at the tale-teller just as the tall, thin boy, who bore the same name as I, came striding up with his face flushed and fists doubled, to plant three or four vigorous blows in Mercer’s chest and back.

“How dare you tear my book?” he cried. “Here, you, fat Dicksee, bring it here.”

“Thought you meant me to use it,” cried Mercer, taking the blows good-humouredly enough. “Oh, I say, don’t! you hurt!”

“Mischievous beggar!” said my senior taking the book and marching off.

“Go on! Ask your father to buy you a new one,” cried Mercer derisively, as he applied a piece of blotting-paper to one leg of his trousers. “Hiss! Goose!”

“Do you wish me to come back and thrash you, Tom Mercer,” said the tall boy, with a lordly manner.

“No, sir, thank-ye, sir; please don’t, and I’ll never do so no more, sir.”

“Miserable beggar,” said Burr major. “Here, Dicksee, come down the field and bowl for me. Bring five or six little uns to field.”

“Yah! Tailor!” said Mercer, as his bully marched out.

“I’ll tell him what you said,” cried Dicksee.

“Hullo, Penny loaf! you there? Yes, you’d better tell him. Just you come to me for some physic, and you’ll see how I’ll serve you.”

“Don’t ketch me taking any of your stuff again,” cried the big, fat, sneering-looking fellow. “I’ll tell him, and you’ll see.”

“Go and tell him then,” said Mercer contemptuously. “So he is a tailor, and his father’s a tailor. Why, I saw his name on a brass plate in Cork Street.”

“So’s your father got his name on a brass plate,” sneered Dicksee.

“Well, what of that? My father’s a professional gentleman. Here, come on, Burr, and I’ll show you round. Hooray! the sun’s come through the mist. Where’s your cap? All right. You’ll have to get a square trencher by next Sunday. This way.”

He led me out into the big playground, and turned.

“Ain’t a bad house, is it? Some big lord used to live here, and Magglin says his father says it was empty for years, and it was sold cheap at last to the Doctor, who only used to have four boys at first.”

“Who’s Magglin?”

“Ha, ha!” laughed Mercer; “he calls himself a gardener because he comes here to help dig, but I know: he’s a poacher, that’s what he is. You ask Hopley.”

“But I don’t know Hopley,” I said, laughing.

“You soon will. He’s General Rye’s keeper. I buy birds off him to stuff.”

“What, geese?” I said, as I recalled that my companion spoke about a goose just before.

“Geese? no. Magpies and jays and hawks. I stuff ’em with tow; I’ll show you how. Old Hopley says Magglin’s a rank poacher, and first time he catches him on their grounds he’ll pull him up before his master, you know. General’s a magistrate. But he won’t catch him. Magg’s too artful. I say, got any money?”

“Yes, I have some,” I said.

“That’s right. Don’t you spend it. You save up same as I am. Magg’s got a gun I want to buy of him. He says he won’t sell it, but I know better. He will when we offer him enough. I did offer him ten shillings, but he laughed at me. I say!”

“Yes.”

“It’s such a beauty. Single barrel, with a flint lock, so that it never wants no caps, and it comes out of the stock quite easy, and the barrel unscrews in the middle, and the ramrod too, so that you can put it all in your pocket, and nobody knows that you’re carrying a gun.”

“But what’s the good of a gun here at school?”

“What? Oh, you don’t know because it’s all new to you. Why, there are hares in the fields, and pheasants in the coppices, and partridges in the hop-gardens, and the rabbits swarm in the hill-sides down toward the sea.”

“But you don’t shoot!”

“Not much, because I have no gun, only a pistol, and it don’t carry straight. I did nearly hit a rabbit, though, with it.”

“But can you get away shooting?”

“Can I? Should think I can. We have all sorts of fun down here. Can you fish?”

“I went once,” I said, “on the river.”

“But you didn’t catch anything,” said Mercer, grinning.

“No,” I said; “I don’t think I had a bite.”

“Not you. Just you wait a bit, I’ll take you fishing. There’s the river where old Rebble goes, and the mill-pond where old Martin gives me leave, and a big old hammer pond out in the middle of General Rye’s woods where nobody gives me leave, but I go. It’s full of great carp and tench and eels big as boa-constrictors.”

“Oh, come!” I said.

“I didn’t say big boa-constrictors, did I? there’s little ones, I daresay. Here we are. That’s Magglin—didn’t know he was here to-day.”

He pointed out a rough, shambling-looking young man down the great kitchen garden into which he had led me. This gentleman was in his coat, and he was apparently busy doing nothing with a hoe, upon which he rested himself, and took off a very ragged fur cap to wipe his brow as we came up, saluting us with a broad grin.

“Hallo, Magg! you here? This is the new boy, Burr.”

“Nay,” said the man in a harsh, saw-sharpening voice, “think I don’t know better than that? That aren’t Master Burr.”

“No, not that one. This is the new one. This is Burr junior.”

“Oh, I see,” said the man. “Mornin’, Mr Burr juner. Hope I see you well, sir?”

“Oh, he’s all right,” said Mercer. “Give him a penny to buy a screw of tobacco, Frank.”

I gave the required coin, and Mr Magglin spat on it, spun it in the air, caught it, and placed it in his pocket.

“Thank-ye,” he said.

“Got any birds for me?”

“Nay, nary one; but I knows of a beauty you’d give your ears to get.”

“What is it?” cried Mercer eagerly.

“All bootiful green, with a head as red as carrots.”

“Get out! Gammon! Think I don’t know better than that? He means a parrot he’s seen in its cage.”

“Nay, I don’t,” said the man. “I mean a big woodpecker down in Squire Hawkus Rye’s woods.”

“Oh, Magg: get it for me!”

“Nay, I dunno as I can. Old Hopley’s on the look-out for me, and if I was to shoot that there bird, he’d swear it was a fezzan.”

“Perhaps it is,” said Mercer, laughing.

“Nay, not it, my lad,” said the man, with a sly-looking smile. “If it was a fezzan I shouldn’t bring it to you.”

“Why not? I should like to stuff it.”

“Daresay you would, my lad, but if I did that, somebody would stuff me.”

“Ha, ha!” laughed Mercer. “You’d look well in a glass case, Magg.”

“Shouldn’t look well in prison,” said the man, laughing. “Why, what’d become o’ the Doctor’s taters?”

“Oh, bother the taters. I say, what about that gun, Magg?”

“What about what gun?” said the man softly, as he gave a sharp glance round.

“Get out! You know.”

“Whish!” said the man. “Don’t you get thinking about no guns. I wouldn’t ha’ showed it to you if I’d known. Why, if folks knew I had a gun, there’d be no end of bother, so don’t you say nothing about it again.”

“Well, then, sell it to me. Burr here’s going to join me.”

The man gave me a quick glance, and shook his head. “I don’t sell guns,” he said.

“Then will you shoot that woodpecker for me?”

“Nay, I mustn’t shoot, they’d say I was a poacher. I’ll try and get it for you, though, only it’ll be a shilling.”

“Can’t afford more than ninepence, Magg.”

“Ninepence it is then; I don’t want to be hard on a young gentleman.”

“But if it’s all knocked to pieces and covered with blood, I shall only give you sixpence.”

“Oh, this’ll be all right, sir.”

“When shall you shoot it?”

“Ha’n’t I told you