“No, thank you,” he said, pulling David’s sleeve to make him refuse too.
“It’s honey and goat’s milk,” said Miss Barnicroft persuasively; “very delicious. You’d better taste it.”
“We’d much rather not, thank you,” said Ambrose with a slight shudder, and in another second he and David had unlatched the door, scudded down the garden like two frightened rabbits, and joined their father.
At the Vicarage, all this while, their return had been eagerly looked for by Pennie and Nancy. They had heard the whole adventure of Rumborough Common and the crock of gold with much interest, and although the boys had been wrong to disobey orders, and were now in disgrace, it was impossible not to regard them with sympathy. They had been through so much that was unusual and daring that they were in some sort heroes of romance, and now this was increased by their having penetrated into that abode of mystery, Miss Barnicroft’s cottage.
It was somewhat consoling to the boys, after their real alarm and discomfort, to be received in this way at home, and questioned with so much eagerness as to their experiences. Ambrose, indeed, warming to the subject, was inclined to give a very highly-coloured description of what had passed, and would soon have filled Miss Barnicroft’s dwelling with wonderful objects, if he had not been kept in check by David, who always saw things exactly as they were, and had a very good memory.
“When we went in,” began Ambrose, “some immense dogs got up and barked furiously.”
“Weren’t you frightened?” asked Pennie.
“I wasn’t,” replied David, “because there were only two—quite small ones, not bigger than Snuff, and they only growled.”
“Miss Barnicroft had got her head all bound up in linen,” pursued Ambrose, “like the picture of Lazarus in the big Bible.”
“It was a pocket-handkerchief,” said David. “I saw the mark in one corner.”