So Paul and Arthur scoured the coppices and woods and old quarries, so long as a blackberry was to be found, every week-end going on their search.

In that region of mining villages blackberries became a comparative rarity.

But Paul hunted far and wide.
He loved being out in the country, among the bushes.

But he also could not bear to go home to his mother empty.

That, he felt, would disappoint her, and he would have died rather.
"Good gracious!" she would exclaim as the lads came in, late, and tired to death, and hungry, "wherever have you been ?" "Well," replied Paul, "there wasn't any, so we went over Misk Hills.