The boy, who stood with his feet deep in moss, was framed by the long lithe hazel stems, and his sun-browned face looked darker in the shade as, bareheaded, his cap being tucked in the band of his Norfolk jacket, he passed one hand through his short curly hair, to remove a dead leaf or two, while the other held a little basket full of something of a bright orange gold; and as he glanced at the three youths in the road, he hurriedly bent down to rub a little loam from the knees of his knickerbockers—loam freshly gathered from some bank in the wood.
“Morning,” he said, as the momentary annoyance caused by the encounter passed off. “How is it you chaps are out so early?”
“Searching after you, of course,” said the first speaker. “What have you got there?”
“These,” said the lad, holding up his basket, as he stepped down amongst the dewy grass at the side of the road. “Have some?”
“Have some? Toadstools?”
“Toad’s grandmothers!” cried the lad. “They’re all chanterelles—for breakfast. Delicious.”
The first of the three well-dressed youths, all pupils reading with the Reverend Morton Syme, at the Rectory, Mavis Greythorpe, Lincolnshire, gave a sidelong glance at his companions and advanced a step.
“Let’s look,” he said.
The bearer of the basket raised his left hand with his fungoid booty, frankly trusting, and his fellow-pupil delivered a sharp kick at the bottom of the wicker receptacle—a kick intended to send the golden chalice-like fungi flying scattered in the air. But George Vane Lee was as quick in defence as the other was in attack, and his parry was made in the easiest and most effortless way.
It was just this:—