Presently, above the _tic-a-tic-tick_ of the grasshoppers, and the
wail of a passing gull, a human sound seemed to start abruptly out of
the solitude--the voice of a man singing. I rose on my elbow, and
pushed the straw hat up a bit. Under its brim through the quivering
atmosphere, I saw the fellow, two hundred yards away, a dark
obtrusive blot on the bronze landscape. He was coming along the
track that would lead him down-hill to the port; and his voice fell
louder on the still air--
"Ho! the prickly briar,
It prickles my throat so sore--
If I get out o' the prickly briar,
I'll never get in any more."
"Ho! just loosen the rope"--
At this point I must have come within his view, for he halted a
moment, and then turned abruptly out of the track towards me,--
a scare-crow of a figure, powdered white with dust. In spite of the
weather, he wore his tattered coat buttoned at the throat, with the
collar turned up. Probably he possessed no shirt; certainly no
socks, for his toes protruded from the broken boots. He was quite
young.
Without salutation he dropped on the turf two paces off and
remarked--
"It's bleedin' 'ot."
There was just a pause while he cast his eyes back on the country he
had travelled; then, jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the
direction of the port, he inquired--
"'Ow's the old lot?"
Said I, "Look here; you're Dick Jago.
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