The two idle apprentices found themselves, within a few hours of their escape, walking down into the North of England, that is to say, Thomas was lying in a meadow, looking at the railway trains as they passed over a distant viaduct—which was his idea of walking down into the North; while Francis was walking a mile due South against time—which was his idea of walking down into the North. In the meantime the day waned, and the milestones remained unconquered.
‘Tom,’ said Goodchild, ‘the sun is getting low. Up, and let us go forward!’
‘Nay,’ quoth Thomas Idle, ‘I have not done with Annie Laurie yet.’ And he proceeded with that idle but popular ballad, to the effect that for the bonnie young person of that name he would ‘lay him doon and dee’—equivalent, in prose, to lay him down and die.
‘What an ass that fellow was!’ cried Goodchild, with the bitter emphasis of contempt.
‘Which fellow?’ asked Thomas Idle.
‘The fellow in your song. Lay him doon and dee! Finely he’d show off before the girl by doing that. A sniveller! Why couldn’t he get up, and punch somebody’s head!’
‘Whose?’ asked Thomas Idle.
‘Anybody’s. Everybody’s would be better than nobody’s! If I fell into that state of mind about a girl, do you think I’d lay me doon and dee? No, sir,’ proceeded Goodchild, with a disparaging assumption of the Scottish accent, ‘I’d get me oop and peetch into somebody. Wouldn’t you?’
‘I wouldn’t have anything to do with her,’ yawned Thomas Idle. ‘Why should I take the trouble?’
‘It’s no trouble, Tom, to fall in love,’ said Goodchild, shaking his head.