“I’ll give you a quart if you will show me.”
“Wull ee? Come on.” The beer went at once right to the nervous centre and awoke all his faculties. He led Geoffrey across the plain and up a swelling shoulder of down, on whose ridge was a broad deep fosse and green rampart.
“This be th’ Cas’l,” said the guide, meaning entrenchments—earthworks are called “castles.” In one spot the fosse was partly filled up, and an opening cut in the rampart, by which he rode through and found the “castle,” a vast earthwork of unknown antiquity.
“Mind thaay vlint-pits,” said the boy.
The flint-diggers had been at work here long ago—deep gullies and holes encumbered the way, half-hidden with thistles and furze. The place was honeycombed; it reminded Geoffrey of the Australian gold-diggings. He threaded his way slowly between these, and presently emerged on the slope beyond the “castle.”
“Now which way is it?” he asked, glancing doubtfully at the hills still rolling away in unbroken succession.
“Yellucks,” said the boy, meaning “Look here,” and he pointed at a dark object on a distant ridge, which Geoffrey made out to be a copse. “Thur’s Moonlight Virs.”
“Well, and when I get to Moonlight Firs, which way then?”
“Thee foller th’ ruts—thaay’ll take ee to Akkern Chace.”
“The ruts?”