The lad plunged into the moonlight.
III
A moon-clad wisp, he flitted across the greensward, the fringe of the flag-scarf fluttering behind him. It was a fine thing to do, but he wished devoutly somebody else had the doing of it. On the Wish in the sunshine, the Parson at his side, when the idea first struck him, it had seemed splendid. Now, alone in the dark, with the idea to translate into reality, he saw it very differently. It gave him no thrill of glory. He felt exactly as he had felt last March on the way to the dentist to have a tooth out—a mean sense of his own mortality, and an earnest desire to run away.
The turf shaded off into long bents growing out of sand; and that again ran away into shingle. As he breasted the bank, his hands succouring his feet, he heard steps behind him.
"Who's that?" he snarled, crouching.
Blob was standing at gaze a little way behind him.
"What ye want?"
The boy made no answer, staring with round moon-eyes.
"He's noiked," came a musing voice. "Oi dew loike to see un."
He shot out a finger, and, flinging back his head, gurgled laughter.