Under the circumstances, he too, had hard work to keep from looking about for a way of escape, should the lads mean mischief: but he did not, for fear that they should think him cowardly, and walked steadily on, with the result that the boy in front stopped short and then began slowly to retreat.
“They are up to some game,” thought Vane with his heart beginning to beat hard, and a curious feeling of excitement running through him as he thought of his chances against two strong lads armed with sticks if they did dare to attack him. But again he cast aside the thought as being too absurd, and strode boldly on.
“These are not the days for footpads and highwaymen,” he said to himself, and just then the lad in front gave vent to a peculiar whistle, made a rush up the bank on his left, looked sharply round, ducked down, whistled again, and disappeared.
“I’d give something to know what game they call this,” said Vane to himself, as he watched the spot where the lad had disappeared; and then he turned sharply round to question the one who was following him, but, to his astonishment, he found that the lane behind him was vacant.
Vane paused for a few moments and then made a dash forward till he reached the trampled grass and ferns where the first boy had scrambled up the bank, climbed to the top, and stood looking round for him. But he was gone, and there was not much chance for anyone not gifted with the tracking power of an Indian to follow the fugitive through the rough tangle of scrub oak, ferns, brambles and gorse which spread away right to the borders of the wood.
Just as he was standing on the highest part of the bank looking sharply round, he heard a shout. Then—
“Weathercock, ahoy! Coo-ee!”
He looked in the direction, fully expecting to see Macey, whose voice he recognised, but for some minutes he was invisible. Then he saw the tall ferns moving, and directly after he caught sight of his fellow-pupil’s round face, and then of his arms waving, as he literally waded through the thick growth.
Vane gave an answering shout, and went to meet him, trying the while to arrive at a settlement of the gipsy lads’ conduct, and feeling bound to come to the conclusion that they had meant mischief; but heard Macey coming, perhaps the others, for he argued that they could not be very far away.
Vane laughed to himself, as he advanced slowly, for he knew the part he was in well enough, and it amused him as he fought his way on, to think of the struggles Macey, a London boy, was having to get through the tangle of briar and furze. For he had often spent an hour in the place with the doctor, collecting buckthorn and coral-moss, curious lichens, sphagnum, and the round, and long-leaved sundews, or butterwort: for all these plants abounded here, with the bramble and bracken. There were plenty of other bog plants, too, in the little pools and patches of water, while the dry, gravelly and sandy mounds here and there were well known to him as the habitat of the long-legged parasol mushrooms, whose edible qualities the doctor had taught him in their walks.