Humphrey was immensely gratified. He bent down and picked up a pebble; then, straining backwards ever so slightly, slung it. It vanished into the blue sea. Jeremy sighed with admiration.
“You can throw,” he said. “Would you mind if I felt the muscle on your arm?” He felt it. He had never imagined such a muscle.
“Do you think I could have more if I worked at it?” he asked, stretching out his own arm.
Humphrey graciously felt it. “That’s not bad for a kid of your size,” he said. “You ought to lift weights in the morning. That’s the way to bring it up.” Then he added: “You’re a sporting kid. I like you. I’ll be here again same time to-morrow,” and without another word was running off, with a strange jumping motion, across the down.
Jeremy went home, and could think of nothing at all but his adventure. How sad it was that always, without his in the least desiring it, he was running up against authority. He had been forbidden to go near the farm or to have anything to do with the wild, outlawed tenants of it, and now here he was making close friends with one of the worst of them.
He could not help it. He did not want to help it. When he looked round the family supper-table how weak, colourless and uninteresting they all seemed! No muscles, no outlawry, no running from place to place to escape the police! He saw Humphrey standing against the sky and slinging that stone. He could throw! There was no doubt of it. He could throw, perhaps, better than anyone else in the world.
They met, then, every day, and for a glorious, wonderful week nobody knew. I am sorry to say that Jeremy was involved at once in a perfect mist of lies and false excuses. What a business it was being always with the family! He had felt it now for a long time, the apparent impossibility of going anywhere or doing anything without everybody all round you asking multitudes of questions. “Where are you going to, Jeremy?” “Where have you been?” “What have you been doing?” “I haven’t seen you for the last two hours, Jeremy. Mother’s been looking for you everywhere!”
So he lied and lied and lied. Otherwise, he got no harm from this wonderful week. One must do Humphrey that justice that he completely respected Jeremy’s innocence. He even, for perhaps the first time in his young life, tried to restrain his swearing. They found the wild moor at the back of the downs a splendid hunting-ground. Here, in the miles of gorse and shrub and pond and heather, they were safe from the world, their companions birds and rabbits. Humphrey knew more about animals than anyone in England—he said so himself, so it must be true. The weather was glorious, hot and gorse-scented. They bathed in the pools and ran about naked, Humphrey doing exercises, standing on his head, turning somersaults, lifting Jeremy with his hands as though he weighed nothing at all. Humphrey’s body was brown all over, like an animal’s. Humphrey talked and Jeremy listened. He told Jeremy the most marvellous stories, and Jeremy believed every word of them. They sat on a little hummock, with a dark wood behind them, and watched the moon rise.
“You’re a decent kid,” said Humphrey. “I like you better than my brothers. I suppose you’ll forget me as soon as I’m gone.”
“I’ll never forget you,” said Jeremy. “Can’t you leave your family and be somebody else? Then you can come and stay with us.”