It was a fine thing to do, but he
wished devoutly somebody else had the doing of it. On the Wish in the
sunshine, the Parson at his side, when the idea first struck him, it
had seemed splendid. Now, alone in the dark, with the idea to
translate into reality, he saw it very differently. It gave him no
thrill of glory. He felt exactly as he had felt last March on the way
to the dentist to have a tooth out--a mean sense of his own
mortality, and an earnest desire to run away.
The turf shaded off into long bents growing out of sand; and that
again ran away into shingle. As he breasted the bank, his hands
succouring his feet, he heard steps behind him.
"Who's that?" he snarled, crouching.
Blob was standing at gaze a little way behind him.
"What ye want?"
The boy made no answer, staring with round moon-eyes.
"He's noiked," came a musing voice. "Oi dew loike to see un."
He shot out a finger, and, flinging back his head, gurgled laughter.
"Here, boy!" called Kit. "As you are there, you can carry me over
these pebbles."
He leapt on the other's back, and Blob, sturdy as he looked limp,
crashed down the shingle and across the stretch of wet sand at a
loose-jointed canter.
"That'll do, my boy, thank you," said Kit, slipping down at the edge
of the tide.
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