“Not it, my lad,” said Morgan, proudly. “It’s that which shows I belong to the Ancient British.”
“Nonsense! You’re a Welshman.”
“Ah, you call me so, my lad, but I belong to the genuwyne old British stock. You ask the captain if I don’t. And as to my teeth, why, when we was out with the army, I believe they used to buy all the old bulls, and the older and harder they were the better they used to like ’em.”
“Why?”
“Because they used to go the further. Ah, we did a lot of fighting on it though, and I thought I’d come to the end of that sort of thing; but it don’t seem like it. Oh, how I do long to have a spade or a hoe in my hand again. I say, Master George.”
“Well?” I said, as I lay in the sun enjoying my returning strength, for it came back fast.
“Think the master really means to go back and build up the house again?”
“Yes, I’m sure of it,” I said.
“That’s a good job, my lad, for it would be heartbreaking to know that all we’ve done out there, planting fruit-trees and getting the place in such nice trim, should be ’lowed to go back again to ruin, and grow over into forest wilds, as it would in a year or two.”
“Ah, that would be a pity, Morgan,” I said, eagerly, as I thought of the fruit-trees and the vines.