Farmer Bluff's Dog Blazer or At the Eleventh Hour, by Florence E. Burch

THE GOOSE DUCKED HER HEAD, OPENED HER WINGS,
AND RUSHED FORWARD WITH A SCREAM.

FARMER BLUFF'S

DOG BLAZER

"I CAN'T see why I shouldn't use my own common sense," said Dick Crozier to himself one fine morning, as he sauntered along the lane. "What else was it given to me for, I should like to know?"

It was a holiday, and Dick had a mind to enjoy himself. Now it happened that Dick's idea of enjoyment on this particular morning did not quite agree with his father's. Before leaving home, Mr. Crozier had given him particular injunctions not to extend his walk beyond the common, and not to go near the river.

"Another time," said he, "I shall have leisure to teach you how to manage a boat. Then I shall not be afraid to trust you; but until then I would rather you kept away."

Dick ventured to argue the point. "Another time," he mightn't have a holiday. His parents had only recently removed into the neighbourhood; and he felt pretty certain that his father would put him to school as soon as ever they got settled in the new place.

"No time like the present," said Dick to himself, as he tried to shake his father's determination. "To-day is my own; no knowing whose to-morrow may be."

But when a wise father has really made up his mind, his determination is not to be shaken.

"You must be content to let me judge what is best for the present," said Mr. Crozier. "When you are older, you will see that I was right."

So Dick had to submit—outwardly, at any rate; and as soon as he had watched his father disappear round the corner towards the railway, away he walked in the opposite direction, grumbling to himself as he went.

It was not a morning for grumbling. The time of year was the end of March. The wind, having made the discovery that all its roar and bluster could not stop the trees and flowers from coming out to meet the spring, had gone to sleep, and left them to enjoy the sunshine till the April showers came on. Birds were singing blithely on the boughs, and even a few humble-bees were to be seen riding through the air with an important buzz, as if they felt that they had got things their own way at last; whilst their working relatives flew hither and thither in quest of honey, with a sharp-toned hum that plainly said—"We must be busy."

Dick heard them, and stopped grumbling. It was too bad to be in an ill-humour whilst everything else—from the kingcups in the hedge to the larks in the sky—was so full of enjoyment. It was not even as if all the ill-humour in the world could alter what his father had said. So he just gave one or two cuts at the hedge with the stick in his hand as a final protest, and began to whistle. A few minutes later he was climbing along a grassy bank, holding by the wooden palings at the top.

There was a plantation on the other side of these palings, and just then a clock in a little tower, with a golden weathercock, struck nine. Dick had heard his father speak of this house as the residence of the Lord of the Manor, so he stopped to have a peep at it through the trees.

It was a large, white stone building, with balconies to the upper windows, supported on twisted pillars, so as to form a shady verandah in front of the lower rooms. A smooth lawn, green as emerald and soft as velvet, sloped up to the gravelled terrace; and behind the house, the grass slanted away to an iron hurdle-fence, within which deer were grazing. Beyond was a little copse, where pines and Scotch firs showed dark against the pale green mist of leaf-buds on the other trees. A gate leading into this copse was painted red; and Dick now noticed that all the gates and railings about the place were of the same unusual colour—which formed a very pretty contrast with the grass.

As he clung to the fence, making these observations, a French window at one end of the verandah opened, and three boys trooped out, followed by a lady, whom Dick took to be their mother. She was young, and very beautiful—or so Dick thought, as she stepped into the sunlight, shading her eyes with one hand, to watch them off; so beautiful that, for the moment, his eyes seem riveted. But only for a moment. The boys no sooner reached the steps than Dick's eyes left her for them. The foremost two bounded down, three or four steps at a time, leaving the third one far behind; and Dick now perceived that the poor fellow went upon crutches, and that upon one sole he wore an iron stand, which raised it full two inches from the ground, whilst the other barely reached so low. In spite of this, he was considerably shorter than his brothers; and Dick immediately concluded that he was the youngest of the three.

"Poor fellow!" said he to himself. "I shouldn't care to be like that. I daresay, though, they're good to him,"' he added, as the others pulled up short and waited for the cripple, who swung himself carefully down, step by step.

But Dick little guessed how hard it is to "be good" to a boy who has to go at a snail's pace, when you yourself have the strength to run and jump. He didn't even notice how the others continually walked a step ahead, nor how the cripple laboured to keep up with them. Neither did he guess how tiring it was to get along so fast. Presently, however, something attracted the attention of the three boys—an early butterfly it must have been. The cripple saw it first, and nodded towards it, and forthwith off the others raced, and left him resting on his crutches watching them. Then Dick understood a little more clearly how hard it was for him; for his brothers entirely forgot him in their wild, mad chase, and he was left alone.

He followed them a minute with his eyes, then turned and looked towards the terrace; but his mother was not even there to wave her hand. She had gone in.

It came into Dick's head to wonder whether the poor fellow could see him there above the fence. He had half a mind to whistle. Dick—with nothing else to do—could very well spare time for half an hour's chat to cheer his loneliness. But just then he remembered who this cripple was, and how presumptuous it might be thought to dream of showing pity for a son of the great man to whom all the land about belonged. And as the other boys, panting and puffing, cap in hand, returned just then, the question was decided once for all. Dick watched them out of sight behind the avenue of trees that led to the lodge, then he jumped down from the bank and went his way, turning now and then to see if they were following.

CHAPTER II.

A LITTLE further on, the road emerged upon a green; and at the back of this green there was a farm. The house stood back behind the yard, which was hidden from view by tall bushes; and half inside the yard, half outside upon the green, was a pond, where ducks were swimming about in search of dainty bits.

This was the Manor Farm. The man who held it was the Squire's bailiff, Dick had heard his father say. He went up to the gate to look, rather wondering what sort of a thing it was to be bailiff to so great a man, and whether he had any boys.

A shaggy-looking dog, dozing in the sun before his kennel, sprang to his feet with a loud bark as Dick approached, rattling his chain and growling, as if to warn him not to come too near. Finding Dick paid no heed, he jumped up on his kennel and set, up barking so vociferously that another dog behind the house took up the cause. Next minute a servant, wondering what could be amiss, and probably suspecting tramps, opened a side door and came round the corner of the house to look. At the same instant, a man with a pitchfork in his hand appeared from the other corner of the house.

"Hey! Grip, old boy," called he; "what's up? You'll upset the firmament with your row."

Exactly what he meant by this it would be hard to say. He had caught the word up from the Bible, as something made "in the beginning," and therefore very "firm;" so probably it seemed to him the most that any one could do in the upsetting line.

Anyhow, the dog seemed to understand the rebuke. He gave one or two more barks, then jumped down off his kennel with an injured air; and: his colleague of the back premises, finding he was pacified, gave in too, and so the hubbub ceased.

"What was up wi' him?" said the man, coming a pace or two nearer, and resting on his pitchfork. "There's now't amiss, so fur's I can see." For Dick had left the gate, and gone to watch the ducks.

The servant shook her head. "Like his master," returned she; "always kicking up a fuss for nothing in the world. Some folks seem as if they can't be happy else; and quadrupeds is much the same, I s'pose."

"Belike," answered the man, with a laugh. "But if that's so, why, Blazer's the master's dog! My word! I wouldn't like to try his fangs; he'd tear the firmament to shreds."

With this characteristic remark, he shouldered his fork, and, turning on his heel, went back to his work in the rick-yard.

The servant stood a minute at the door looking about her; then she, too, turned and went inside, shutting to the door, but throwing up the window, as if this taste of sunshine had made her long for the free air.

Meanwhile Dick had reached the other gate; for the farmyard had an entrance at each side of the pond, so that carts could come in either way. Here he stopped again; but this time Grip took no notice beyond raising his nose off his paws a second or two and blinking, to show that he was awake; then he composed himself again, or pretended to—just to give the enemy a chance of showing his weak side. But Dick was not to be deceived that way, nor had he any thoughts of invading Master Grip's territory.

After standing still a few minutes, taking observations of the picturesque old house, with its latticed windows and its long, red-tiled, gabled roof, he was just about to go his way, when he was suddenly startled by a most unearthly whoop.

Before he had time to look round, a boy about his own size came full tear into the road a yard or two ahead. "Hullo!" cried he, perceiving Dick.

"Oh! It doesn't matter," answered Dick, a trifle proudly; "only—my father has just moved into the neighbourhood, and I suppose I shall have to get to know the boys; so I thought I might as well begin with you."

The other looked him over well from head to foot. Dick's father was a gentleman, and Dick was dressed accordingly. The other's father was a labourer upon the Manor Farm.

"Call it what you like; that's all the name I want," said Bill the Kicker in such a final manner that Dick said no more.

"Up yonder," answered Bill the Kicker, pointing backward with his thumb. "My father works for Farmer Bluff."

"And mine goes up to town every morning," rejoined Dick. "We live beyond the Manor House, up the hill."

This interchange of confidences was a pretty good basis for an acquaintance, and the two boys were soon engaged in a lively conversation.

"There's a hornets' nest up there," said Bill presently, jerking his thumb in the direction of the field. "I see one goin' in just now. I mean to sell it to the Squire's grandsons," added he, nodding to himself.

"For sport, of course," answered Bill promptly. "Squires always go in for sport. I reckon we shall have a game."

"It don't do to get stung," returned Bill; "but then you don't if you can help; and that's what makes the sport. I wonder," added Bill the Kicker, struck with an original thought, "who'd care to storm a flies' nest!—Supposin' that they made 'em, which they don't. And there again, you see," he added further, "flies don't make nests, because they haven't got to keep out of the way—" Which remark contained a wholesome moral, if he had but possessed the wit to see it.

Knowing nothing of such country matters, Dick naturally felt some respect for Bill the Kicker, who talked as if he had it all on good authority.

Bill the Kicker drew his mouth tight, stretching it almost from ear to ear, and shook his head again.

"I've got a goodish big-sized boat at home," said he persuasively. "I mayn't go near the river yet, but so soon as ever I get leave, I'll let you know."

Bill expressed considerable contempt for the idea of "getting leave;" however, he went so far as to say that when the sport was all arranged, he might see fit to make it known to Dick. "It's the Squire's grandsons, you see," said he importantly. "'Tisn't every one as I could introduce to them."

Dick rather wondered what it mattered whom Bill introduced, so long as it was somebody no lower than himself. But he promised to be in the way as often as he could; and Bill the Kicker, having duly warned him not to drop a word to any one, went off to find the Squire's grandsons and "sell the nest."

CHAPTER III.

WHILST Dick was making acquaintance with Bill the Kicker, the Squire's bailiff, Farmer Bluff, was sitting in his parlour, with his leg upon a cushion and a pint mug on the table by his side, swearing inwardly—if not aloud—at the fate which had cursed him with the gout.

Now this fate was none other than the blustering old farmer's own stupidity; for time after time the doctor had warned him that as long as he made that mug his boon companion, so long exactly would his enemy pursue him with its twinging pains.

