Dexter’s face was scarlet as he watched his departing enemy, thinking the while of his own folly in leaving his friends for such a wretched young cur as that.
“Think he would?” said Peter.
“Ay, two on him,” said Dan’l, after glancing cautiously up toward the house.
“Shall us?”
“Ay, if you like, my lad,” said Dan’l. “Say, youngster, if we help you acrost will you go and start him outer the west medder?”
“Yes,” cried Dexter excitedly.
“All right. Don’t make a row.”
Old Dan’l went off, and Peter followed, to return in five minutes with a great shallow wooden cistern across the long barrow, old Dan’l looking very grim as he walked by his side, and carrying the familiar clothes-prop.
“There, that’s as good as a punt,” he said. “Look here! You’d better kneel down on it; I should take off my jacket and weskit, and roll up my sleeves, if I was you.”
Dexter’s eyes sparkled as he followed this bit of advice, while Dan’l took one end of the cistern, Peter the other, and they gently launched it in the little river.