“Oh yes, and I shouldn’t like to leave it; but I always like this bit down here; the lane is so jolly. Look.”
“What at?”
“Two swallow-tail butterflies. Let’s have them.”
“Shan’t. I’m not going to make myself red-hot running after them if we’re going out in the boat. Besides, we haven’t got any of your father’s pill boxes to put ’em in. I say, how the things do grow down here! Look at that fern and the bracken.”
“Yes, and the old foxgloves. They are a height!”
“It’s so warm and sheltered. What’s that?”
They stopped, for there was a quick, rushing sound amongst the herbage.
“Snake,” said Vince, after a pause; “and we’ve no sticks to hunt him out.”
“Down his hole by this time. Come along. What a fellow you are! You always want to be off after something. Why can’t you keep to one purpose at a time, as Mr Deane says, so as to master it?”
“Hark at old Ladle beginning to lay down the law,” cried Vince merrily. “You’re just as bad. I say, shall we stop about here this afternoon? Look at that gull—how it seems to watch us.”