But Farmer Bluff was obstinate as well as blustering—to every one except the Squire, of course, in whose presence he was like the latter end of March—a lion transformed into a lamb. The excuse he made to himself turned upon the mug, of which he was naturally proud, it being solid silver, an heirloom that his grandfather had left to him. He liked to have it on the table by his side; and if upon the table, why, it must have something in it. And that something must of course be beer, and must be drunk. And so the stupid fellow's gout grew angrier year by year, until at length it got so bad that if he did not swear aloud, it was for no better reason than because nobody was by to hear.

As he sat there by the hearth, looking across his shoulder out of the window at the bright March sunshine that used to call him up and abroad at six o'clock, until this gout got hold of him, he heard Grip set up the furious bark that fetched the servant out to look. Then he heard Blazer take up the challenge; and shortly afterwards the voices of the servant and the man fell on his ear.

Now it was a peculiarity of the old bailiff to resent not being able to hear what passed between other people; so after chafing and fretting for some minutes, he reached out for the handbell that stood beside the silver mug, and rang it lustily. Then he took another pull at the mug, and having poked the fire to a roaring blaze, impatiently awaited the answer to his summons.

This happened exactly at the moment when the servant threw up the kitchen window to let in the air.

"Always kicking up a fuss for nothing in the world," said she again, flouncing back to her washing up, with a strong determination to let him ring a second time. After a minute or two, however, she let drop her dish-clout in the tub, and drying her hands on her apron as she went, hurried off to the parlour.

Farmer Bluff was known to be a bit of a miser, and had few near relatives to leave his money to; and Elspeth had her eye upon a handsome legacy.

"He's over sixty-five," she used to tell herself, by way of comfort when he swore at her; "and gout don't make old bones. I can put up with it a bit longer, on the chance of being mentioned in his will."

But, as it happened, just as Elspeth reached the parlour, there was another ring, this time at the outer door; not so lusty as her master's, though, for all that the bell itself was twice the size.

Filling up a waste space in the hall, there was a cunning china closet, with a narrow window looking through into the porch. A step or two aside and one quick glance revealed who stood without. Going swiftly to the door, Elspeth threw it open with a deferential curtsey. It was the Squire who had given that modest ring; and she never kept the Squire waiting, for he always had a civil word, in spite of his high rank. Then having answered his inquiry as to whether her master was up, she stepped briskly back towards the parlour.

"A man might die in a fit, for all the haste you make!" exclaimed he with an oath, banging down the bell so violently that the clapper uttered a "twang" of protest. "An indolent, slow-footed hussy!" He was going on with a regular string of abuse, but just as he was in the midst of some words that no proper thinking man had any business to lay his tongue to, the door flew open, and to his great dismay, his eyes met those of no less a personage than the Lord of the Manor.

Farmer Bluff's tirade came to an abrupt termination, and Elspeth having announced, "The Squire, sir," withdrew, leaving her master to put the best face on it.

What with beer, and rage, and shame, the old sinner's countenance was nearly as red as the live coals in the grate. He made desperate efforts to rise as the Squire approached, bearing like a man the torture that would have made him swear like a trooper if Elspeth had been by instead.

"Keep your seat, Mr. Bluff," said he good-naturedly, as the bailiff blurted out an apology. "Pray don't put yourself to any pain on my account. No; not so near the hearth, thank you," as Farmer Bluff tried to reach a chair. "I'll sit here. The air is mild this morning, and I can see you've been serving your fire to the same sort of rousing as you treat your woman servant to."

The old farmer reddened still more, and mumbled something about "your blood being chilly when you had the gout."

"And you find that swearing makes it circulate," remarked the Squire sarcastically. "Dependence upon others is a very unfortunate condition to come to," added he; "and you have apparently a very inattentive attendant too."

The Squire's caustic tone did not escape Farmer Bluff. He blurted out a few words about "not so bad," only she needed "keeping up to the mark."

"You've chosen a somewhat unscriptural way of setting about it," observed the Squire; "and my experience—the experience of fourscore years—is that whatever is unscriptural is unprofitable, and altogether wrong. Therefore, Mr. Bluff, if I were you I should give it up."

Having uttered this straightforward piece of advice, the Squire dropped the subject, and went on to speak of his bailiff's health.

It was wonderful the contrast there was between the two men. The Squire, brought up all his lifetime in the midst of luxury—had he chosen to live softly—had as elastic a tread as many a man of forty, and looked as hale and hearty as if he had been accustomed to weather wind and storm out in the fields with his own shepherds. His bailiff, nearly twenty years his junior, looked bloated and unhealthy, in spite of his invigorating out-door life about the farm and woods; and half his days, at least, were spent in this arm-chair, with one foot or the other upon a cushion.

There was good reason for the difference; there is for most things, if men only had the sense to find it out. The Squire, from his youth up, had been temperate, using the good gifts of God wisely, not abusing them. His bailiff had never got beyond regarding these gifts as the wages which it was his good fortune to earn from the Squire; and he had gone to work with the intention of getting the greatest possible amount of enjoyment out of this little bite off the great man's luxury. Thus, grasping all, he had come pretty near losing all; for, ask anybody who has made close acquaintance with gout, and they will tell you that there is next to no enjoyment in life for those who have made it their companion.

The moral is,—avoid intemperance, remembering always that beer is not the only thing that may be abused, and that gout is not the only punishment; for, sad to say, there are as many sins as there are weeds in this fair world, and a punishment to each. As the Bible has it—in a form that no one need forget—"Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

This was the sum and substance of the Squire's thoughts as he sat down on the window-seat. "I'm thankful I shall go down to my grave without gout," said he to himself, as he watched the contortions of his bailiff's features; for it was vain for Farmer Bluff to think of not making faces. He had put his foot to unusual inconvenience in his attempts to show respect; and it cost effort enough to refrain from bellowing aloud at the pain.

"I hoped to find you better than this, Mr. Bluff," began the Squire after a pause, putting his gold-headed cane between his knees, and crossing his hands over it. "This has been a long attack."

Farmer Bluff usually hesitated a good deal in talking to the Squire; otherwise he might have let slip unsuitable expressions, such as he was in the habit of using to Elspeth.

The Squire did not want to be unkind, but he had called in with the intention of saying something rather disagreeable; and it had got to be said, in spite of his natural inclination to say pleasant things.

Farmer Bluff declared himself heartily tired of it, adding in an injured way that no one knew what suffering was until they had tried gout.

The Squire shook his head. A man has no right to feel hardly done by when he deliberately chooses to bring pain upon himself. "I'm heartily tired of it, too," said he; "and the fact is, Bluff, I'm getting too far into years to be my own bailiff—and that's what it comes to nowadays. For these keepers and labourers of yours—well! I've no doubt you give your orders. A man might give his orders in the other hemisphere by telegram. But if I didn't go round and see to things for myself, they would be in a pretty muddle. Why! I was in the saddle at half-past six this morning to do your work. A glorious morning it was too; as glorious as God ever made. Time Was when I'd as soon have been out myself as trouble you—except for the sense that a man with abundance of this world's goods is bound to broadcast some of his money amongst dependants. But an octogenarian begins to need a little indulgence, or he will do very shortly, for the time must come to all of us, Mr. Bluff."

"Ay, that it must, sir," acquiesced the bailiff meekly, feeling rather as if his time had come; for he could see pretty plainly what the Squire was driving at.

"I should not like," continued the old gentleman after a pause, "to leave the estate out of working gear when I go. It is not as if I left a grown man in my place. My grandson is such a mere child that I can hardly hope even to see him attain his majority; and that is what I came to speak to you about. You have served me many years, Bluff; but the fact is, you are not what you were, and I feel that I ought to see a competent man in your place, whilst I myself am still competent."

Farmer Bluff began to whine. Long service deserved indulgence, he hinted. "A man must take what the Lord sends him," said he.

But the Squire stopped him. "Men often make mistakes about the source of their misfortunes, Bluff," said he. "I don't believe that your complaint is often of the Lord's sending."

The bailiff's eyes reverted uncomfortably to the silver mug. He knew very well what his patron referred to.

"I might very easily have put myself in the way of it," continued the Squire. "My father left me a well-stocked cellar, and I have had to dispense hospitality; but I have mostly contented myself with listening to other people's praises of my wines, remembering an old saying that those who constantly seek their own reflections at the bottom of their tankards are likely oftenest to see an ass. The saying certainly holds good of a man who, in immediate opposition to his doctor's orders, feeds his gout on beer. No, Bluff: if the Almighty were responsible for your gout, I should feel very differently about the matter. As it is, although I shall consider myself bound to see that your old age does not come to want, you must certainly understand that you will have to make way, within due notice, for a man who can put his beer mug on one side in favour of duty."

But the Squire was a man who knew his own mind, once it was made up, and who did not make it up hastily either. He had for some years past been much disgusted with his bailiff conduct; and the experience of the last few months had finally decided him. He was determined to leave upon the estate a thoroughly efficient bailiff. To this intent, having given due notice to the gouty old rascal who at present held the office, he now rose and took his leave, Farmer Bluff ringing his handbell— though not so roughly as before—for Elspeth to show the Squire out.

CHAPTER IV.

WHILST the Squire had been giving old Bluff his deserts in the farm parlour, his three grandsons—none other than the boys whose mother Dick had thought so beautiful—had left the grounds by a winding path that skirted the plantation and emerged on to a fieldway leading into the road a few hundred yards above the farm. Turning to the left hand of the farm, this road ran round the foot of a piece of rising ground. Probably the man who first made a cart-track there, found it pay better to go a little way round than to make his beasts drag their burdens over the hill. But there was a shorter cut for pedestrians almost opposite the pathway from the Manor House; and for this the boys were bound.

Just as they were in the act of crossing the stile, who should come round the bend but the Squire, whose next business took him up that very road. The boys saw him at once. Two of them—the two taller ones—ran forward to meet him, the other following at his quickest pace. The Squire was a favourite with his grandsons. He was such a boy amongst them, although he had been born over eighty years before them; and yet withal he was so grand and courtly.

Will and Sigismund dashed forward, but the Squire looked beyond them to the cripple, who was exerting himself manfully to show equal appreciation of his aged relative.

Will and Sigismund faced about, looking half-ashamed, as if they felt it was almost mean to have taken such an advantage of their afflicted brother. But the Squire did not exactly intend that. It would have been altogether too hard for boys with strong legs to give up using them because their brother limped on irons. It was rather that the Squire had a very tender spot in his heart for Hal, and that he saw in the boy's brave, invincible spirit an earnest of what the man would be.

"God grant that he may grow to be a man!" he often uttered in his heart. And it really seemed that Hal was growing stronger year by year.

"Where are you going, grandfather?" asked he eagerly, as he swung himself round to walk by the Squire's side, Sigismund making way for him.

"Up to the cottages by the wood gate," replied his grandfather, laying one hand on his shoulder. "Almost out of bounds for you, eh?"

But Hal shook his head. "Why, I've been right into the wood, you know; last autumn, nutting."

"But what are you going there for, grandfather?" questioned Hal, who was noted for his inquisitive spirit. Impertinent, some good people would have said; but not so his grandfather.

"How can a boy learn what he doesn't know, if he may not ask a question?" he would say. "A spirit of inquiry is one of the first requisites to learning." So now he answered without reserve.

