“Here we are, father!” I shouted, and trudging on we met him coming down from a place where he had evidently been sitting smoking his pipe.
“Didn’t you hear me hail before?” he said as we met.
“No, father.”
“Why, I’ve been shouting at intervals for this last hour, and I should have been uncomfortable if I had not thought you had common sense enough to take care of yourselves.”
“Oh! We minded that, sir,” said Bob importantly. “We are older now than we used to be.”
“Yes,” said my father dryly, “so I supposed. Well, let’s be off; we’ve a long row, and then a walk, and it’s time to feed the animals, eh, Bob Chowne?”
“Yes, sir,” said Bob; “but I’ve got ever so much farther to go before I can get anything to eat.”
“No, you have not,” said my father in his driest way. “I should think there will be enough for us all at the Bay.”
“I—I didn’t mean,” said Bob in a stammering way; but he had turned very red in the face, and then he quite broke down and could get no further, being evidently thoroughly ashamed of the way in which he had spoken.
My father noticed it, and changed the conversation directly. “Found anything very interesting?” he said; “anything good among the rocks?”