There were indeed, for the time at any rate, no more "rags," and Peter
might, an he would, have reigned magnificently over the Lower School. But
he was as silent and aloof as ever, and was considered "a sidey devil, but
jolly plucky, by Gad."
And for himself he got at any rate the more continued companionship of
Cards, who languidly, and, perhaps a younger Sir Willoughby Patterne "with
a leg," admired his muscle.
IV
Finally, towards the end of the term, Peter and Bobby Galleon may be seen
sitting on a high hill. It is a Sunday afternoon in spring, and far away
there is a thin line of faintly blue hills. Nearer to view there are grey
heights more sharply outlined and rough, like drawing paper--painted with
a green wood, a red-roofed farm, a black church spire, and a brown ploughed
field. Immediately below them a green hedge hanging over a running stream
that has caught the blue of the sky. Above them vast swollen clouds
flooding slowly with the faint yellow of the coming sunset, hanging
stationary above the stream and seeming to have flung to earth some patches
of their colour in the first primroses below the hedge. A rabbit watches,
his head out of his hole.
The boys' voices cut the air.
"I say, Bobby, don't you ever wonder about things--you never seem to want
to ask questions."
"No, I don't suppose I do.
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