The Squire nodded gravely. "For Farmer Bluff," repeated he. "He has to leave the Manor Farm."

This was Hal's question. Hal always came straight to the point, as if he had a right to know; and his grandfather seldom, if ever, put him off.

"Because," answered he, "the time has arrived when he must make way for a better man."

"But surely, grandfather," said Hal, "you won't turn him away, after all the years he has been bailiff. Why! Ever since mother first brought us to live with you."

"Ay, and before that," broke in the Squire regretfully. "When I thought your poor father would have been Squire after me. Twenty-seven years Farmer Bluff has lived on that farm; but—"

"But it isn't fair to turn him out because he's getting old, grandfather," interrupted Hal, with a bold familiarity that no one else would have dared to use towards the old gentleman.

"Well, grandfather," put in Sigismund, who according to size would be the next youngest to Hal, "you said 'a better man.'"

"Nor does younger mean better," returned the Squire. "I always like to think of my eighty-four years as a token of God's favour."

"Good people generally live to be old, don't they?" suggested Sigismund, straying from the point at issue. "In the Bible they did."

"Steady living is conducive to longevity;" replied the old man. "That is to say, those who live sober, temperate lives give their constitutions the fairest chance of withstanding natural decay, and of escaping the ravages of disease by which so many are prematurely cut off."

"Is that why Farmer Bluff has the gout?" queried Hal. "Because he has been intemperate?"

"Very likely," replied the Squire. "It is quite certain that at the present time he is aggravating the complaint and forfeiting my esteem by the childish obstinacy with which he persists in drinking beer, when he knows it is as good as drinking so many pains and twinges. But you mustn't run away with the notion that God always rewards virtue with long life; for that is not His greatest gift."

Hal asked no more questions just then. They had crossed the stile during this conversation, and were climbing the pathway up the hill towards the wood, where there was plenty to claim the attention of boys.

Larks were rising from the tussocks; finches darted in and out the hedge; and as they got nearer to the wood, wild rabbits, all tail, frisked about their burrows. Once or twice a grey rat ran out of his hole, and sat upon his haunches in the track, staring stupidly before him until they were quite close; then doubling suddenly, and disappearing in the ditch.

Will and Sigismund were full of excitement, running and jumping and leaping; but Hal kept by his grandfather, swinging himself along at an even pace that agreed very well with the old gentleman's step; and so they reached the gate of the wood, and the cottages in one of which the Squire intended his bailiff to live rent free.

There was already a noise of carpenters at work, and a cheery sound of men talking over their saws and planes. Hal followed his grandfather inside, and went round, listening with great interest to all that passed between him and the workmen. But the other boys stayed outside, overrunning the garden, and talking to the gamekeeper, who lived next door. Finally they strayed into the wood, which was only separated from the garden by a ditch, dry summer and winter alike. By the time the Squire had finished giving his orders, they were quite out of sight and hearing.

At length, the Squire sent the keeper down the clearing after them. Hal was standing by his side, resting on his crutches. The Squire, looking down at him, saw that his face wore a thoughtful look, and fancied he was tired.

"Better go inside and sit down on Champion's sawstool," suggested he kindly; "it's a long way back, and you and I aren't so young as those two madcaps. Eh?"

At that instant, however, Will and Sigismund appeared, talking gaily to the man as they advanced.

The Squire beckoned, and they set forward at a run, giving the stout old Velveteens a good view of their soles, and leaving him to follow at his sober pleasure. But Hal had already seized his opportunity.

"Grandfather, I was wondering if I could make Farmer Bluff see how silly it is to keep on having gout?"

"To keep on drinking beer?—Hardly," quoth the Squire, "since his doctor fails. People usually believe their medical man, if anybody, when they are in pain."

"And I mean," added Hal, anxious to gain his point before the others came up, "if he left off having gout, should you still be obliged to turn him out of the Manor Farm?"

"Why, no," answered the Squire; "not if he showed himself capable of doing his duty as bailiff of the estate. But the fact is, I can't be Squire and bailiff too at my age; and if I could, I shouldn't long be able to, because—things don't go on for ever and a day, Hal."

Just then the other two boys cleared the ditch, and bounded up, with a ready apology for having kept their grandfather waiting; then, passing in at the back door, they all went through to the road again.

On reaching the front door, the Squire suddenly remembered something he had meant to say, and stepped back again. Hal waited with him, but Will and Sigismund ran straight out.

In the middle of the road a boy was standing, looking this way and that, as if undecided in which direction to go. Seeing two lads his own age, he at once advanced.

"By the gate of the wood," answered Will, pointing past the cottages to the red-painted gate.

"Then I'm where I've no business," rejoined the boy, who was none other than Dick Crozier. On leaving his new acquaintance, Bill the Kicker, he had wandered on by the right-hand road, until his way had met that of the Squire and his grandsons by the cottages.

Apart from Hal, Dick did not recognise them as the Manor House boys. Hal no sooner appeared in the doorway, however, than their identity flashed upon him. The next minute, the Squire himself emerged, tapping the ground briskly with his cane as he walked, as an indication that time was short and they must get forward without delay.

Perceiving Will in conversation with a strange boy, he stopped short; whereupon Will explain that Dick had lost his way.

The Squire inquired where he came from, but this Will had not yet asked; so the Squire turned to Dick himself.

Dick had no sooner recognised Hal than it flashed upon him that the grand old gentleman with the gold-headed cane was none other than the Squire himself; and although not more troubled with bashfulness than most boys of his age, he was just a trifle flustered at the discovery. Nevertheless, he answered straightforwardly enough,—

"Crozier; a son of my new tenant, surely?" said the Squire in his courtly way. "I am always pleased to make the acquaintance of a tenant, Master—"

"Master Dick; and as we're all going one way, we will proceed together, if you please."

So they set off, Dick and Hal walking on either side of the Squire, the other two a pace or two in front.

CHAPTER V.

BEING Easter holidays, and the tutor who superintended studies at the Manor House having gone North to visit his friends, Hal and his brothers had things pretty much their own way from sunrise to bedtime. They walked; they played games; they followed their grandfather about; they rode the donkey about the field—or rather Will and Sigismund did, whilst Hal looked on and clapped his hands.

In short, they did all that boys in holiday-time try to do; they took every possible means to make the best of their freedom. All things considered, too, they were very good to Hal, who—hard as he tried to keep up with them—was rather a clog with his crutches and his irons.

On the morning after the Squire's interview with his bailiff, however, Hal evolved a scheme which relieved them of this clog.

One of the men had let loose a ferret in the granary, to hunt the rats, which of late had been committing great depredations in the henhouses. For some time the boys had been too excited to notice their brother's sudden disappearance. But presently, the hunt drifted upstairs into the loft overhead. This at once recalled Hal to mind, because he could not very well climb a ladder without assistance.

"Where can he have got to?" exclaimed Sigismund, who had been outside to look about for him.

Somehow Sigismund, being of a more unselfish disposition, was always the one to wait behind for Hal.

Hal had a way of "going indoors" when he found the game beyond him. "It's no fun when you ache," he would say; "and it doesn't make you a bit worth playing with." And he would be found afterwards, deep in a book—not always a story-book either.

Meanwhile, Hal, having slipped out through the stable-yard and gained the road, was on his way to the Manor Farm, meditating on the unaccustomed rôle which he had taken on himself.

About the same time, Dick Crozier, intending to hang about the farm, on the chance of catching Bill and hearing something of the hornets' nest, had chosen that direction for his morning's stroll. Recognising the wooden tap-tap of Hal's crutches on the gravel as he hurried down the hill, Dick determined first to renew acquaintance with the Squire's grandson; so he slackened pace, and the boys met at the lodge gate.

Hal at once nodded pleasantly; and Dick, returning the nod, joined him without further ceremony.

"You get along jolly fast, considering," remarked Dick pleasantly, as the conversation turned on walking. "That's hard work, though, I should say."

"It came on when I began to walk," answered Hal; "at least, so I'm told. Of course, I don't remember being any different."

He didn't seem to mind talking about it, which Dick thought very sensible. "Where would be the use of minding?" said he to himself. "It wouldn't alter the fact." He little knew the effort it cost Hal to put his injured pride on one side.

"To stretch this leg," answered Hal, nodding to the right. "That one was the worst; and the sinews shrank—just like a wet string. It's pulled out tight all the while, to try and stretch it longer."

He might with truth have said, "most of the time;" but Hal was a bit of a hero in his way. "I'm used to it, you see," he added patiently.

"Nobody would, of course," returned Hal; "but when you are, you've got to make the best of it. You think of all the great men you've ever read about, and wonder how they'd have borne it; and that helps you."

Dick was so much struck by this way of looking at a misfortune, that for several minutes he was silent; and Hal's crutches went on tapping out their melancholy tale upon the road; step by step, step by step, patiently—the only way to rise superior to a misfortune of that kind.

Hal assumed a thoughtful air. "That's rather hard to say," answered he; "because some are great for one thing, some for another. It's like that with plants, too, you know. There's corn, and there are potatoes; and we couldn't very well do without either. I shouldn't like to do without apples, nor green peas—we always have them sooner than other people; (forced, you know;) and I'll ask grandfather to send you some. Then again," he ran on, before Dick had time to thank him for this promise, "there are flowers—more beautiful than useful, as we count use. It's just like that with men, I think."

Dick could not jump quite the length of this argument. He suggested Robinson Crusoe.

But Hal's estimate of greatness differed from Dick's. "Crusoe was pretty well in some things, considering how he began," said he. "He was shifty, but he wasn't all round; besides, he was an awful coward, and he swore. And then, he's only in a book. Now Socrates—only he was a heathen—he died bravely when they made him choose between the dagger and the poison cup. And Napoleon—he made himself a king out of a common soldier, and he must have been a great man, or people wouldn't have given in to him; but then he did it all for the sake of power, and he wasn't good.

"A man's motives go for a great deal, you know. Then there were the martyrs; I like them. They had their bodies broken on the wheel because they wouldn't tell lies. I often think of that, because it was something like having my leg stretched, only thousand times worse. There was Shakespeare too. He wrote very fine plays. That was more like being a flower, I should say; and I don't know that he was particularly good, or that he did anything else worth doing. And there was Sir Isaac Newton, who discovered why apples fall done instead of up. He was very learned, of course. But I like men such as Wilberforce and Clarkson, who did so much to abolish slavery; or Moffat, the missionary; or Howard, who went into a lot of gaols, and made a fuss about having them kept cleaner, and the prisoners better treated. In my opinion," added Hal, "they were some of the greatest men that ever lived—except Jesus Christ."

"Of course," continued Hal; "none of them come near Jesus Christ. You don't expect that. There was Buddha. A missionary once told me about him; and I've read since. He was a prince in India; and he gave up everything to try and find out how to make people happier, because one day when he went outside the palace, he discovered that everybody wasn't so well off as himself, and that people had to be ill and die. But he didn't end up the same as Jesus Christ," Hal concluded. "And then it's such an immense while ago that I don't think it's very easy to be sure whether it's all true."

