"Bevis," repeated Mark, "I have had enough now; stop, and you get in."
"I shall not," said Bevis. "You are a great story."
"Let me get out and tow you now." Bevis did not reply. "I say--I say-- I say, Bevis."
No use. Bevis towed him the whole way, till the raft touched the shallow shore of the drinking-place. Then Mark got out and helped him drag the vessel well up on the ground, so that it should not float away.
"Now," said Bevis, after it was quite done. "Will you be a story any more?"
"No," said Mark, "I will not be a story again."
So they walked back side by side to the willow tree; Mark, who was really in the right, feeling in the wrong. At the tree Bevis picked up the auger, and told him to bore the hole. Mark began, but suddenly stopped.
"What's the good of boring the hole when we have not got any gunpowder," said he.
"No more we have," said Bevis. "This is very stupid, and they will not let me have any, though I have got some money, and I have a great mind to buy some and hide it. Just as if we did not know how to use powder, and as if we did not know how to shoot! Oh, I know! We will go and cut a bough of alder--there's ever so many alders by the Longpond--and burn it and make charcoal; it makes the best charcoal, you know, and they always--use it for gunpowder, and then we can get some saltpetre. Let me see--"
"The Bailiff had some saltpetre the other day," said Mark.
"So he did: it is in the dairy. Oh yes, and I know where some sulphur is. It is in the garden-house, where the tools are, in the orchard; it's what they use to smother the bees with--"
"That's on brown paper," said Mark; "that won't do."
"No it's not. You have to melt it to put it on paper, and dip the paper in. This is in a piece, it is like a short bar, and we will pound it up and mix; them all together and make capital gunpowder."
"Hurrah!" cried Mark, throwing down the auger. "Let's go and cut the alder. Come on!"
"Stop," said Bevis. "Lean on me, and walk slow. Don't you know you have caught a dreadful fever, from being in the swamps by the river, and you can hardly walk, and you are very thin and weak? Lean on my arm and hang your head."
Mark hung his head, turning his rosy cheeks down to the buttercups, and dragged his sturdy fever-stricken limbs along with an effort.