“Now?” said Aleck, coolly. “Looking up at your black face.”
“Black face, eh, youngster? Perhaps other people ha’ got black faces too. What ha’ you been doing of—tumbling off the rocks? Strikes me you’re trying it on for another tumble.”
Aleck flushed a little at the allusion to his injured face, feeling guilty too, as it struck him that he had brought the allusion upon himself, a Rowland for his Oliver, on the principle that those who play at bowls must expect rubbers.
“No, I haven’t had a tumble, and I’m not going to tumble,” he said, testily. “I daresay I can climb as well as you.”
“P’raps you can, youngster, and p’raps you can’t; but, if you do want to break your neck, stop at home and do it, and don’t come here.”
“What!” cried Aleck, indignantly. “Why not? I’ve as good a right here as you have, so none of your insolence.”
“Oh, no, you haven’t. All along here’s our egging-ground, and we don’t want our birds disturbed.”
“Your egging-ground—your birds!” cried Aleck, indignantly. “Why, I do call that cool. You’ll be telling me next that the fish in the sea are yours, and that I mustn’t whiff or lay a fish-pot or trammel.”
“Ay, unless you want to lose your net or other gear. I hev knowed folk as fished on other people’s ground finding a hole knocked in the bottoms of their boats.”
“What!” cried Aleck. “That’s as good as saying that if I fish along here you’ll sink my boat.”