Hal thought not. "One of them was lame," said he. "His name was Epictetus; he was an eminent philosopher. It was through his master's cruelty; and that was very hard to bear. But crutches don't matter to some sorts of greatness," added he. "You wouldn't get along very well on crutches if you wanted to fight; and fighting isn't always wrong either, though I don't like it. Where you do it to put down injustice, for instance, or to help the weaker side, it's noble and right."

"There were some great men deformed," continued Hal. "There was Pope. He had to be laced up in a pair of tight stays to keep him from doubling up; he used to sit up in bed and write poetry. I've read some of it, and it's very fine. 'Whatever is, is right,' comes from Pope; and though you can't say that of everything, there is a sense in which it is very true. But Pope wasn't brave always. He used to be very disagreeable to his servant when he was in pain; and I think if any one was really great, they would rise superior to affliction, and not make other people feel it. You see," added Hal, in a tone of reflection, "it's bad enough for one person to go on crutches, without making all the rest miserable."

"You mean to be great, I suppose," observed Dick admiringly. "What shall you be?"

Hal reflected. "That's difficult to say exactly," said he. "Of course I've got to be the Lord of the Manor."

"Will?—No; it's always the eldest son. I'm the eldest," added Hal, just a trifle proudly.

Dick was astonished. He had made up his mind from the very first, that Hal was the youngest of the three.

"You see, I'm short," said Hal simply. "It makes you grow slowly when you're like this."

"Yes; I suppose it is," said Hal; "only—'Whatever is, is right,' unless, of course, it is something contrary to God's will; and this can't be, as I was born so. I mean all the same to be like my grandfather."

"Some people," continued Hal, "don't think you can be a proper Squire unless you can ride in the steeplechase and follow the hounds. My grandfather doesn't now; but he used to formerly. I've heard him say what a pity it was that I couldn't learn to sit a horse. But you see it isn't just the same as it used to be in the olden times when there were serfs, and the lord of the manor lived in a castle with a moat and drawbridge. He had to be a sort of petty king in those days. And if other lords stole his vassals' sheep or wives, he had to rally all his men and besiege their castles. I'm afraid I shouldn't be very well able to do that. But all that is changed nowadays, and there are no serfs—which ought to make the poor people much better off. What a good Squire has to do is to pull down all the badly built cottages on his estate, and have them properly drained, and damp courses put in, so that the walls don't rot."

Dick inquired whether that was the reason why some cottages near his father's house were being pulled down.

Hal nodded. "Why," said he, "the jam actually mildewed in the parlour cupboard! Think of that I saw it. And the old lady's wedding-dress went all spotty where it hung in the press upstairs. It was silk; and she had worn it every Christmas Day and Easter Sunday since she was married, and every time any of her sons and daughters had a wedding. It was very vexatious for her. You couldn't let such a house stand."

Hal spoke with such earnestness that Dick was quite convinced, and immediately thought of the preservation of old silk wedding-dresses as one of the chief duties of a good Squire.

"There's to be a proper slate course at the bottom of the walls this time," added Hal. "You'll see it will be quite dry."

"Then there's the drainage," continued he; "because if that's bad, the wells get poisoned, and people have fevers. And although it doesn't say anything in the Bible actually about drainage, it says a great deal which seems to me to mean that if you own an estate, you ought to look after the health and comfort of the tenants. Oh, there's a lot a Squire has to do that I think I could do! And perhaps," he added thoughtfully, "I should do it all the better for not riding in the steeplechase and following the hounds. You can't do everything; and if you come to think," concluded Hal, "perhaps that is why God let me be like this; because, you know, He could have made it different if He had chosen to."

"A Squire has to make a speech at the rent dinner, doesn't he?" suggested Dick, glad to show that he had some knowledge of a Squire's duties.

"Oh! I think I could manage that all right," returned Hal, "when I got to be of age. It wouldn't be noticed that I was like this when I stood up behind the table; so I shouldn't feel bashful about it. Besides, I don't think I should mind when once I was Squire, because people would respect me; and I should try to show them how great men bear such things."

Dick thought this a very plucky way of looking forward to such a terrible ordeal.

"Another thing you have to do," said Hal, as they arrived at the gate of the Manor Farm, "is to see that the bailiff and other people about the estate do their duty. And if they don't—through drink or laziness, you know—you have to turn them out, and hire somebody who does. But I'm going in here," added he, breaking off abruptly.

Dick was sorry, for he found Hal's company both instructive and entertaining; moreover, his vanity was rather flattered by this acquaintance with the future Squire. But fortunately Hal appreciated a good listener.

"Where shall you be when I come out?" asked he, resting on his crutches to open the gate; "because I like somebody to talk to."

Dick, having nothing particular in view, readily promised to wait about until Hal came out; and having watched him past Grip—who only rose to his feet in a respectful sort of way, and walked quietly forward the length of his chain—he sauntered slowly on.

CHAPTER VI.

ON going, as usual, before answering the doorbell, to peep through the little window in the china closet, Elspeth was not a little surprised; for there, on the seat in the porch, his crutches on either side of him, sat the young Squire, resting.

He was examining a leaf-bud on a tendril of the honeysuckle when she first caught sight of him; but directly the door opened, he got to his feet, inquiring for Farmer Bluff.

Elspeth at once invited him to enter. "A message from the Squire, sir?" asked she, as she closed the door behind him.

Elspeth knew all about the nature of the Squire's business with her master on the previous morning, for the old sinner, in his rage and vexation, had drunk more beer than ever, and had used more bad language than enough about it, whenever she had had occasion to go near him. She was not sure, moreover, how his dismissal would affect her own prospects, for he would be in receipt of less money; and ill as he could do without her help, in his frequently crippled condition, it was very doubtful whether the miserly old fellow would choose to draw upon his hoard in order to pay her the usual wages.

In that case, much as Elspeth disliked the idea of breaking away from the old place, she was determined to seek her fortune elsewhere; for it need hardly be said that Farmer Bluff was not the sort of master to win the affection of a dependant.

"For money," and not "for love," had been Elspeth's rule of service. Having, however, one or two cronies in the neighbourhood, from whom she did not care to part, she was fain to entertain a half hope that Hal might have been sent round to negotiate a compromise.

"I want to see Farmer Bluff, if you please," said he, "if he's up. If not, perhaps you could take me to his room. I daresay he wouldn't mind."

Farmer Bluff was up, though, as Elspeth promptly informed the young gentleman; and, stepping to the parlour door, she flung it open, announcing, "The young Squire, sir."

Farmer Bluff, as it happened, was in a brown study, leaning forward on the elbows of his chair, with his eyes fixed on the fire. Not catching the first two words of Elspeth's announcement, he looked up with a start, expecting to see his master come to torment him again. His relief can best be imagined when, instead of meeting the penetrating gaze of the Squire, his eye fell upon the slight form of Hal, with his frank, boyish face all abeam to greet him, as he swung himself across the room.

"Good morning, Mr. Bluff," said he pleasantly. "I'm glad to find you up. You ought to be out this fine weather. You're missing ever so much, so I thought I'd come and have a chat with you about it."

"And make me want all the more to be out," said the old farmer, doing his best to assume a pleasant manner. But his thoughts, ever since Elspeth landed him in that chair, had been of such la disagreeable nature, that he found it quite impossible, all in a minute, to shake the growl out of his tone.

"I'm glad my legs don't prevent me getting out," said Hal, contemplating the bandaged limb with compassion, as he seated himself opposite, and lodged his crutches against his chair.

"You're not of a gouty age yet, young master," returned Farmer Bluff. "It'd be sorry work to have it at your time of life."

"It isn't everybody has it when they're old," said Hal. "My grandfather doesn't. I don't think I shall."

"Maybe not," returned Farmer Bluff. "'One thing at a time' is the saying. You've got your share in the way of legs."

"But I mean," explained Hal, determined to make this the thin end of his wedge; "I mean that I shall take care not to have it."

"You don't send for 'em," returned the bailiff, with another laugh. "That's very certain; not such things as gout."

"Don't you?" said Hal. "It seems to me you do. Beer makes gout, doesn't it? You're always drinking beer."

The bailiff involuntarily reached out for his mug; but it was empty—which went to prove the truth of what Hal said. Farmer Bluff drank beer so often that he hardly knew when he did it.

"It may be partly owing to that mug," continued Hal, after a few minutes' consideration. "You're rather proud of it, you see. I think that's natural. But, do you know, if I had a mug that made me have the gout, I'd send it to the smith's to be melted down and made into something else. Let me see—you might have it converted into a silver inkhorn, like my grandfather's. You couldn't drink out of that."

"Well, will you think about it?" said Hal. "Because that's what I came about. You see, if you go on having gout, you can't go on being bailiff. My grandfather says so. It's one or the other; and it's quite fair, if you come to look at it. You're no bailiff if you have to sit with your leg up on a cushion all day like that; because you ought to be out and about the estate, seeing after things. And if it's your own fault that you can't, why, there's no doubt about it's being just; is there?"

Farmer Bluff shifted on his chair. He knew Hal was quite right. And Hal had brought out his arguments very warily too. First, that the gout was of the old fellow's own seeking; second, that being gouty, he couldn't attend to his business, and had clearly no right to be bailiff; and third, that this being so, he stood self-condemned, and could in nowise complain if the Squire turned him out.

Hal knew this very well, and was not surprised at getting no answer to his question. "I think I'll go now," said he, taking his crutches. "It's a beautiful morning. I wish you could be out of doors."

Farmer Bluff reached out for the bell, but Hal stopped him. "You needn't ring for the servant," said he. "I can get out all right by myself; and I daresay she's busy. When you have to wait on any one who can't move much, I should think it gives you a lot to do."

"I'm very much obliged to you for looking in, Master Hal," said he, as the boy did not attempt to go.

"I'll come again," said he, "if you like it. There's one thing more I was thinking. It's in the Bible. 'Thou hast destroyed thyself.' I don't remember who it was, but I've got the words in my head somehow. It's a pity to destroy yourself, isn't it?—Because there are so many ways that you can't help, of getting destroyed."

Farmer Bluff shifted again; and Hal, resting on his crutches, looked as if he very much wished he knew how to go on. But it was rather difficult, especially when the old fellow didn't make any reply.

At length, he put his right crutch forward, preparatory to moving on. "Well, good morning, Mr. Bluff," said he. "Don't forget about the mug; and I hope your gout will be better. I should like you to go on being bailiff when I'm Squire, because I'm used to you, and strangers aren't so nice. Good morning."

And away went the crutches across the floor, with their measured tap, tap, whilst the old bailiff sat looking after him with an astonished expression on his face; and when Hal, halting to turn the door-handle, gave him a last bright nod, he nodded too, twice or thrice. Then he twisted himself round in his chair, to watch the boy across the yard. But Hal went first to pay his respects to Grip, and peep round the corner of the house at Blazer. Catching sight of the old man through the window as he passed, however, he approached and put his face close to the glass.

Whereupon Farmer Bluff, too much astonished even to nod, took the empty heirloom in his hand, turning it over and over, and falling back again into a brown study.

