“I told you,” said Beetle, with vindictive triumph. “An’ we want to go out after that hawk’s nest on Monday. We shall be swottin’ dum-bells, though. All your fault. If we’d bunked with De Vitré at first——”
Corkran paused between the hedgerows. “Hold on a shake an’ don’t burble. Keep your eye on Uncle. Do you know, I believe someone’s shut up in that barn. I think we ought to go and see.”
“Don’t be a giddy idiot. Come on up to Coll.” But Corkran took no notice of Beetle.
He retraced his steps to the head of the lane, and, lifting up his voice, cried as in bewilderment, “Hullo? Who’s there? What’s that row about? Who are you?”
“Oh, Peter!” said Beetle, skipping, and forgetting his anguish in this new development.
“Hoi! Hoi! ’Ere! Let us out!” The answers came muffled and hollow from the black bulk of the barn, with renewed thunders on the door.
“Now play up,” said Corkran. “Turkey, you keep the cows busy. ’Member that we’ve just discovered ’em. We don’t know anything. Be polite, Beetle.”
They picked their way over the muck and held speech through a crack by the door-hinge. Three more genuinely surprised boys the steady rain never fell upon. And they were so difficult to enlighten. They had to be told again and again by the captives within.
“We’ve been ’ere for hours an’ hours.” That was Toowey. “An’ the cows to milk, an’ all.” That was Vidley. “The door she blewed against us an’ jammed herself.” That was Abraham.
“Yes, we can see that. It’s jammed on this side,” said Corkran. “How careless you chaps are!”