“Ever drink beer?” said the workman at last.
“Beer? By Samson!” exclaimed the new vicar, “how I should like a good draught now, my man. I’m very thirsty.”
“Then there ain’t none nigher than the Bull, an that’s two mile away. There’s plenty o’ watter.”
“Where?”
“Round the corner in the beck.”
A short nod accompanied this, and the vicar rose.
“Then we’ll have a drop of water—qualified,” he said, taking a flask from his pocket. “Scotch whisky,” he added, as he saw the stare directed at the little flask, whose top he was unscrewing.
A dozen paces down the path, hidden by some rocks, ran the source of a tiny rivulet or beck, with water like crystal, and filling the cup he took from his flask, the vicar qualified it with whisky, handed it to his rough companion, and then drank a draught himself with a sigh of relief.
“I’ve walked across the hills from Churley,” he said, as they re-seated themselves. “I wanted to see what the country was like.”
“Ho!” said the workman. “Say, you ain’t like the owd parson.”