Out in the road again, Hal looked about for Dick. But he was nowhere to be seen. Dick was one of those people who find time hang very heavy when they have to wait; and seeking temporary diversion, he had completely forgotten his appointment with Hal.

Just past the farmyard was a pathway over the fields, behind the orchard and back premises; and having perched himself upon the stile to wait, it occurred to Dick to wonder where it led to. No sooner wondered than both Dick's legs were over the top-rail, and, jumping down, he started off to see for himself, whistling as he went.

Now, these back premises were Blazer's especial charge; and such a vigilant sentinel was Blazer, that he no sooner heard the sound of Dick's whistle than he was up in arms.

Dick came to a halt, remembering the character he had heard of the beast from Bill the Kicker's father. But at that very moment, who should appear from behind the orchard but Bill himself.

Blazer had his own reasons for mistrusting the sound of Bill the Kicker's voice.

But Bill put him off with a half answer. The fact was he had been in too much of a hurry in proclaiming it a nest, and it had turned out to be no such thing.

"Agen' the back door," answered Bill. "You ain't afraid of him?" added he, with a grin.

"Why, no," said Dick, ashamed to own the contrary. "Lots of people go this way, I expect."

"In course," returned Bill; "else what's the pathway for? Nobody takes any notice of Blazer. My eye, though, ain't he wild if you get through the hedge!"

Bill answered by a mysterious nod and the word "apples," accompanied by a jerk of his thumb towards the orchard. "You have to look out when there's nobody about, though," said he; "else he'd bring 'em out like a shot with his row. To see him, you'd think he'd break his chain."

"It's too strong I should think," said Dick, with a feeling, however, that it would be preferable to go without the apples rather than risk meeting Blazer off the chain.

"He got loose the other day, though," returned Bill. "Killed a goose, and made old Bluff so mad. Old Bluff always reckons to get a lot by his geese; and now there's a whole setting spoilt. Thirteen short for market next Christmas," added Bill knowingly.

Dick knew nothing about geese. He made numerous inquiries concerning their nesting and hatching, all of which country-bred Bill was able to answer in detail.

"They lay pretty big eggs I should think," said Dick, recollecting an ostrich egg which he had seen in a South African uncle's cabinet.

"Oh don't they!" responded Bill. "A dinner and a half for a chap. I often help myself when there's no one about."

"I daresay I could get you one," hinted Bill obligingly. "They're worth a shilling each; but as it won't cost me nothing but the trouble, I'll say sixpence to you."

Dick thought that a good deal. Sixpences were not very handy in finding their way to his pockets for his father was by no means rich. The prospect was tempting, however; and not knowing that the sum named was full double the ordinary market price, he at once closed with the offer.

But this Bill was not prepared to say. It depended on so many things; on Blazer, on Elspeth, on his father, and on the geese. So Dick must needs be content with a conditional promise that at some time or other, within the shortest possible limit, he should be in possession of the coveted delicacy.

CHAPTER VII.

A few days since, being very hard up for a pocket-knife, he had watched an opportunity to abstract the necessary amount from his mother's rent-money; and he was anxious to replace it before the theft was discovered.

This rent-money was the proceeds of his mother's exertions with her mangle, and was always dropped into an old tea-pot occupying a place of honour on the mantel-shelf—each amount put in or taken out being duly entered in red pencil on a square of card, which also had its quarters in this Britannia-metal safe.

Now it always fell to Bill's lot to carry the mangling home out of school hours; and it seemed to him, when he got the idea of taking the sixpence, that it was nothing but fair he should have something for his pains.

"If other people don't pay you, why, you must pay yourself," reasoned Bill. "That's square enough."

When he came to see the red pencil entries on the card, he was somewhat shaken as to the safety of this policy, however "fair and square" it might be. It was not even as if he had been one of many brothers. The coin would certainly be missed; and upon whom but himself should suspicion fall?

It occurred to him to make the experiment of rubbing out one of the entries. He had no eraser, but he was pretty ready with expedients. Quick as lightning, one finger went to his mouth, and thence to the tidily kept account; but such a horrible smear was the result, that his hair almost stood on end. It was impossible but that his mother would see that the card had been tampered with; if, in addition, she found the money sixpence short, the mischief would be out, and he would be "in for it."

Exactly what that might mean was not clear to Bill. All he knew was that his father had given him the strap on one occasion, and that he did not desire a repetition of the experience. It was already Thursday. Under ordinary circumstances, the sixpence would have had to be replaced before Monday. But since Farmer Bluff had been laid up, the rents had been running; so that, unless the Squire suddenly took it into his head to send some one round, there would be no particular hurry.

Bill, however, was shrewd enough to believe in being on the safe side. Accordingly, he had left no stone unturned to put himself in a position to restore the stolen sixpence. The scheme about the hornets' nest having fallen through, he had even hunted up and down outside the shop fronts in the street, in hopes of picking up change dropped by some careless housewife when out marketing. But, fortunately for the good of thieves, they do not often receive such encouragement in their crooked ways; and Bill's researches proved fruitless.

He was still puzzling his brains after a way out of the difficulty, when Dick's curiosity about geese furnished the very idea he wanted. Bill had robbed the hens' nests before this, as well as the orchard. What was to prevent him from getting a goose's egg?

Jenny Greenlow, carrying her father's dinner along the riverbank to the Infirmary, where he was at work upon the roof, had been attacked by one and knocked down; and there the child had lain until her father, badly in want of his meal and perplexed at her delay, went along to meet her, and found her half dead with fright, whilst the goose was still feeding on the contents of the basket. But the goose was probably attracted by the smell of the basket's contents; and then Jenny was only a girl! What goose of any sense would dream of molesting a boy! Bill went to work at once to plan the details of the adventure, delighted with the scheme.

Due consideration suggested morning, while the farm men were at breakfast, as the most suitable time for carrying it into effect. So far as he knew, none of them were in the habit of taking their provisions with them. As they all lived in the row adjoining his father's cottage, a mere stone's throw away, they found it pay better to slip in and drink their coffee hot by their own fireside. A few minutes after the stroke of eight, therefore, Bill might make pretty sure that the coast would be clear.

The geese, too, having laid their eggs and been fed, would have wandered away to their pastures. There was only one other thing to be considered. The hole in the hedge through which he meant to creep was behind the shed, but so soon as he crept round to the door, Blazer was sure to catch sight of him; and if Elspeth were anywhere near at hand, his noise was sure to bring her out. Out of this difficulty, however, Bill saw positively no way. The only thing was to hope that Elspeth would be busy waiting on her master just then, and to dare the rest.

"I've done worse things before now," said Bill to himself, by way of encouragement.

Accordingly, next morning he was up with the sun, determined to get quickly through his woodchopping, and the various other duties that were expected of him. On ordinary occasions, Bill was given to being rather slow.

"If you're through too quick, you get more to do next day," was his way of arguing; so he always took care to make his work last out, as a country boy knows how.

But on this morning, he was particularly brisk. He had just finished, and was counting on getting clean off, when he heard his mother's voice.

"Bill!—Oh!—Just done, are you? You've been spry. Here!" As Bill was lounging off. "I just want you to come and help me through with this mangling; and there 'll be time to run with Mrs. Wayling's before daddy comes in to breakfast."

At the first mention of mangling, all Bill's sense of justice had risen in rebellion; but an errand before breakfast fell in with his plans beautifully.

His mother thought he had never come with such alacrity, and wondered what magic it was that regulated the moods and caprices of boyhood. "He's that slow and obstinate by times," she said to herself, as she spread the folded linen ready; "and look at him this morning. Couldn't be a better help if he was a girl, and grown-up!" She little thought.

"Mother," said the wily Bill presently, on coming to the end of a batch. "Mother, I'm awful hungry; and it's a good step to Mrs. Wayling's. Couldn't I have a bit o' summat afore I start out? They keep you such a while up there; likely it'll be half over before I get in."

"To be sure you can," answered his mother, thoroughly pleased with his cheerful industry. And forthwith going to the dresser, she cut and spread a thick slice. "Have what you want afore you go," said she, reckoning to get things cleared up and out of her way, ready for her ironing by and by.

And Bill stood munching hungrily, as he waited to start, turning afresh, and congratulating himself that now, come what might, his breakfast was secure.

It was about half-past seven when he set out for Mrs. Wayling's with the bundle on his head. It was a good distance. Mrs. Wayling was the schoolmaster's wife, and lived up by the church. Bill usually took a barrow; but this time he had his own reasons for wishing to be entirely unencumbered so soon as ever he should have delivered his burden. A barrow would not be handy at stiles, and he intended coming back by the river and the fields, so as to avoid the chance of meeting his father.

Bill was warm by the time he arrived at the schoolhouse. He had got over the ground pretty quickly, considering the weight of his burden, and the church clock still wanted two minutes of the quarter. If only they did not keep him waiting, he would be back at the farm at the very right moment.

As luck would have it, the servant returned almost immediately, to say that her mistress had no change, and would send the money round with the next bundle of linen. And Bill, only too glad to be free, money or no money, nodded and ran off towards the river as fast as his legs would carry him.

It was a good deal farther that way, but Bill had now nothing but himself to carry. In a very short time, he had reached the riverbank, and was hurrying along the towing-path. The geese were already in the field. He saw them marching towards the river in their pompous way, with the old white gander at their head. There would be nothing to fear from them; and, puffing and panting with hurry and excitement, Bill scudded along until he reached the back of the orchard, when he slackened pace and went tiptoe, stealing along behind the hedge towards the hole through which he intended to creep.

It was not much of a gap, for it had grown-up a bit since last Bill had squeezed through—which was when the apples were ripe. But gap or no gap wasn't going to stand in his way just then. Bill got down into the ditch, to wait until he should hear eight strike and the men tramp past to breakfast. He had not long been there when the clock sounded out the hour.

Bill took his hands out of his pockets, and laid hold of a stoutish stem of whitethorn on either side, breaking or bending back the smaller twigs, so as to clear his passage. Then he waited again. He could plainly hear somebody moving about inside the hedge, and he began to be terribly afraid that one of the men had made up his mind to spare himself the trouble of going home to breakfast.

"There's a go!" exclaimed he to himself. It seemed such a pity, too, when everything was so splendidly arranged. But just then, he heard the footsteps moving towards the door of the shed.

"Blest if oi yeerd it strike!" exclaimed the voice. "But they be all gone, sarting sure, and oi be left behoind. Oi reckon that 'ere clock bean't much account. 'Twants a bigger clapper to t' bell."

And with these words, the door banged to, and the hobnails went dragging across the yard. It was old Jaggers, the cowman, who was as deaf as a post, and was always getting "left behind" if his mates forgot to hail him when the breakfast hour arrived.

The coast was clear at last. Bill laid hands anew on the whitethorn stems. But at that very moment, a dull thud, thud, in his other ear made him stop short. It was a sound of approaching footsteps on the worn grass of the footway. Some one was coming along from the river-side. Would interruptions never cease? Bill gave a guilty look round. It would not do to be seen in the ditch.

