“Can I not carry them for you?” he inquired; and without waiting for an answer, collected the sticks from the children, who not unwillingly gave them up.
“And now I think of it,” suggested the colonel, “you will require but one stick, and that I will use and thresh the bushes while you gather the nuts. See, I will leave these three here, and take this thickest one. Now give me the four baskets; I will hang them on my stick and sling them over my shoulder, thus,” he said, suiting the action to the word.
The two children laughed at the figure he cut.
“Now! Right face! Forward! March!” he cried, stepping out in front.
They left the lawn by the east gate and passed through an orchard where a few late winter apples still clung to the nearly leafless branches of the trees; opened another gate and entered a narrow path leading down through the thick woods to the shore.
Then they turned southward and walked by the side of the bay, the children chattering as they went.
“What do you think, Col. Anglesea?” inquired Elva.
“I don’t know. What ought I to think?” laughingly inquired their escort.
“Well, I’ll tell you. Although Greenbushes is only three miles off, we have never seen it in our lives.”
“Really, now?”