“Will you leave off talking all that stupid nonsense, Shaddy?” cried Rob angrily as he began now polishing his head and face with the towel. “Who is going to fight? I suppose you think it’s very clever to keep on with this banter, but I can see through you plainly enough.”
Shaddy chuckled.
“All right, sir; I won’t say no more. Give him time, and don’t notice him, and then I daresay he’ll soon come round.”
“I shall go on just as if nothing had happened,” said Rob quietly. “I apologised and said I was sorry, and when his annoyance has passed off he’ll be friends again. What a glorious morning after the storm!”
“Glorious ain’t nothing to it, sir. Everything’s washed clean, and the air shines with it. Even looks as if the sun had got his face washed, too. See how he flashes.”
“I can feel, Shaddy,” said Rob, with a laugh.
“That’s nothing to what’s coming, my lad. Strikes me, too, that we shall find a little more water in the stream, if Mr Brazier says we’re to go down the river to-day. Hear the birds?”
“Hear them?” cried Rob. “Why, they are ten times as lively to-day.”
“That they are, sir. They’re having a regular feast on the things washed out of their holes by the rain. As for the flowers, Mr Brazier will have no end of beauties to pick. They’ll come out like magic after this rain. He won’t want to go on to-day.”
“Yes, I shall, Naylor,” said Brazier, stepping out from under the awning. “We may as well go on, beautiful as all this is. Ah,” he continued as he gazed round and took a long, deep breath, “what gloriously elastic air! What a paradise! Rob, my lad, there can be nothing fairer on earth.”