Davey’s lip went down. “’Tis a damn, cruel shame. You’m always against me. I wish you was dead, I do. I never knawed no chap in all my days what have got such a beast of a brother as I have.”
“Give up that feesh, else I’ll throw you in the river, you lazy li’l good-for-nought.”
“You’m a gert bully,” began the boy; then he fell upon a happy thought, and braced himself to sacrifice his most treasured secret. To let it go into his brother’s keeping was bad, but anything seemed better than that his first trout should be lost to him.
“Look ’e here, Richard,” he said, “will ’e let me keep this feesh if I tell ’e something terrible coorious ’bout these auld mills?”
The keeper laughed sourly. “A lot more you’m likely to knaw ’bout ’em than I do!”
“Ess fay, I do. ’Tis a wonnerful secret as I found out all to myself, an’ never yet told to a single soul. It comes in my games—my Robinson Crusoe game; but I never play that wi’ any other chap—not even they boys from Postbridge. I be the only living soul as knaws; an’ I’ll tell you if you’ll let me keep my feesh.”
“What’s this ’mazin’ secret, then?”
“You’ll swear?”
“Ess, if the thing be any good.”
“Good! I should just reckon ’twas good. Come an’ see for yourself—I was awful ’feared at first. Now I doan’t care nothin’, an’ many a time I’ve took a gert handful an’ lighted it, an’ seen it go off ‘pouf’!”