“He’d only begin asking questions about my face, and grinning at me like one of the great stupid fisher boys,” said Aleck to himself, as he passed the sling strap of the spy-glass over his shoulder and hurried in and out among the bosky shrubs close under the great cliff wall, till, passing suddenly round a great feathery tuft of tamarisk, he came suddenly upon the very man he was trying to avoid, standing in a very peculiar position, his back bowed inward, head thrown backward, and a square black bottle held upside down, the neck to his lips and the bottom pointing to the sky.
Aleck stopped short, vexed and wondering, while the old gardener jerked himself upright, spilling some of the liquid over his chin and neck, and making a movement as if to hide the bottle, but, seeing how impossible it was, standing fast, with an imbecile grin on his countenance.
“Morning, Master Aleck,” he said. “Strange hot morning. Been diggin’; and it makes me that thusty I’m obliged to keep a bottle o’ water here in the shady part o’ the rocks.”
“Oh, are you?” said Aleck, quietly, and he could not forbear giving a sniff.
“Ah! nice, arn’t it, sir? Flowers do smell out here on a morning like this, what with the roses and the errubs and wile thyme and things. It do make the bees busy. But what yer been eating on, sir? Or have yer slipped down among the nattles? Your face is swelled-up a sight. Here, I know—you’ve been bathing!”
“Not this morning, Ness; I did yesterday.”
“That’s it, then, my lad, and you should mind. I know you’ve had one o’ they jelly-fish float up agen yer face, and they sting dreadful sometimes.”
“Yes, I know,” said Aleck, beginning to move onward past the man; “but it wasn’t a jelly-fish that stung my face.”
“Wasn’t it now? Yer don’t mean it was a bee or wops?”
“No, Ness; it was a blackguard’s fist.”