“All right. Well, and what will ye have?”
“I feel a bit queerish, Master Harry, I thank ye. I’d rather not eat nothin’ till I gets home, and I’ll get my cup o’ tea then.”
“Not eat!”
“Nothin’, sir, I thank ye, Master Harry.”
“Well,” said Harry, so far forth relieved, but resolved, cost what it might, to make Mildred happy on this particular occasion, “if ye won’t eat, I’m hanged but ye shall drink some. I tell ye what it shall be, a jug of sherry negus. Come, ye must.”
“Well, Master Harry, as so ye will have it, I’ll not say ye nay,” consented Mildred, graciously.
Harry went himself to the little pot-house over the way, and saw this nectar brewed, and brought it over in his own hand—the tankard in one hand and the glass in the other.
“Devilish good stuff it is, Mildred, and I’m glad, old lass, I thought of it. I remember you liked that brew long ago, and much good may it do you, girl.”
He was trying to be kind.
He had set it down on the table, and now, as he spoke, he laid his hand on her shoulder, and she thought she might have wronged Master Harry with his rough jests, and shrewd ways, and that he had more of the Fairfield in his nature than she had always given him credit for.