A yard or two to the right was a large bramble bush, which had sprung up on the field and straggled over to the hedge, catching hold of the whitethorn with its thorny arms, and interlacing with the blackberry brambles in a thick tangle. Under this shelter, he crept to hide.

Thud, thud came the steps, nearer and nearer. A few minutes more and he would be able to come out. But just as the passer-by reached the very spot where Bill crouched in hiding, the footsteps suddenly ceased.

Bill was puzzled. Who could it be? And why had he stopped exactly there? Bill was shrewd enough to know that if he could not see, neither could he be seen; but it was too bad to be obliged to stop there whilst the moments of that precious half-hour were running to waste.

At length, impatience got the better of prudence, and he determined to get a peep, at the risk of being discovered. With this intent, he commenced creeping by inches towards the limit of his shelter. But a boy's eyes cannot be in two places at once. In his anxiety to keep a watch on the bank, he entirely forgot the necessity of looking to his feet. At the very moment when he caught sight of a well-blacked boot, down slipped his foot into a deep hole, and poor, luckless Bill suddenly found himself measuring his length at the bottom of the ditch.

Bill was not hurt; but he lay quiet, still hoping to escape discovery. The owner of the voice, however, to whom the boot also belonged, was not likely to be so easily satisfied.

"What's up?" repeated he, facing about, and seeing to his infinite astonishment a somewhat unkempt figure sprawling at the bottom of the ditch.

Finding concealment impossible, Bill scrambled to his feet with a sheepish grin.

He was dressed in a suit of dark-coloured tweed, and had under his arm what looked like a bundle of deal sticks and a flat, square package buckled up in a shiny black case. Bill's rapid survey satisfied him that he did not belong to the neighbourhood, and that it was therefore safe to tell as many lies as ingenuity could invent.

The gentleman turned on his heel, laughing to himself at the idea that any rat should be so unwary as to come out of his hole when somebody was by to knock him on the head. A minute later, he had forgotten the whole thing, and relapsed into his former attitude, looking away across the fields to the right. He was an artist, and had come down by rail to make the best of the mild spring day; for there was an open view of the church from that point before the leaves were thick.

Bill, not knowing all this, stood at the bottom of the ditch staring at his back, and wondering what spirit of contrariness could possess him that he must choose that very spot to loiter on. He was just thinking whether it would be safe to leave him out of the question altogether, and proceed to the business of getting through the hedge, when the gentleman faced about again.

"Hullo!" said he, unrolling the bundle of sticks under his arm as he spoke, and nodding towards the farm. "You don't work there?"

"You couldn't borrow a chair for me, I suppose," said the gentleman. "They know you, I daresay."

Bill stared for a minute or two, then suddenly broke into a grin. "Dessay I could," said he.

To his infinite astonishment, Bill had no sooner received the order, than he advanced a few steps along the ditch, turned his face to the hedge, and seizing firm hold of the two whitethorn sterns, commenced drawing himself through the gap.

"He knows how to take an order," said the artist to himself. "That's what I call going the shortest cut."

Meanwhile, Bill's mental comment was, "My! If he ha'n't nearly done me!" And he made like a shot for the door of the shed, casting a rapid glance towards Blazer's kennel, to see if he were on the watch. For once, however, Blazer was otherwise occupied, and Bill gained the shed unobserved.

CHAPTER VIII.

ON first peeping into the shed, Bill was disconcerted to see a goose on one of the nests.

But Bill was no coward when there was anything to be gained. He went cautiously forward towards the furthest boxes, keeping an eye on the sitting bird the while, and ready to beat a retreat on the first alarm. But the goose had no intention of quitting her position. She only raised her head with a little warning scream and hiss; and he reached the nests without further challenge.

Bill uttered an exclamation of delight. In the first nest were three eggs; in the second, two. "Let's make 'em even," said he, possessing himself of the odd egg, and stowing it carefully in his jacket-tail.

Just as he was about to turn, however, an idea came to him. Ten to one such a splendid chance would not return in a hurry. "One a-piece 'll be fairer," said he, taking an egg from the other nest, and tucking it in the opposite pocket. "They can lay another," added he, with a grin. Then he recrossed the shed, and regained the door.

Peeping round, before venturing out, he saw that Blazer had come out of his kennel, and was standing on the alert, waiting for somebody to bark at. Bill's first impulse was to draw back. Perhaps the dog had heard the goose's scream. But second thought convinced him that to think of remaining longer in the shed was useless, and that, in fact, the sooner he got out of it the better, since by this time it must be very close on half-past eight. With another glance at Blazer, he slipped out and darted round the side of the shed. But Blazer had seen him, and dashed forward on his chain with a furious bark.

Bill turned, terrified, half expecting to see Blazer on his heels; and not looking to see where he was going, ran full tilt against the corner of the shed, leaving the print of a louvre-board on his eyebrow. But anyhow he was safe behind the shed, and Blazer was not loose.

Bill felt his pockets tenderly, congratulating himself that the blow had been in front instead of behind. Then the difficulty of getting through the gap without smashing the eggs occurred to him for the first time. "Head first 'll be the style," decided he at length; and with another guilty glance, to make sure that Blazer was not on his track, down he went on hands and knees, wriggling through the gap, and reaching down with his hands until they touched the bottom then paddling along sideways, much after the fashion of a lizard coming out of his hole.

It was not surprising that his face was pretty red by the time he got to his feet. His first thought was to feel whether the eggs were safe. He had been terribly afraid they would roll out of his pockets as he felt his jacket-tails fall forward on to his shoulders whilst he was upside down; but they were none the worse.

He was still feeling them over when he suddenly became aware of the artist standing on the bank looking down at him. He had set up his easel, and was waiting for his chair.

Bill's hands came out of his pockets all in a hurry. Like all people who have anything to conceal, he felt as if everybody must guess his guilty secret.

"Hullo!" said the artist. "I should come through feet first next time, if I were you. Where's all chair? Wouldn't they give it you?"

"Ah!" said the artist, glancing uncomfortably at the gap through which Bill had just come. Where a boy could get through, a dog could also. "A savage brute, is he?" asked he.

"Well, rather," admitted Bill. "I'd sooner you met him than me," he added, feeling his injured eyebrow tenderly. "I ran agen' the shed, I did."

"He isn't likely to come through after you?" asked the artist, still with an uneasy eye on the gap.

"Couldn't say for positive," answered he. "Dogs is wonderful keen. But I could go round to the front and tell 'em to chain him up."

And Bill, feeling rather awkwardly conscious of his jacket-tails, started off, to lay siege to Grip's domain.

Within the space of ten minutes he returned, carrying a chair, and followed by Elspeth, who had in view two ends—first, to insure the safety of her chair; second, to inform the gentleman that if he should be wanting lunch, she could make arrangements for his comfort in her front kitchen. Bill having intimated that the gent was rather timid of dogs, she also added that there was nothing to fear from either animal, as they were both on the chain.

Meanwhile Bill, with the eggs still in his pockets, stood at the artist's elbow, watching his preparations with a curious eye, and waiting for his copper.

"I'm going to make a picture of the church," said the artist presently. "Perhaps I may want a boy in the foreground. Would you like me to put you in?"

"Well, yes; I suppose it would," admitted the artist carelessly. "Go and stand yonder against that tussock, and let me see how picturesque you can look."

"Put your arms up as if you were carrying something," the artist called to him. Then after a minute or so, beckoning him back. "I shan't want you for an hour or two," said he. "No doubt you could bring a basket or a bundle. Or stay! You haven't got a goat or a donkey—or a little brother?"

"That'd be three coppers, sir, wouldn't it?" bargained that mercenary young scamp.

"Oh! Come," returned the artist; "you're too sharp by half for a country boy. I daresay some one else will come along who will think it an honour to be put in a picture and hung in the Academy. If it ever attains to that honour," he added to himself, as Bill anxious not to lose all by his grasping, declared himself ready and willing to stand on any terms.

"Very well, then," concluded the artist, who had taken rather a fancy to the boy's shaggy appearance. "In an hour or two, I shall expect you back."

Truth to tell, those two goose eggs were beginning to weigh very heavy in Bill's pockets. It was quite a chance when he might meet with Dick Crozier; but it was plain he could not carry an egg about in his pocket until he did. One, of course, he intended to suck as soon as he was at a safe distance from the farm; but meantime the other must be hidden somewhere. Bill wandered on; but the fine day had brought a good many people out, and he kept meeting first one, then another, until at length he arrived at the riverbank without having had a chance of tasting his stolen sweets.

The geese had reached the bank too, and were standing about in various attitudes of burlesque dignity, some snapping the grass with their great, broad bills, others with their awkward necks upstretched, always ready to scream. They numbered ten or a dozen.

"Ah! Mrs. Geese," Bill thought to himself as he approached, "I wonder which of you these eggs belong to. You'll just have the trouble of laying a couple more, unless you choose to go short of eggs to sit on."

He had often been that way before, and laughed at the idea of being afraid of geese; but somehow this time, as he drew near, every head in the flock seemed turned to look upon him, and when they commenced their usual "Ya-hi!—Ya-hi!" he stopped short, to consider the advisability of going on.

Of course it was nonsense to suppose that they could know anything about the theft. But the thief knew, which was the same thing with a difference; it is so true, that wise old saying that "conscience makes cowards of us all."

If Bill had looked behind, he would have seen Dick Crozier coming along from the opposite direction.

Dick had at length determined upon using "his common sense" in the matter. Having accidentally transgressed his father's injunctions on the morning when he made the Squire's acquaintance, he had come to the conclusion that he would get no harm by repeating the accident on purpose, with regard to the river. He had found his way by another field-path, a mile or two beyond the Manor Farm, and was now coming along the towing-path, with the intention of returning by the way which Bill had just come.

Bill, however, was too much engrossed to notice anything but the geese. He was having a fight with his own cowardice, and had just gained the victory.

"It's all rubbish," he was saying to himself; "as if they could know!" And he set forward at a determined pace.

Just then the foremost goose waddled forward, assuming a decidedly hostile attitude; and at the same instant Dick, recognising Bill from behind, gave a shrill whistle. Between the goose and the whistle, Bill was so startled that he came to a sudden halt, completely unmanned; then seeing the goose still advance, he turned to fly.

This, of course, was the last thing he should have done; for the bird no sooner saw his back, than ducking her head and opening her wings, she rushed forward with a scream. Bill heard her coming, and put on the speed; but the goose was sure to win the race. A minute later, she would have had him by the back of his small clothes, had not Bill, in flinging a terrified glance over his shoulder, swerved to the edge of the towing-path, and overbalancing himself, slipped and fallen, rolling over and over down the incline into the ditch that separated the bank from the field.

The enraged goose was after him like lightning, screaming and flapping her wings. But Bill's terrified imagination put spurs to his energy. Imagining that the whole flock had taken up the fray, he scrambled to his feet, and plucking up all his valour, just as the goose rushed forward, he caught her in the breast-bone with such a fling of his heavy boot as sent her staggering and rolling over backwards, silenced at any rate for the present.

Meanwhile Dick, seeing Bill in difficulties, had maintained a safe distance; he now came on, whilst Bill, fearing the recovery of the goose, or the vengeance of her allies, fled towards him, panting and red in the face.

