‘That ain’t right.’ Old Harry spoke quietly and even calmly, but an expression of such scarifying malignity darted out of his innocent blue eyes that everybody was made slightly uncomfortable. ‘Oi don’t think much to talk like that, mister,’ the old man continued, using the fearful formula which is the east country’s strongest protest. ‘Last night I was too drunk to see nothin’, and just now I smelled that as powerfully as I smell you—Richardson’s Violet Bear-cream, that’s what you’ve got on your ’ead. ’Owever, seeing as ’ow you don’t want no help, I’ll bid you good-day.’
He plodded off through the gate, back to the meadow round the barn. There he glanced back.
‘Sence you feel so ’appy alone, I ’ont show you where that old share has laid these fifteen or twenty years, as I’ve seen with m
