"So that we shall each know our own," he explained, handing the blue to Mavis and the red to Merle.
It was undoubtedly an anachronism that Bevis had brought a thermos flask in his shooting-bag, and offered his friends tea in their home-baked cups, but they were not disposed to quarrel with such a mixture of ancient and modern. They sat on their log seats, eating cake and sipping the modern beverage in defiance of historic accuracy.
"I feel as if the Bronze Age people who were buried in the mound ought to rise up and come and turn us out and say it was their shanty," laughed Merle.
"What did they do with the skeletons that were found there?" asked Mavis suddenly.
"Took them to the County Museum," answered Bevis. "I didn't like the idea myself. I think it was hateful to put the poor things' bones in a glass case. They ought to have left them where they were buried, with their hands still clasped and the little baby in the woman's arm. They must have been fond of each other thousands of years ago."
"Perhaps he built her a hut like this and made her clay pottery," speculated Mavis.
"But she didn't drink tea out of it anyway," snorted Merle. "Don't be sentimental over the Bronze Age people, you two. I'd rather call the tumulus a pixie mound, and imagine the wee folk coming tumbling out of it some moonlight night, and dancing on the grass. Don't Chagmouth people tell any stories about pixies?"
"They wouldn't be Devon folk unless they did. Yes, there are heaps of pixie tales. They say an old man from Groves Cottage was once pixie-led on the moor. He wandered round and round in a circle, and couldn't find his way home till he turned his coat inside out, and that broke the spell. There was an old woman over by Tangoran who used to tell a wonderful tale about a fairy."
"Oh, what was that?"