"That was a first-rate kick!" was Dick's admiring comment, when they at length stopped where a bend of the river and a clump of weeping-willows suggested safety.

The terrible geese were now only visible a long way behind over the water, with their necks still upstretched, and now and then screaming a faint "ya-hi!" as a bird flew across, or some equally unimportant matter arrested their attention.

Bill felt rather foolish. "Guess I shan't come this way again in a hurry," observed he.

"Oh! Ain't they, though," said Bill, changing his opinions to suit his case. "You've only seen 'em hangin' up by the necks, I guess. Never offered to touch me before, though," added he, with a touch of bravado. "Seems like they know when you've been meddling with their nests."

Bill nodded. "One a-piece," said he, clapping a hand to each jacket-tail. Then suddenly remembering his roll down the bank, his face fell,—"I'm licked!" exclaimed he with a blank look. "If they ain't all smashed! Now, there's a go!"

What a mess it was; and what a face Bill made as he drew his hands out, yellow and sticky, and stood staring helplessly at Dick!

"After all that trouble!" added Bill, thinking of the sitting goose and Farmer Bluff's dog Blazer, and all the other obstacles he had surmounted. "It's sixpence all the same though," added he.

Bill had pulled his jacket off by this time, and was down upon his knees on the grass, turning out the pockets.

"Don't you wish you may get it!" returned Dick derisively. "You don't call that an egg?"

Bill had got his mouth down to one pocket, lapping, up the yellow mess. "It warn't my fault they broke," said he, looking up, his face all smeared with yolk.

"Nor mine; that's certain," retorted Dick decisively, turning on his heel. "You can have the other one too," he called over his shoulder as he went.

"I don't do anything again for you in a hurry," said Bill, applying his mouth to the other pocket. "You're a sneak!"

Bill knelt upright a minute or two, to look after him; then he proceeded to lay himself out flat on the bank, feet furthest from the edge, and set to work washing out the pockets in the river.

CHAPTER IX.

ELSPETH fully anticipated the honour of giving lunch to this strange artist, for whom Bill had borrowed the chair. It was a good step up to the public house by the church; and common sense told her that a shelter so near at hand, where he could rest and eat, would be a convenience not to be despised.

Accordingly, she laid forward with her work, in order to be ready to do the honours of a cold-meat spread any time after eleven o'clock, by which hour she counted he might reasonably be getting hungry. As fortune would have it, however, she was doomed to disappointment.

Setting out about half-past nine for a walk his grandsons, the Squire with Hal at his side, arrived at the stile beyond the Manor Farm, intending to proceed by way of the riverbank and the fields to the church, and thence to the gate of the wood, to see how Farmer Bluff's place of exile was progressing.

Will and Sigismund were quickly over; and whilst Hal and the old gentleman were following at leisure, on they ran as usual. They no sooner disappeared beyond the corner where the path curved round the orchard than they came racing back.

"Such an odd object!" cried Will, in his clear, sharp voice. "A man under a white canvas umbrella!"

"Like a missionary teaching the heathen," put in Sigismund; for the equinoctial sun was in one of its rare hot moods, and our artist had been glad to screen his eyes from its glare.

A few moments later, the Squire and Hal were in sight of him. Hal, as usual, was just ready with some question, when his grandfather uttered an exclamation of pleasure and surprise. At the same moment, a look of recognition passed over the artist's face, and he rose, respectfully doffing his hat.

"Why, Grantley!" exclaimed the old gentleman, hurrying forward with extended hand. "I little thought you were upon my domains."

"On Tommy Tinker's ground," put in, sotto voce, Will, who always had something mischievous at the tip of his tongue.

The artist replied that he himself had not been aware of it until, inquiring his way of a labouring man up by the church, he had learned the name of the place. "I intended doing myself the honour of calling on you later in the day," he added; "when the air becomes too chilly for work."

"By all means," said the Squire cordially. "I shall be delighted. I see you have already made acquaintance with my bailiff, or his housekeeper," added he, glancing at the chair.

Grantley acquiesced. "A decent, hospitable kind of body too," returned he; "offered to get me luncheon presently—which, by the way, I think will come acceptable before long; for I breakfasted at six, preparatory to my tramp over from the town; and I find your country air sharpening to the appetite."

"You will find my bailiff but indifferent company, I fear," said the Squire. "Farmer Bluff is all that his name implies; a gouty old sinner, too, who deserves every twinge in his joints as heartily as ever any one did. However, if he is expecting you, of course—"

"Oh! From what the good woman said," interrupted Grantley, "I am not to enjoy the honour of sitting down with Farmer Bluff. She spoke of her front kitchen."

"I suspected as much," rejoined the Squire. "Bluff was never noted for the virtue of hospitality, and never will be. This is simply a scheme of Dame Elspeth's to turn an honest half-crown. That being so, I propose that you come up to lunch with me at the Manor House; or if that will take you from your work too soon, go in and have a snack of bread and bacon in Elspeth's kitchen, and come on to dine with me at six."

This arrangement seemed best to suit Grantley, who was anxious to lose none of the short spring day. "It will make a pretty sketch," said he, "if I can do it justice; but I am expecting a lad back presently—the one who fetched out Dame Elspeth and the chair; a lively urchin, from the way in which he scrambled through the hedge there, rather than go round like ordinary folk to the front entrance."

"Well for him that the old farmer has his gout on, if he is familiar with the way through that hedge," observed the Squire. "But if Farmer Bluff suffers that way, his dog Blazer doesn't; and the dog isn't a whit more bland-tempered than his master."

"Oh, grandfather!" put in Hal, who was listening as usual, his keen eyes moving quickly from one to the other of the speakers. "Blazer is ever so much nicer than Grip. He's an honest old doggie."

"Perhaps Farmer Bluff might become an honest old bailiff in your hands, my boy," returned his grandfather, "if only his gout allowed him to live long enough to see you in power. This is Hal, the coming man," continued he to Grantley; "the eldest son of your old schoolfellow, who will be Squire in my stead one of these days, I hope."

Grantley said something pleasant in answer to this information; but Hal could not help feeling that he cast a pitying glance at his crutches and irons.

"I hope I shall be as good a Squire as you, grandfather," said he in a low voice.

"Aim at being better, my boy," returned his grandfather, laying a fond hand on his shoulder. "The higher our ideal, the higher we may hope to reach. Set before yourself not the Squire your old grandfather has been, but the Squire Christ Jesus would have been if He—the only perfect man—had been Lord of the Manor to the people here."

And somehow, with his grandfather's words, it came over the cripple boy, that with such an ideal before him, it would not so very much matter to his squireship if he could not follow the hounds or ride in the steeplechase.

Then they set forward, and presently they met Dick Crozier on his way back from witnessing Bill's encounter with the goose.

"Well, Master Dick," said he, for he rarely forgot a name, "you're out early; and you haven't missed your way to-day."

Dick answered "No;" but coloured to the crown, for conscience reminded him that he had none the less been out of bounds.

The Squire, however, knowing nothing of his father's injunctions, misinterpreted the blush, judging him to be of a modest turn. Now the Squire liked a boy who wasn't "made of brass;" so he took Dick to his heart thenceforth.

"My grandsons will be pleased to show you the grounds at the Manor House any time you like to come up for a game," said he.

"And if you're not too tired to turn back with us just now," continued the Squire, "we shall all be pleased to have your company."

So Dick, who had till one o'clock upon his hands, turned back towards the river with them, nothing loth to walk in such august society.

Meanwhile Bill, upon the riverbank, behind the willow clump, had just finished washing out his pockets, which he had wrung out as dry as he could before putting his jacket on again. This done, he turned to take a survey of the distant hostile squadron.

To his amazement and dismay, whom should he behold but Dick Crozier and the Squire's grandsons making straight for the very spot where he had given the goose that vicious kick; and in their midst the brisk, trim figure of the Squire himself, one hand behind his back, as usual, the other grasping the gold head of his cane.

"Now, if he ha'n't been straight and split on me!" exclaimed Bill to himself. "There's a mess!"

This was precisely what Dick—being somewhat in the same mess—had not done, and had no intention of doing. The history of the affair was this.

Turning to the left, along the riverbank, to gain the cottages by the gate of the wood, the Squire and his grandsons had come upon the extraordinary spectacle of a flock of some ten or a dozen geese huddled together in apparent agitation and concern at a distance of several yards from one member of their flock, who was writhing and flapping on the grass in evident distress and agony. Their conduct betrayed a curious mixture of fear and sympathy. Now and again, one or another would come out from among her fellows, and make a few steps forward with outstretched neck, whilst the rest of the flock chorused her with warning screams of "Ya-hi!—Ya-hi!" But having contemplated the poor sufferer for some seconds, the spectacle of a sister's sufferings evidently became too much for her feelings, and she waddled away again to seek support of the gander, who stood hindermost of all, utterly useless in such an emergency.

"She's dying, grandfather!" exclaimed he; and as his brothers rushed forward, he felt in all its keenness the privation of his crippled condition.

Dick was in no such hurry, for he guessed pretty accurately what was the matter with the goose; though whether Bill's boot had broken her breast-bone or bruised her internal organs, he could not tell; so he followed on with Hal and his grandfather.

The Squire looked on for some minutes with both perplexity and concern at the poor creature's distress, then he turned to Hal and Sigismund.

"Run to Farmer Bluff's, both of you," said he. "Bring one of the men. The poor thing must be attended to at once."

Off ran Will and Sigismund at the top of their speed, whilst the other three looked on, not knowing what to do.

And in the distance stood Bill, watching them, and wondering what would come of it all. At length, recollecting his appointment with the artist, and concluding that it would be safer not to venture back to Farmer Bluff's field by that path, Bill set off running in the opposite direction, intending to go round the longer way by which Dick had met him when they quarreled about the broken egg.

All this while, Dick was in a sad dilemma, for he dared not tell what he knew, although he could so easily have put them on the right track with regard to the poor bird's sufferings.

At length, two of the farm labourers arrived, and after a short examination, amid much cackling and screaming from the rest of the flock, they carried off the injured goose in a basket they had brought for the purpose, to doctor her after their simple light; or, as a last, humane measure, to put a quick end to her struggles.

"For it's my opinion, sir," said one of the men wisely, as they placed her in the basket, "that her 'll not get over this. I've seen 'em took like this before; and they never live."

"Then kill her mercifully, by all means," the Squire answered him; "and end her sufferings."

CHAPTER X.

"THAT'S two geese lost this spring," observed one of the men next morning, as the injured bird breathed her last under his hand. "Warn't the governor mad!"

And so he was. He cursed, he swore, he raged; he would have stamped, had not his infirmity prevented it. Above all, he felt deeply injured that his gout prevented him from going out to see after things himself; for when he used to be about, such casualties never happened. Being tied to his chair, however, and having now one hand bad, in addition to his feet, he could use nothing more violent than his tongue.

And at length, the men, having listened as long as they thought necessary, to his stream of abuse, carried out the goose to execute their mournful duty.

