Presently there came a familiar echo from the Pornick hunting-ground. Then Kipps began to sing, "Ar pars eight tra-la, in the lane be'ind the church." To which an unseen person answered, "Ar pars eight it is, in the lane be'ind the church." The "tra-la" was considered to render this sentence incomprehensible to the uninitiated. In order to conceal their operations still more securely, both parties to this duet then gave vent to a vocalisation of the Huron war-cry again, and after a lingering repetition of the last and shrillest note, dispersed severally, as became boys in the enjoyment of holidays, to light the house fires for the day.
Half-past eight found Kipps sitting on the sunlit gate at the top of the long lane that runs towards the sea, clashing his boots in a slow rhythm, and whistling with great violence all that he knew of an excruciatingly pathetic air. There appeared along by the churchyard wall a girl in a short frock, brown-haired, quick-coloured, and with dark blue eyes. She had grown so that she was a little taller than Kipps, and her colour had improved. He scarcely remembered her, so changed was she since last holidays—if indeed he had seen her last holidays, a thing he could not clearly remember. Some vague emotion arose at the sight of her. He stopped whistling and regarded her, oddly tongue-tied.
"He can't come," said Ann, advancing boldly. "Not yet."
"What—not Sid?"
"No. Father's made him dust all his boxes again."
"What for?"
"I dunno. Father's in a stew 'smorning."
"Oh!"
Pause. Kipps looked at her, and then was unable to look at her again. She regarded him with interest. "You left school?" she remarked after a pause.
"Yes."
"So's Sid."
The conversation languished. Ann put her hands on the top of the gate, and began a stationary hopping, a sort of ineffectual gymnastic experiment.
"Can you run?" she said presently.
"Run you any day," said Kipps.
"Gimme a start?"
"Where for?" said Kipps.
Ann considered, and indicated a tree. She walked towards it, and turned. "Gimme to here?" she called.
Kipps, standing now and touching the gate, smiled to express conscious superiority. "Further!" he said.
"Here?"
"Bit more!" said Kipps, and then, repenting of his magnanimity, said "Orf!" suddenly, and so recovered his lost concession.
They arrived abreast at the tree, flushed and out of breath.
"Tie!" said Ann, throwing her hair back from her face with her hand.
"I won," panted Kipps.
They disputed firmly but quite politely.
"Run it again, then," said Kipps. "I don't mind."
They returned towards the gate.
"You don't run bad," said Kipps, temperately expressing sincere admiration. "I'm pretty good, you know."
Ann sent her hair back by an expert toss of the head. "You give me a start," she allowed.
They became aware of Sid approaching them.
"You better look out, young Ann," said Sid, with that irreverent want of sympathy usual in brothers. "You been out nearly 'arf-hour. Nothing ain't been done upstairs. Father said he didn't know where you was, but when he did he'd warm y'r young ear."
Ann prepared to go.
"How about that race?" asked Kipps.
"Lor!" cried Sid, quite shocked. "You ain't been racing her!"
Ann swung herself round the end of the gate with her eyes on Kipps, and then turned away suddenly and ran off down the lane.
Kipps' eyes tried to go after her, and came back to Sid's.
"I give her a lot of start," said Kipps apologetically. "It wasn't a proper race." And so the subject was dismissed. But Kipps was distrait for some seconds, perhaps, and the mischief had begun in him.
§4
They proceeded to the question of how two accomplished Hurons might most satisfactorily spend the morning. Manifestly their line lay straight along the lane to the sea.
"There's a new wreck," said Sid, "and my!—don't it smell just!"
"Smell?"
"Fair make you sick. It's rotten wheat."
They fell to talking of wrecks, and so came to ironclads and wars and suchlike manly matters.
Half-way to the wreck Kipps made a casual irrelevant remark. "Your sister ain't a bad sort," he said off-handedly.
"I clout her a lot," said Sidney modestly, and after a pause the talk reverted to more suitable topics.
The new wreck was full of rotting grain, and smelt abominably, even as Sid had said. This was excellent. They had it all to themselves. They took possession of it in force, at Sid's suggestion, and had speedily to defend it against enormous numbers of imaginary "natives," who were at last driven off by loud shouts of bang, bang, and vigorous thrusting and shoving of sticks. Then, also at Sid's direction, they sailed with it into the midst of a combined French, German and Russian fleet, demolishing the combination unassisted, and having descended to the beach, clambered up the side and cut out their own vessel in brilliant style, they underwent a magnificent shipwreck (with vocalised thunder) and floated "waterlogged"—so Sid insisted—upon an exhausted sea.
These things drove Ann out of mind for a time. But at last, as they drifted without food or water upon a stagnant ocean, haggard-eyed, chins between their hands, looking in vain for a sail, she came to mind again abruptly.
"It's rather nice 'aving sisters," remarked one perishing mariner.
Sid turned round and regarded him thoughtfully. "Not it!" he said.
"No?"
"Not a bit of it." He grinned confidentially. "Know too much," he said; and afterwards, "Get out of things."
He resumed his gloomy scrutiny of the hopeless horizon. Presently he fell to spitting jerkily between his teeth, as he had read was the way with such ripe manhood as chews its quid.
"Sisters," he said, "is rot. That's what sisters are. Girls if you like, but sisters—no!"
"But ain't sisters girls?"
"N-eaow!" said Sid, with unspeakable scorn.
And Kipps answered, "Of course. I didn't mean—— I wasn't thinking of that."
"You got a girl?" asked Sid, spitting very cleverly again.
Kipps admitted his deficiency. He felt compunction.
"You don't know who my girl is, Art Kipps—I bet."
"Who is, then?" asked Kipps, still chiefly occupied by his own poverty.
"Ah!"
Kipps let a moment elapse before he did his duty. "Tell us!"
Sid eyed him and hesitated. "Secret?" he said.
"Secret."
"Dying solemn?"
"Dying solemn!" Kipps' self-concentration passed into curiosity.
Sid administered a terrible oath. Even after that precaution he adhered lovingly to his facts. "It begins with a Nem," he said, doling them out parsimoniously. "M A U D," he spelt, with a stern eye on Kipps, "C H A R