“Bit? Why it’s all difficulty. I couldn’t help it. I wanted to come along pluckily like you did, but something inside wouldn’t let me. It was just as if it kept whispering, ‘Don’t go; you’ll be sure to fall, and then what’ll your mother say?’”
“But it was a horrible bit to go along.”
“You didn’t seem to think so,” he said, in an ill-used tone.
“But I did feel so, and I was frightened.”
“Couldn’t ha’ been, or you’d have stuck fast same as I did.”
“But I was frightened, I tell you, and so was Gunson.”
“Then he needn’t have been so nasty with me.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing. That was the worst of it. Only wish he had, ’stead o’ looking at me as he did. For I couldn’t help it a bit.”
“Well, never mind; it’s all past now.”