“Yes, often,” I said; “great, long, tight, round sacks piled-up on waggons.”
“Yes, that’s how they go to market. I mean growing?”
“No.”
“Those are hops, then, climbing up the poles. That’s where the partridges get. Oh, I say, I wish old Magg would sell us that gun. We’d go halves in buying it, and I’d play fair; you should shoot just as often as I did.”
“But he will not sell it,” I said.
“Oh, he will some day, when he wants some money.”
“And what would Doctor Browne do if he knew?”
“Smug it!” said Mercer, with a comical look, “when he knew. Look! see that open ground there with the clump of fir-trees and the long slope of sand going down to that hollow place!”
“Yes.”
“Rabbits, and blackberries. Such fine ones when they’re ripe! And just beyond there, at the sandy patch at the edge of the wood, snakes!—big ones, too. I’m going to catch one and stuff it.”