"I suppose father would not come?" she said, as she and Mr. Gillat walked on after a readjustment of the burden.
"Oh, no," Johnny answered; "it was not that; I'm sure he would have come if he had been in when I started, but he was not back then."
"Not back?" Julia repeated. "Why, where has he gone?"
"Well," Johnny replied slowly, "he said he was going to get fir-cones, but I'm not sure, I didn't see him go across the heath. Still, I dare say he went—he took a basket, so I think he must have gone."
Julia apparently did not find this very conclusive evidence. "There is not anywhere much about here where he can go," she said; much less as if she were stating a fact than as if she were reviewing likely and unlikely places. "There is only the one road, and that goes to Halgrave, and there is nowhere for him there."
"No, oh, no," Johnny said; "there really is nowhere there."
"There is the 'Dog and Pheasant,'" Julia went on meditatively, "but he would not get anything he cared about there."
"No," Mr. Gillat said decidedly; "besides he would not go there, he would not sit in a small country public house and—er—and—sit there—and so on—he would not think of going to such a place. It is one thing when you are out in the country for a day's fishing or something, to have a glass of ale and a piece of bread and cheese at an inn, but the other is quite different; he wouldn't do that—oh, no. To sit in a little bar and—"
"Booze," Julia concluded for him. "Johnny, you are always a wonder to me; how you have contrived to live so long and yet to keep your belief in man unspotted from the world beats me."
Johnny looked uncomfortable and a little puzzled. "Well, but your father—" he began.