Chapter Twelve.
Those Two Wheels.
As Vane walked along the road the tools in his pocket rattled, and they set him thinking about Mr Deering, and how serious he had made his uncle look for a few days. Then about all their visitor had said about flying, and that set him wondering whether it would be possible to contrive something which might easily be tested.
“I could go up on to the leads of the tower, step off and float down into the churchyard.”
Vane suddenly burst out laughing.
“Why, if I had said that yonder,” he thought, “old Macey would tell me that it would be just in the right place, for I should be sure to break my neck.”
Then he began thinking about Bruff the gardener, for he passed his cottage; and about his coming to work the next day after being ill, and never saying another word about the chanterelles.
Directly after his thoughts turned in another direction, for he came upon the two gipsy lads, seated under the hedge, with their legs in the ditch, proof positive that the people of their tribe were somewhere not very far away.
The lads stared at him very hard, and Vane stared back at them, thinking what a curious life it seemed—for two big strong boys to be always hanging about, doing nothing but drive a few miserable worn-out horses from fair to fair.