But the unwelcome visitor continued to crouch beside him, now and then giving him little jogs in the elbow, which was very irritating when one happened to be hot and tired and longing for forty winks.
"What are you doing?" cried Master Nathaniel irritably.
"I milk blue ewes; I reap red flowers,
I weave the story of dead hours,"
answered the old man.
"Oh, do you? Well, I wish you'd go now, this moment, and milk your red ewes ... I want to go to sleep," and he pulled his hat further down over his eyes and pretended to snore.
But suddenly he sprang to his feet with a yap of pain. The old man had prodded him in his belly, and was standing looking at him out of his startlingly bright eyes, with his head slightly on one side.
"Don't you try that on, old fellow!" cried Master Nathaniel angrily. "You're a nuisance, that's what you are. Why can't you leave me alone?"
The old man pointed eagerly at the tree, making little inarticulate sounds; it was as if a squirrel or a bird had been charged with some message that they could not deliver.
Then he crept up to him, put his mouth to his ear, and whispered, "What is it that's a tree, and yet not a tree, a man and yet not a man, who is dumb and yet can tell secrets, who has no arms and yet can strike?"