“No, I shan’t,” said Harry; “I mean to make a corduroy-road, like they do over the swamps in America, that we read about.”
“Ah, that will be capital,” said Philip; “come on.”
And so the lads set to work, and in amongst the trees close by they soon found a large dead branch, and laid it down across the first soft place, and they very soon would have had a firm pathway to the moorhen’s nest, but for the simple reason that they were not provided with woodcutter’s axes, ropes, etc; the consequence was, that they could find no more wood fit for the purpose, and Harry’s corduroy-road was composed only of one cord.
“Oh,” said Philip, “don’t I wish we had a lot of the faggots out of the stack-yard.”
“Let’s fetch some,” said Fred, which would have been a capital plan, only the faggots would have been rather awkward things to carry through the thick underwood; and, besides, they could only have carried one each, and home was now about four miles off, while they would have wanted at least twenty.
“What a jolly bother!” said Philip. “Why don’t you go round the other side, Harry, and swim?”
“You go,” said Harry: “I’d go, if it wasn’t for the eels, and the water being so deep; I wouldn’t mind, if it was only eight or nine feet, but they say it’s hundreds of feet to the bottom.”
But Philip did not feel disposed to go, and Fred could not swim, so, to their great disappointment, they were obliged to leave the moorhen’s nest,—with at least a dozen eggs in, so Harry said; but, as he had been very little nearer to the receptacle than his brother and cousin, this statement was rather of a doubtful nature; still, as the others had not been so near, they did not feel themselves justified in contradicting, neither did they wish to, so the party reluctantly left the much-coveted treasure, the two wet members of the party—namely, Dick and Harry—leading the way further into the wood.
And now there were so many objects to take attention, that the professed purpose of the trip was quite forgotten, till Harry by chance spied a woodpecker just entering a hole in a hollow tree, and then called his companions’ attention to the fact. To scale the tree was the work of a very few minutes, and, to Harry’s intense delight, he found the hole sufficiently large to admit his hand and arm, and this time he was successful, for he drew forth with great care, one at a time, three woodpecker’s eggs, which he placed its his cap, and then descended.
So far the trip had been most successful, for they had obtained the eggs generally reckoned as scarce in most parts of the country, from the secluded habits of the birds; and now the lads turned their attention to find the nest of a turtle-dove. The part of the wood they were in was very thick and full of underwood, a large proportion of which consisted of hazel stubs so dense that, almost before they were aware of it, Fred and Philip were separated from Harry and Dick; and when they did miss them, and called out, a faint and distant “Halloo!” was the response.