Then we fell into mischief again!'Puck shook till the gate rattled.
'We came across a man up at Brightling who was beating his
wife with a bat in the garden. I was just going to toss the man over
his own woodlump when the Boy jumped the hedge and ran at him.
Of course the woman took her husband's part, and while the man
beat him, the woman scratted his face. It wasn't till I danced
among the cabbages like Brightling Beacon all ablaze that they
gave up and ran indoors. The Boy's fine green-and-gold clothes
were torn all to pieces, and he had been welted in twenty places
with the man's bat, and scratted by the woman's nails to pieces.
He looked like a Robertsbridge hopper on a Monday morning.
'"Robin," said he, while I was trying to clean him down with a
bunch of hay, "I don't quite understand folk in housen. I went to
help that old woman, and she hit me, Robin!"
'"What else did you expect?" I said. "That was the one time
when you might have worked one of your charms, instead of
running into three times your weight."
'"I didn't think," he says. "But I caught the man one on the
head that was as good as any charm. Did you see it work, Robin?"
'"Mind your nose," I said.
Pages:
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37