you swear like wicked Shimei, the son of Gera, who cursed as he came. Young man, fie!"
"No, I don't! 'Tis you want to squander a pore boy's soul, Joseph Poorgrass—that's what 'tis!" said Cain, beginning to cry. "All I mane is that in common truth 'twas Miss Everdene and Sergeant Troy, but in the horrible so-help-me truth that ye want to make of it perhaps 'twas somebody else."
"There's no getting at the rights of it," said Gabriel, turning to his work.
"Cain Ball, you'll come to a bit of bread!" groaned Joseph Poorgrass.
Then the reapers' hooks were flourished again, and the old sounds went on. Gabriel, without making any pretence of being lively, did nothing to show that he was particularly dull. However, Coggan knew pretty nearly how the land lay, and when they were in a nook together he said—
"Don't take on about her, Gabriel. What difference does it make whose sweetheart she is, since she can't be yours?"
"That's the very thing I say to myself," said Gabriel.
