“The heather is losing its color now,” he said, pausing for a moment in his task. “You ought to see it early in August, when it is all one mass of purple flowers, with here and there a bunch of golden gorse—‘whin,’ we call it. Our moor is almost free from bog-holes, so you can walk or ride anywhere with safety. I have often thought what a fine place it would be for an army.”
“Wass ist das?” cried Fritz sharply. He corrected the slip with a laugh. “An army?” he went on, though his newly acquired accent escaped him. “Vot woot an army pe toing here?”
“Oh, just a camp, you know. We hold maneuvers every year in England.”
“Yez. You coot pud all your leedle army on dis grount. Bud dere iss von grade tefecd. Dere iss no water. A vell, in eej farm, yez; bud nod enough for a hundret dousand men, und de horses of four divisions.”
This point of view was novel to the boy. He knit his brows.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” he confessed. “But, wait a bit. There’s far more water here than you would imagine. Stocks have to be watered, you know. Some of the farmers dam the becks. Why, in the Dickenson place over there,” and out went a hand, “they have quite a large reservoir, with trout in it. You’d never guess it existed, if you weren’t told.”
Fritz nodded. He had turned against the breeze to shield a match for a cigarette, and his face was hidden.
“You surprise me,” he murmured, speaking slowly and with care again. “And dere are odders, you say?”
“Five that I know of. Mrs. Walker, at the Broad Ings, rears hundreds of ducks on her pond.”
Fritz took the map and pencil.