The buzzing of a humble-bee, and then silence.
“Ck!”
“Eh?”
“Ck!” ejaculated Mercer, uttering a stifled laugh. “Oh, I say, what a game, and us hearing every word. Thinks the Doctor ought to be more particular what sort of boys he has in the school. I suppose that’s meant for me. Well, my father is a gentleman, and could set his to make him a pair of trousers if he liked. Can’t shake hands with me, can’t he? Well, who wants him to? I wish I could fight, I’d make him smell my hands—my fists. He’d know then what they’d touched. But he can fight, and licked me horrid. Lie still yet, or they’ll see us get up; I thought they were in the cricket-field. Tired, I suppose. Such a fuss about making your hands a bit dirty. Daresay I keep ’em as clean as he does his. I say, got stung?”
“A little,” I said.
“Never mind; dock’s the thing to cure that. All right. Gone. Now then, over the stile, and do as I do.”
He crept over the stile, and into the field, and began to run down beside the hedge in a stooping position, while I followed suit, and we did not rise up till we gained the shelter of the trees.
“There we are! This is the beginning of the woods. Oh, it’s such a place!”
“You’ve been before, then?” I said, as we began to wind in and out among large beech-trees, whose smooth grey trunks were spotted with creamy and green moss.
“Lots of times. I go everywhere when I can get away. It’s a famous place here for moths. There’s old Dame Durden again. This way—now down here; we shall soon be there.”