“I say, Sep, it isn’t true, is it?”
“Isn’t what true?”
“About the—about what old stay-sail said?”
“About you being disagreeable?”
“Yes. It isn’t true, is it?”
I nodded.
“I don’t believe it,” he said impetuously. “I’m as good-tempered a chap as anybody, only people turn disagreeable with me. Well, you are a pretty mate to turn against me like that.”
“I don’t turn against you, Bob, and I don’t mind your being disagreeable,” I said; “but you asked me, and I told you the truth.”
Bob stood quite still and thoughtful, as if he were watching the fishes, and he began to whistle softly a very miserable old tune that the shepherds sang out on the moor—one which always suggested winter to me and driving rain and cold bleak winds.
“Look here!” I said, for the water was draining away fast out of the pool now, the stones that banked up the bottom of the woven hurdle-work being visible here and there.