Chapter Three.

“What a fuss about nothing!” I thought to myself, as we went on, down a beautiful lane, with tempting-looking woods on either side, and fox-gloves on the banks, and other wild-flowers full of attractions to me as a town boy. There was a delicious scent, too, in the air, which I had yet to learn was from the young shoots of the fir-trees, growing warm in the sunshine.

I had made no boy friendships up to then, and, as I glanced sideways at the pleasant, frank face of the lad walking quickly by me, just at a time when I had been oppressed by the loneliness of my position, fresh from home and among strangers, a strong feeling of liking for him began to spring up, and with it forgetfulness of the misery I had suffered.

“Hi! look! there he goes,” cried Mercer just then, and he pointed up into an oak tree.

“What is it?” I said excitedly.

“He’s gone now; wait a minute, and you’ll soon see another. There he is—listen.”

He held up his hand, and I stood all attention, but there was no sound for a few minutes. Then from out of the woods came plainly.

Chop chop, chop chop.

“I can’t see him,” I said. “Some one’s cutting down a tree.”

Mercer burst into a roar of laughter.

“Oh, I say, you are a Cockney!” he cried. “Cutting down a tree! Why, you don’t seem to know anything about the country.”

“Well,” I rejoined rather warmly, “that isn’t my fault. I’ve always lived in London.”

“Among the fogs and blacks. Never mind, you’ll soon learn it all. I did. Wish I could learn my Latin and mathicks half as fast. That isn’t anybody cutting wood; it’s a squirrel.”

“A squirrel?”

“Yes; there he goes. He’s coming this way. You watch him. He’s cross, because he sees us. There, what did I say?”

I looked in the direction he pointed out, and saw the leaves moving. Then there was a rustle, and the little brown and white animal leaped from bough to bough, till I saw it plainly on a great grey and green mossy bough of a beech tree, not thirty feet away, where it stood twisting and jerking its beautiful feathery tail from side to side, and then, as if scolding us, it began to make the sounds I had before heard—Chop, chop, chop, chop, wonderfully like the blows of an axe falling on wood.

“Wonder whether I could hit him,” cried Mercer, picking up a stone.

“No, no, don’t! I want to look at him.”

“There’s lots about here, and they get no end of the nuts in the autumn. But come along.”

We soon left the squirrel behind, and Mercer stopped again, in a shady part of the lane.

“Hear that,” he said, as a loud chizz chizz chizz came from a dry sandy spot, where the sun shone strongly.

“Yes, and I know what it is,” I cried triumphantly. “That’s a cricket escaped from the kitchen fireplace.”

Mercer laughed.

“It’s a cricket,” he said, “but it’s a field one. You don’t know what that is, though,” he continued, as a queer sound saluted my ears,—a low, dull whirring, rising and falling, sometimes nearer, sometimes distant, till it died right away.

“Now then, what is it?” he cried.

“Knife-grinder,” I said; “you’ll hear the blade screech on the stone directly.”

“Wrong. That’s Dame Durden with her spinning-wheel.”

“Ah, well, I knew it was a wheel sound. Is there a cottage in there?”

“No,” he said, laughing again; “it’s a bird.”

“Nonsense!”

“It is. It is a night-jar. They make that noise in their throats, and you can see them of a night, flying round and round the trees, like great swallows, catching the moths.”

I looked hard at him.

“I say!”

“Yes; what?”

“Don’t you begin cramming me, because, if you do, I shall try a few London tales on you.”

Mercer laughed.

“There’s an old unbeliever for you. I’m not joking you; I never do that sort of thing. It is a bird really.”

“Show it to me then.”

“I can’t. He’s sitting somewhere on a big branch, long way up, and you can’t find them because they look so like the bark of the tree, and you don’t know where the sound comes from. They’re just like the corn-crakes.”

“I’ve read about corn-crakes,” I said.

“Well, there’s plenty here. You wait till night, and I’ll open our bedroom window, and you can hear them craking away down in the meadows. You never can tell whereabouts they are, though, and you very seldom see them. They’re light brown birds.”

We were walking on now, and twice over he stopped, smiling at me, so that I could listen to the night-jars, making their whirring noise in the wood.

“Now, was I cramming you?” he said.

“No, and I will not doubt you again. Why, what a lot you know about country things!”

“Not I. That’s nothing. You soon pick up all that. Ever hear a nightingale?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Then you haven’t. You’ll hear them to-night, if it’s fine, singing away in the copses, and answering one another for miles round.”

“Why, this must be a beautiful place, then?”

“I should think it is—it’s lovely. I don’t mean the school; I hate that, and the way they bore you over the lessons, and the more stupid you are, the harder they are upon you. I’m always catching it. ’Tain’t my fault I’m so stupid.”

I looked at him sharply, for he seemed to me to be crammed full of knowledge.

“The Doctor told me one day I was a miserable young idiot, and that I thought about nothing but birds and butterflies. Can’t help it. I like to. I say, we’ll go egging as soon as we’ve seen the owls. Wonder whether I can get an owl’s egg for my collection. I’ve got two night-jars’.”

“Out of the nest?”

“They don’t make any nest; I found them just as they were laid on some chips, where they were cutting down and trimming young trees for hop-poles. Such beauties! But come along. Yes, he said I was a young idiot, but father don’t mind my wanting to collect things. He likes natural history, and mamma collects plants, and names them. She can tell you the names of all the flowers you pass by, and—whisht—snake!”

“Where? Where?”

“Only gone across here,” said my companion, pointing to a winding track in the dusty road, showing where the reptile must have crossed from one side to the other.

“Which way did he go?” I said; “let’s hunt him.”

“No good,” said my companion quietly. “He’s off down some hole long enough ago. Never mind him; I can show you plenty of snakes in the woods, and adders too.”

“They sting, don’t they?” I said.

“No.”

“They do. Adders or vipers are poisonous.”

“Yes, but they don’t sting; they bite. They’ve got