“I say, Tom, I can’t get any farther,” he cried. “What shall we do?”
“I don’t know.”
“What a fellow you are!” was the angry reply. “You never do know. Old Sol will be drowned if we don’t look sharp. The bog is twenty feet deep here.”
“Can’t he swim out?”
“Can’t you swim out!” cried Dick. “What’s the good of talking like that? You couldn’t swim if you were up to the neck in sand.”
“But he isn’t up to his neck in sand.”
“But he’s up to his neck in bog, and it’s all the same.”
“Ahoy! what’s matter?” came from a couple of hundred yards away; and the lads turned, to see that it was Hickathrift shouting, he and the others having just succeeded in taking up the root to its destination.
“Ahoy! Bring the rope,” shouted Dick.
“He-haw—haw—haw—haw!” shouted the Solemn one dismally, as if to emphasise his young master’s order.