Page:Moonfleet - John Meade Falkner.pdf/41

 I should have thought he was blushing too, for his face was very red, though that came perhaps from lying on the ground. I could see he was a little put about and out of countenance, though he tried to say "Good-morning, John," in an easy tone, as if it was a common thing for him to be lying in the churchyard, with his ear to the wall, on a winter's morning.

"Good-morning, John," he said; "and what might you be doing in the churchyard this fine day?"

I answered that I was come to listen if the Mohunes were still moving.

"Well, that I can't tell you," returned Ratsey, "not wishing to waste thought on such idle matters, and having to examine this wall whether the floods have not so damaged it as to need underpinning; so if you have time to gad about of a morning, get you back to my workshop and fetch me a plasterer's hammer which I have left behind, so that I can try this mortar."

I knew that he was making excuses about underpinning, for the wall was sound as a rock, but was glad enough to take him at his word and beat a retreat from where I was not wanted. Indeed, I soon saw how he was mocking me; for the men did not even wait for me to come back with the hammer, but I met them returning in the first meadow. Master Ratsey made another excuse that he did not need the hammer now, as he had found out that all that was wanted was a little pointing with new mortar. "But if you have such time to waste, John," he added, "you can come to-morrow and help me to get new thwarts in the Petrel, which she badly wants."

So we three came back to the village together; but