Next he found a big black book, and lifted up the covers, and saw a rude engraving of a plant. “Is that a magic book?” said he. “I dunno,” she replied. “Mebbe. Granny used to read un.” It was an old herbal. “Can’t you read?” said Bevis. The girl blushed and turned away. “A’ be a lazy wench,” said the old woman. “A’ can’t read a mossel.” “I bean’t lazy.” “You be.” Bevis, quite indifferent to that question, was peering into every nook and corner, but found nothing more. “Let’s go,” said he directly. Mark would not stir till he had finished the gooseberries. “Tell me the way round the--the--” he was going to say sea, but recollected that they would not be able to understand how he and Mark were on an expedition, nor would he say pond--“round the water,” he said. “The Longpond?” said the girl. “You can’t go round, there’s the marsh-- not unless you goes back to Wood Lane, and nigh handy your place.” “Which way did ’ee come?” asked the old woman. “They come through the wood,” said the girl. “I seen um; and they had the spannul.” She was stroking Pan, who loved her, as she had fed him with a bone. She knew the enormity of taking a strange dog through a wood in the breeding-season. “How be um going to get whoam?” said the old woman. “We’re going to walk, of course,” said Bevis. “It’s four miles.” “Pooh! We’ve come thousands. Come on, Mark; we’ll get round somehow.” But the girl convinced him after a time that it was not possible, because of the marsh and the brook, and showed him too how the shadows of the elms were lengthening in the meadow outside the garden at the foot of the hill. Bevis reluctantly decided that they must abandon the expedition for that day, and return home. The girl offered to show them the way into the road. She led them by a narrow path beside the streamlet in the gully, and then along the steep side of the hill, where there were three or four more cottages, all built on the slope, steep as it was. The path in front of the doors had a kind of breastwork, that folk might not inadvertently tumble over and roll--if not quite sober-- into the gully beneath. Yet there were small gardens behind, which almost stood up on end, the vegetables appearing over the roofs. Upon the breastwork or mound they had planted a few flowers, all yellow, or yellow-tinged, marigolds, sunflowers, wall-flowers, a stray tulip, the gaudiest they knew. These specks of brightness by the dingy walls and grey thatch and whitened turf, for the chalk was but an inch under, came of instinct on that southern slope, as hot Spain flaunts a yellow flag.