"That's the hut," he said. "The ditch was along here. Trees, you know ... and the road here. That hut was a real treasure. One never gets tired of that sort of place. It suits every game, and every weather. We slept there sometimes in the summer, in hammocks slung across. It's a queer thing to sleep out of doors in the midst of all the night noises."
"Is it alarming?" asked Patricia. She was thinking of things inexplicable.
Harry's eyes opened. He did not understand her.
"Oh, no," he said. "I only meant, queer to listen to the jolly old owls, and things."
"Had you got a river near you?" She resented his misunderstanding; but for an instant only.
"You mean, boating? No, not near. There were streams, and bits of water; but nothing big enough for boating. We used to bathe. Jove, they were days! Of course, I get some of the old pleasures now by tramping. I started it before the war, and went back to it directly I got out of uniform. There's nothing to beat the road, if one doesn't mind roughing it. You go along and along, and haven't anything to tie you to a place or a bed. You get meals where you can, and tumble in for a rest where you can, and come home when you like, and go where you like. Even now it's quite decent, so long as your passport is all right and you don't mind taking what you can get."
"And when you were a little boy, were you naughty?"
"Yes. And were you a naughty little girl?"
"No. I was a good little girl."