“Ugh!” said Sam, straightening himself with a groan, and rubbing his back where it ached, “Ugh! how blazing hot the sun is—always does shine like that when I be weeding. Oh, my back! Oh, dear!” And then Sam groaned, and stooped to his work again, saying, “And nobody never asks nobody to have so much as a drop o’ beer.”
“I’ll fetch you some beer, Sam, if you’ll go with us,” said Harry.
But Sam didn’t want any beer. Oh, no! He could do his work without beer. He never did do more than wet his lips; and so on. But Sam had given up the key of his fortress, and very soon Harry had been up to the house to fetch a jug of foaming, country, home-brewed ale, such as would really refresh the old man in his toil; for the day had set in excessively hot, and bade fair to become worse—if such an expression is not a contradiction. So Harry took the cool jug up to the old man, but “No! he didn’t want beer!”
But he did, though he would not own to it, and what was more, he wanted coaxing; and until he was coaxed, Sam growled away as much as ever, and weeded his onions.
“I say, Sam,” said Harry, with a knowing grin upon his countenance, and pushing the jug just under the old man’s nose, “I say, how good it smells!”
Sam couldn’t help it, he got a good whiff of the foaming ale in his nostrils, and he surrendered, sighed, and stretched out his hand for the jug, and then took such a hearty draught, that it seemed as though he never wanted to breathe again.
“Ha-a-a-a,” said Sam at last, with a comical look at Harry.
“Shall I fetch you the wedges, Sam?” said Harry.
“Eh?” said Sam.
“Shall I fetch the wedges?” said Harry again.