“Well, yes, sir,” said the man addressed, as he still kept his hand behind him. “You may as well see it now. Me and Billy here seed my gentleman three or four mornin’s ago.”
“Four, Tommy. Allus make yer knots tight.”
“Weer it four, Billy? All right, then, four mornin’s ago, just as it was gettin’ light, an’ I says to him, I says, ‘Now that’s just the sort o’ bird as Muster Oliver Lane would like to have to stuff,’ didn’t I, Billy?”
“Well, it warn’t quite in them there words, Tommy, but it meant that ’ere.”
“Don’t you be so nation perticler about a heff or a gee, messmate. If it meant what I says, wheer’s the harm?”
“Allus speak the truth, Tommy. Allus speak the truth,” growled Wriggs.
“Come, come, I want to see my bird,” said Oliver. “Go on, Smith.”
“That’s just what I wants to do, sir, on’y Billy Wriggs here he is such a haggravatin’ beggar. If yer don’t speak your words to half a quarter of a hinch, he’s down on yer.”
Wriggs chuckled, and his messmate went on, but frowned and scowled at him all the time.
“Well, sir, I hups with my gun to shoot him, for Mr Rimmer says we’re never to go about anywhere now without loaded guns ’cause of the hinjuns—but bless your ’art, afore you could say ‘Fire’ he was off over the trees, and I was that aggrawated as never was, for he was a fine ’un.”