“Without the ferret?”
“Oh, how stupid I am!” cried Mercer, and he went on, now in silence, through some stunted firs, in and out by patches of gorse, with the character of the ground quite changed, and then up a hilly slope crowned with spruce trees, round which we skirted, to stop at last, breathless, at the bottom of the slope facing south, with the dark green, straight-stemmed trees above us; and Mercer gave his foot an angry stamp as he looked round at the deserted place, where the pine branches glowed of a ruddy bronze in the sunset light, and cried,—
“Oh, what a jolly shame!”
“Not here?” I said.
“No; and it’s a nasty, mean trick to drag us all this way. I wish I had kept the ferret instead of trusting him.”
“What’s to be done?”
“Oh, nothing,” he replied despondently. “It’s always the way, when I’ve made up my mind for a bit of fun, something happens to stop it.”
“Let’s wait,” I said. “He may come yet.”
“Wait? Why, it’ll be too dark to see to do anything in less than an hour. Oh, won’t I pay him out for—”
“There he is,” I whispered, for I had just caught sight of a figure lying down by a patch of furze; and we started off at a dog-trot, and soon reached the spot.