“Hurry up, Mister Toowey,” said Corkran; “we ought to be getting back. Will you give us that note, please?”
“Some of yeou young gentlemen was drivin’ my cattle off the Burrowses,” said Vidley. “I give ’ee fair warnin’, I’ll tell yeour masters. I know yeou!” He glared at Corkran with malignant recognition.
McTurk looked him over from head to foot. “Oh, it’s only old Vidley. Drunk again, I suppose. Well, we can’t help that. Come on, Mister Toowey. We’ll go to your house.”
“Drunk, am I? I’ll drunk ’ee! How do I know yeou bain’t the same lot? Abram, did ’ee take their names an’ numbers?”
“What is he ravin’ about?” said Beetle. “Can’t you see that if we’d taken your beastly cattle we shouldn’t be hanging round your beastly barn. ’Pon my Sam, you Burrows guv’nors haven’t any sense——”
“Let alone gratitude,” said Corkran. “I suppose he was drunk, Mister Toowey; an’ you locked him in the barn to get sober. Shockin’! Oh, shockin’!”
Vidley denied the charge in language that the boys’ mothers would have wept to hear.
“Well, go and look after your cows, then,” said McTurk. “Don’t stand there cursin’ us because we’ve been kind enough to help you out of a scrape. Why on earth weren’t your cows milked before? You’re no farmer. It’s long past milkin’. No wonder they’re half crazy. Disreputable old bog-trotter, you are. Brush your hair, sir.... I beg your pardon, Mister Toowey. ’Hope we’re not keeping you.”
They left Vidley dancing on the muck-heap, amid the cows, and devoted themselves to propitiating Mr. Toowey on their way to his house. Exercise had made them hungry; hunger is the mother of good manners; and they won golden opinions from Mrs. Toowey.