Under the doctor’s instructions everyone set to work with a will; a shot or two was fired to scare away any undesirable lurking beasts, with the result that the reports went echoing away amongst the rocks with many a strange reverberation, and then the ponies and bullocks were driven into the undergrowth to browse, while the men set to hacking and chopping with axe and billhook, Dan proving himself an adept at twisting up tough willow-like wands to form bands which the two keepers utilised for securing the faggots; till Buck cried “Hold! enough!” Then Dan started a fire in the shelter of a pile of stones, and when that was blazing well and heating water and cooking meat, the rest blocked up an opening here, heaped up thorns there, and by means of sharp pegs and a cloth or two contrived a covered-in shed for the men against what might have been an old wall, but looked like an almost perpendicular bank of rock.
The evening closed in upon them with its threats of total darkness, their surroundings making their position the more secure from the numbers of towering trees that sheltered them in almost every direction.
The cattle were driven in near to where the fire was blazing, every branch that was thrown upon it having been selected with the idea of clearing a wider space where progress was literally choked up by the wealth of growth everywhere around.
“For I never see such a place, Mr Mark, sir,” said Bob. “Seems to me as if this is where the world was finished, and where all as warn’t wanted was chucked in a heap.”
“I know what I should like,” said Peter Dance.
“What, mate?” asked Bob.
“Why, to set our Mak making a lot of basket coops.”
“What for?” cried Mark.
“What for, sir? Why, if you stopped here and give me the chance and a few dozen sittings of eggs I could show you some pheasant shooting in a year’s time. But I suppose I shan’t have the chance to make that big chap a bit useful. He arn’t got a mossel of work in him.”
“What, Mak?” cried Mark merrily. “But see what a splendid fellow he is to look on.”