With the same oath that brother told him he lied.
Here followed a pause, as when a train is fired and men are doubtful whether the mine will spring. The leaves rustled and the flies hummed happily outside as if those seconds were charged with nothing, and the big feeble bee, who had spent the morning in walking up a pane of glass and slipping down again, continued his stumbling exercise as if there was nothing else worth attending to for a mile round Carwell Grange.
Harry had set both heels on the ground at this talismanic word; one hand clenched had come from his pocket to his thigh, and from his eyes “leaped” the old Fairfield fury.
It was merely, as Harry would have said, the turn of a shilling, whether a Fairfield battle, short, sharp, and decisive, had not tried the issue at that instant.
“I don’t vally a hot word spoke in haste; it’s ill raising hands between brothers—let it pass. I’m about the last friend ye’ve left just now, and I don’t see why ye should seek to put a quarrel on me. It’s little to me, you know—no thanks, loss o’ time, and like to be more kicks than ha’pence.”
Harry spoke these words after a considerable pause.
“I was wrong, Harry, I mean, to use such a word, and I beg your pardon,” said Charles, extending his hand to his brother, who took his fingers and dropped them with a rather short and cold shake.
“Ye shouldn’t talk that way to a fellow that’s taken some trouble about ye, and ye know I’m short tempered—we all are, and ’tisn’t the way to handle me,” said Harry.
“I was wrong, I know I was, and I’m sorry—I can’t say more,” answered Charles. “But there it is! If there’s trouble about this little child that’s coming, what am I to do? Wouldn’t it be better for me to be in Wyvern churchyard?”
Harry lowered his eyes with his mouth still open, to the threadbare carpet. His hands were again both reposing quietly in his pockets.