“Do you know my young brother Percy, a Modern kid? He was one, and all our lot, you know, D’Arcy and Ashby and Fisher minor and—”
“Fisher minor,” said Rollitt, suddenly becoming interested; “up there?”
“Yes—he’s the lame horse of the party—not up to it. What’s up, I say?”
Rollitt had suddenly deposited his rod under the wall, and quitting the path was beginning to strike up the base of the hill.
“Go, and bring guides,” he growled.
“You’ll get lost, to a dead certainty. I say, can’t I come too?” said the boy, looking very miserable.
“No. Fetch guides. Come with them. Quick.”
There were no guides to be had nearer than Penchurch, four miles off, and Wally, very cold and wet and hungry and footsore, with a big load on his heart as he thought of Percy, pulled himself together with an effort and stumped off.
Rollitt strode on up the slope in the gathering night. Cold and weather mattered little to him, still less did danger. But Fisher minor mattered very much. For Percy or any of the rest he might probably have stayed where he was; but for the one boy in Fellsgarth he oared about he would cheerfully go over a precipice.
Every now and again he stood still and shouted. But in the wind and rain it was impossible to say if any one heard him or called again.