"In Breckonside," I said, but I added that I had often been with my father at East Dene. And once I had crossed the ferry all by myself and spent Easter Monday at Thoisby itself.
"Humph," she said, wrinkling up her nose with great contempt. "I suppose that you have never even heard of London."
I told her "Yes, of course." And that I could tell her the number of its inhabitants.
But this she didn't seem to think clever, or, indeed, to care about at all.
She only said, "Are all country boys as stupid as you are?"
To be called a boy like that made me angry, and I ran after her, determined to pay her out. I was going to show her that country boys could just be as sharp as there was any need for.
But quick as I was, this city girl was quicker, and she slipped across the road almost at the very place where we had found the last traces of poor Harry Foster. She dived among the underbrush by the stile, and I lost sight of her altogether.
But the next moment I heard a cry. You had better believe I wasted no time till I got there. I ran, opening a good, stout clasp knife that father had given me—or, if not "given" exactly, had seen me with, and not taken away from me. It comes to the same thing.
Well, just a little away across a green glade, all pine needles and sun dapplings, stood Mad Jeremy, and he had Harriet Caw by the arm. I went at him as fast as I could—which was a silly thing to do, for, of course, with his strength he could have done me up in two ticks of a clock. Only, as mostly happens when one does fine things, it was all over before I thought.