'Drop it, and get away wi' ye,' cried she, 'or maybe I'd call Winny to smash your timber leg for you.'
'A-ha! there's more on't. She's a sweet un. Isn't she?' he replied sardonically.
'You did not like it last Easter, when Winny broke it with a kick.'
''Twas a kick o' a horse,' he growled with a glance at me.
''Twas no such thing—'twas Winny did it—and he laid on his back for a week while carpenter made him a new one.' And Milly laughed hilariously.
'I'll fool no more wi' ye, losing my time; I won't; but mind ye, I'll speak wi' Silas.' And going away he put his hand to his crumpled wide-awake, and said to me with a surly difference—
'Good evening, Miss Ruthyn—good evening, ma'am—and ye'll please remember, I did not mean nout to vex thee.'
And so he swaggered away, jerking and waddling over the sward, and was soon lost in the wood.
'It's well he's a little bit frightened—I never saw him so angry, I think; he is awful mad.'
'Perhaps he really is not aware how very rude he is,' I suggested.