Brown made an inarticulate sound through his bull’s eye, meant to convey interest and interrogation, and Smith, interpreting it, said, “Where are you going?”
“To Ringers’ Hill,” said William defiantly and passed on, leaving Brown and Smith gazing after them amazedly.
“You di’n’ ought to have told them,” said Ginger.
But William was in a mood of joyous defiance.
“I don’t care,” he said, “I don’t care who knows. I don’t care who comes to fetch us home. We won’t go. We’ll climb trees an’ shoot at ’em and throw stones at ’em. I bet no one in the whole world’ll be able to catch us. I’m an Outlaw, I am,” he chanted. “I’m an Outlaw.”
Again his spirit infected his followers. They cheered lustily. “We’re Outlaws, we are,” they chanted, “we’re Outlaws.”
******
They sat under the largest tree on Ringers’ Hill. They had been Outlaws now for half an hour and it somehow wasn’t going as well as they’d thought it would. Douglas, wishing to test the food-producing properties of the place at once, had eaten so many unripe blackberries that he could for the time being take little interest in anything but his own feelings. Ginger had from purely altruistic motives begun to test the roots and was already regretting it.
“Well, I din’ ask you to go about eatin’ roots,” said William irritably. William had for the whole half hour been trying to light a fire and was by this time feeling thoroughly fed up with it. He had just used the last of a box of matches which he had abstracted from the lab. that morning.
“I did it for you,” said Ginger indignantly, “I did it to find the sort of roots that people eat, so you’d be able to eat ’em. Well, you can jolly well find your own roots now and I jolly well hope you find the one I did—the last one. It’s the sort of taste that goes on for ever. I don’ s’pose if I go on livin’ for years an’ years, I’ll ever get the taste of it out of my mouth——”