“Is that the grub?” he cried. “Why, Tom Drift, you have been laying in a spread! What a brick you are! Look here, I’d carry it—isn’t it a weight, though! If we get all this inside us two we shan’t starve!”
And so they started, Charlie lugging along the bag and whistling like a lark.
“Looks cloudy,” said Tom, who felt he must say something or other.
“Never mind, all the better for the trout, you know. I say, I wish I had my fly on the water this minute.”
As Tom was silent, Charlie kept up the conversation by himself.
“I say, Tom Drift,” said he, “if your mother could only see us two chaps going off for a day’s fishing she—”
“Look here, draw it mild about my mother, young un. She can take care of herself well enough.”
Charlie blushed to the roots of his hair at this rebuke, and for some time the flow of his conversation was arrested.
It was a good four miles from Randlebury to Sharle Bridge; and long ere they reached it Charlie’s arm ached with the ponderous bag he was carrying. He did not, however, like to say anything, still less to ask Tom to take a turn at carrying it; so he plodded on, changing hands every few minutes, and buoying himself up with the prospect of the river and the trout.
Presently they came within sight of the signpost which marks the junction of the Gurley and Sharle Bridge roads.