“North-o’-Sunday. Four on us wi’ drays ter git the totara fur the noo drawin’-room; Scannell wants it sharp. We’re to give a hand if Purdey is pushed. Reckon it’ll take all o’ a week ter git it out.”
“Who’s to go?” asked Randal, with Effie’s good-night yet warm on his lips.
“Me,” cried Tod, swinging his legs from the table-edge. “An’ yersilf. An’ Steve an’ Lou an’ me. Och! Ye’d a right to be lookin’ plazed, me hayro of war in the corner there! Throth! we’ll be straightenin’ Purdey’s Camp till the mother of it wud pass it widout good-day. Ay, will we!”
“Purdey’s Camp fights best when it’s pure drunk,” remarked Lou, biting an end of waxed thread from his half-mended saddle strap. “You’ll find them slogging in up to the knocker. Tod, or Purdey’s eye-teeth tell lies.”
“Won’t they be stoppin’ for males, thin, at all, at all? Plaze the pigs I’ll learn them to foight whin sober. Ah! bad luck to it! Why was not mesilf in the township that noight?”
The cook chuckled, dredging flour into a stew.
“There was a few there as is wishin’ they wasn’t, I’m thinkin’. Does Maiden run wi’ the Lassie pack still, Steve?”
Steve was cobbling a patch in the shoulder-blade of his best waistcoat. A small darn Maiden had once made for him lay next it.
