Will’s cheeks burned.
“You ain’t come back improved, says she.”
Will’s flush grew redder.
“But Oi don’t agree with her—you’ve growed like a prize marrow. Come into the house and she shall make you a dish o’ tay—Oi don’t drink it myself, bein’ as Oi promised John Wesley.”
“No, thank you—I’d rather talk where we are.”
“Well, Oi can’t inwoite you in here—’tis too mucky.” He gave Methusalem’s tail a final flick with the brush. “And it’s blowin’ up for rine. We’ll goo into the barn.” And he led the way imperiously round by a great and ramifying apple-tree that hid a little black door secured by a padlock and infinite knots of string.
“One has to be witty,” he commented, patiently undoing the complications, “with so many thieves about to steal my dole hay.”
Will had not heard of these thieves, and thought Little Bradmarsh must be changed indeed, but he waited silently, wondering what to do with his note. And as he stood thus, there came from the cottage the sound of a girl’s singing. Fortunately it was not satirical, so Will could hear it with pleasure:
“Of all the horses in the merry greenwood
The bob-tailed mare bears the bells away.”