the Manor, first time you’re that way, and as soon as you’re inside the door, reach up your hand, and in the dark corner you’ll find a bundle of our old peacock’s moultings when he dropped his tail. You shall have ’em, Nat, and I hope I shall live to see you with ’em in your iron cap. My! you will look fine!”
“If you wasn’t such a miserable scrunched-up garden-worm of a man, I’d baste you with my sword-belt, Samson,” whispered Nat, angrily.
“Thank ye, Nat, lad. Thank ye. It’s very kind of you to say so. Save it up, lad, till I’m better. It will be pleasanter then for us both.”