“Whew-w!” whistled Wally. “Three months!”
“Then he’ll have three munce to reflect on the error of his ways!” said Brownie, implacably. “Oh, I know me feelings aren’t Christian, an’ I don’t set a good example to the young; but what did he want to go and do it for?”
“Break his leg? But did he want to?” Jim grinned.
“You know very well I don’t mean his wretched little leg,” Brownie said, testily. “He never had no call to burn us all out. Now he’s broke his leg, an’ you’ll think he’s an object of sympathy an’ compassion, an’ nex’ thing Miss Norah’ll be visitin’ him in the ’Ospital an’ holdin’ his hand an’ givin’ him jelly!”
“By gad, she won’t!” uttered Norah’s father, with satisfying emphasis. “There are limits, Brownie. But it’s all very well for you to talk—if you’d seen the poor little weed you’d have been sorry for him.”
“Not me!” Brownie answered, truculently. “I only got to think of Miss Norah in that horrid stable, an’ every soft feelin’ leaves me, like a moulting hen.” Brownie’s similes were apt to be mixed, and nobody marked them. “Does he say why he did it? He’s got nerve enough to stick out that he never lit it at all!”
“Oh, no, he hasn’t—not now,” said Mr. Linton. “He admitted it to Murty meekly enough, and Murty says he was awfully taken aback at hearing the amount of the damage; he said he only thought of burning the grass. Whether his concern is for my loss or the possible results to himself, I’m not clear. I don’t regard him as exactly a philanthropist.”
Brownie snorted wrathfully as they rose to go up to the cottage. The sun had set, and Mrs. Evans was calling from the hill.
“I don’t give him credit for no decent motives at all,” she said. “He’s bad right through—an’ don’t you ask me to be sorry for him—he’ll have three munce takin’ it easy in ’Ospital, livin’ on the fat of the land an’ doin’ no work—an’ that’ll just suit Harvey! I got no patience with that sort of worm in sheep’s clothing!” She subsided, muttering darkly, and Wally offered her his arm up the hill, while Jim wheeled the barrow.
Brownie dropped her voice as they neared the cottage.