Left to himself, Farmer Bluff gradually cooled down; and as he cooled, certain words of Hal's came back to mind. This gout, Hal had said, was of his own seeking. If so, it was his own fault that he had lost the geese. Farmer Bluff instinctively reached out his sound hand for the silver mug, and having drained it of its contents, fell into a brown study.

In the midst of his reflections, he heard a sudden tap against the window at his back, and looking round, he saw Hal's face pressed against the glass. The boy nodded; so did the bailiff—in spite of his grumps; and Hal swung himself off to ring at the bell, sitting down in the porch to wait.

Elspeth was more astonished than ever, on taking her usual peep through the slit window.

"Well! If you ain't layin' yourself open to hear a lot of language that ain't fit for the ears of the likes o' you!" exclaimed she, as she opened the door. "The master's that mad about the goose, that he's done nothing but swear ever since they brought her in."

"Never mind," said he. "It won't hurt me if he swears ever so. It's not what goes in at your ears that defiles you, you know, but what comes out of your mouth; because that shows what's in your heart."

Farmer Bluff was looking towards the door in expectation. His features relaxed on sight of the boy's cheery face.

"Left hand," said he, as his young master swung himself across to shake hands. The right arm was suspended from his neck in a large checked handkerchief.

Hal looked serious. "Is that gout too, Mr. Bluff?" asked he, standing in front of him, and eyeing the bandaged arm.

"Ah! Young master," said he; "you didn't know what a plaguesome thing it was, once it got hold of your system; did you now? It couldn't be satisfied with getting me off my legs, but it must disable my knife-hand. It'll have the fork one next, I'll be bound; and then there 'll be a pair of 'em. A quadruped of gout!"

"I'm disappointed," said he. "I expected to find you better; and instead of that, you're worse." And he went and sat down on a chair opposite—the same one he had occupied on his first visit—looking perplexed and grieved. Presently he said,—"It's that mug, Mr. Bluff. I'm sure of that. Have you thought about it any more?"

"Why, no," returned the bailiff; "not much. I can't say I have. I've thought more about the goose, a long chalk."

"Yes; that was a pity," said Hal sympathetically. "I was very sorry for the poor thing."

"Two broods lost in one year," said Farmer Bluff, getting on his moody expression again. "More than a man like me can afford to lose. Now, if I'd been about—"

"It's all those men," continued the old fellow wrathfully. "They're so—" Farmer Bluff pulled up suddenly, before he added "careless." He was going to throw in one of his swearing expressions, to give weight to the word; but he fortunately recollected Hal in time, and checked himself.

Farmer Bluff shook his head. "They brought her in to me," said he; "and I couldn't see, except that she was dying pretty fast. So I told 'em to put an end to it."

Farmer Bluff laughed outright. "An inquest on a goose!" roared he. "Upon my soul, young master, you're an original; though, when you come to look at it, half the inquests are on geese. He! he!—" And he laughed again at his own wit.

But Hal was quite in earnest. To him there was nothing funny in it at all. "There always is a post-mortem," said he seriously, "when anybody dies without the doctor being able to tell the cause of death. I think that if I were you, I should like to know why that goose died. It might enable you to prevent any more of them dying the same way, you know. Perhaps it was something in the food."

Farmer Bluff shook his head. "I daresay it's been 'post-mortemed' for somebody's dinner by now," said he, with grim humour. "I told 'em to cut her throat and put her underground; but such as them don't often get the chance to taste goose flesh. I'll be bound she's twirling on the spit by now."

After a little more talk, Hal took his crutches. "Well," said he, "I must wish you 'good morning,' Mr. Bluff; and as you've got the gout in your right arm I won't trouble you to shake hands. But I'd have it out of there, if I were you, feet and all. You really must think about that mug this time; now, won't you? I'm certain it's the mug that does the mischief; because, you see, you're proud of it, and directly we're proud of anything, we forget all the rest. But you won't have a goose to put it out of your head this time?"

That evening at dinner,—for the boys always enjoyed the privilege of dining with their grandfather in the holidays,—the subject of the goose came up, and Hal told what he knew of its fate.

"Upon my word," remarked the Squire, after hearing how Hal had aired his ideas about the post-mortem, "you were right too; and if I had known it, the bird should not have been put out of the way in that slip-shod fashion. As it is, the thing shall be looked into."

"Your bailiff is guilty of allowing the consumption of unwholesome food," observed young Grantley, who had had accepted the Squire's pressing invitation to make the Manor House his home whilst his pencil was busy in the neighbourhood. "It is to be hoped the 'fortunate' family will reap no disastrous effects."

"Such a thing might have very serious consequences," added Hal's mother, who was very much concerned.

Finally, after due deliberation, the Squire gave orders that some one should at once be sent to ascertain the name of the man to whom the fate of the goose had been intrusted; and that having done this, the messenger should at once proceed to the man's cottage, and learn what had become of the stricken bird's remains.

It was quite late in the evening when at length a servant came to say that Hobbs—the man who had gone—was waiting in the hall.

The boys' bedtime was already long past, but they had begged to sit up a little longer, and they now all followed their grandfather out to hear the result of the investigations.

Hobb's account, however, although it quieted all anxiety with regard to the meal afforded to the Grig family, only involved in further mystery the cause of the goose's death.

Mrs. Grig, on being questioned, had reported that when plucking it ready for trussing, she had discovered a great black bruise upon its breast, and that upon further examination she had found the breast-bone to be broken. As to the wholesomeness of the flesh, however, she was ready to affirm before anybody that a sweeter bird never came from the poulterer's,—although "it wasn't quite in prime condition, not being in the fatting season." She had finished up by giving it as her opinion that there was no doubt about death having been due to accident rather than disease.

"There was one item rayther cur'ous 'bout the information as I got, sir," said Hobbs finally. "When old Jaggers went home to he's breakfast at the stroke of eight that morning, there was three eggs in the old white goose's nest, and two in the speckled's, as stood nighest it. But when he comed back, blest if there hadn't out o' each nest disappeared one egg; so's to leave no more'n two in one, and one in t'other," repeated Hobbs, looking round about upon his hearers to make sure they followed him. "And depend upon it, that old white goose had had a fight wi' some un as came to steal her egg. Though how the crittur dragged herself right away down to the river, wi' that broken bone, is past all understanding—except that sittin' birds 'll do 'most anything."

"What about the dog Blazer too?" exclaimed young Grantley, who had followed out to hear the news. "Why! That was the first morning I was there sketching. They said the dog was loose too."

"The boy who fetched my chair. And, by the by," exclaimed young Grantley suddenly, "I have it all! That young rascal was down there hiding in the ditch when first I came along; and he got in through hedge in quite a practised fashion."

"No; he just used that as a pretext for getting through, and came back with a black eye and a tale about the dog being off the chain; and, having crammed me with that, he offered to go round to the front—"

"Where Blazer could have got at him just the same, if he had really been loose," put in Hal.

"Now that I remember," added Grantley, "when I first came up and caught him in the ditch, he invented a history about rats, for which he professed to get so much a head. He said they stole the eggs; but I guess the young scapegrace himself was the biggest rat of the lot, and had his eye upon the biggest eggs. I should hardly think that rats would tackle a goose's egg."

"There's not a doubt about it but you've found the clue," returned the Squire. "The question to be answered is, Who was the boy?"

The Squire smiled. "Hal thoroughly believes in your power of faithful portraiture," observed he.

Young Grantley laughed. "Yes," said he; "I put him in. I told him to return in an hour or two. He was nearer three. He said he had been home."

"Towards the riverbank," was the reply; "but then we haven't yet decided who he was. My easel, Squire," he added, "is in Elspeth's charge. I'll run down and fetch the canvas if you like."

"No, no; not the least hurry," returned the Squire; "the morning will do just as well. We will sleep upon the information that you've given us."

The boys begged hard to be allowed to escort young Grantley to the farm at once; but it was getting very late, and their grandfather would not entertain the idea.

"Dame Elspeth wouldn't thank us for curtailing her hours of rest," said he. "She is up betimes, no doubt. To bed, now; and directly after breakfast to-morrow, we will start, and identify the thief."

Finding that there was no appeal, the boys gave in. Will and Sigismund went off to bed in high spirits at the idea of dragging a culprit to justice by means of an artist's sketch; but Hal lingered behind, a minute.

"Grandfather," said he, "what will be done with the boy? Will he go to prison, or what?"

"That depends," replied the Squire. "According to the old proverb, we must catch him first before we cook him. He certainly shall not be let off punishment if we do; you need not fear."

"I meant," replied Hal, "that I don't want him punished. I should fancy that it would harden a boy. I would rather have him talked to."

"Be sure he would remember a good smarting far longer," rejoined his grandfather; "and I should feel myself to blame if I neglected to let him feel the consequence of his bad conduct. Such small beginnings are as the seed-corn in the earth, which bringeth forth some thirtyfold, some sixtyfold, and some an hundredfold. That is equally true of bad, as of good seed. But now be off."

That night Hal went to bed with two sinners on his mind,—Farmer Bluff, with his silver mug and his gout, and the youthful but unknown villain who had murdered the old white goose and robbed her nest.

CHAPTER XI.

THE family assembled with great punctuality at the breakfast-table next morning. Will and Sigismund crowded round young Grantley, who had acquired great importance in their eyes, since he had assumed his novel rôle of detective. Hal, on the contrary, looked rather serious, wondering who the culprit would turn out to be, and what punishment he would have to undergo.

Immediately breakfast was over, the Squire rose and took his gold-headed cane. Young Grantley and the boys followed him out on to the verandah, Hal's mother accompanying them, to shade her eyes with her hand and watch them off, as Dick had seen her do on the first occasion of his peeping over the plantation palings at the Manor House.

Outside the lodge they chanced upon Dick, who had been down to the railway with his father. The squire gave him a benevolent salute, and the boys stopped to speak.

"We're off to the Manor Farm," explained Will. And he went on to give the details of the theft, and how suspicion had come to rest upon the boy whom Mr. Grantley had put in his sketch of the church, but whose name was of course unknown to him. "We're going to identify him by the sketch," added he.

"Mr. Grantley leaves his easel at the farm," put in Sigismund. "I think it's splendid fun. It's exactly like a real police case, isn't it?"

Dick's face had become nearly as serious as Hal's at this intelligence. If the theft should be brought home to Bill, his own share in the affair was certain to come out, and then it would be all up with his pleasant footing at the Manor House.

And between them, they narrated the events of the preceding evening, and how the Grig family had feasted on the poor goose's remains.

This was getting hotter and hotter for Dick. At length, he grew so uncomfortable that on reaching the gate of the farm, he said he would go no farther and in spite of all their pressing that he should wait outside and see the picture when Mr. Grantley brought it out, he turned, and left them to go in alone.

They had no sooner knocked at the kitchen door, however, than Dick changed his mind, and followed on towards the cottages beyond the farm. If Bill were anywhere about, he might give him a hint to keep out of the way a bit, until the storm blew over.

Dick's chief motive in this design was to avoid getting his character blackened in the Squire's eyes by association with Bill. He overlooked the more important consideration that he who meddles with mire is blackened, whether other people know it or not; and that there is One, before whose piercing gaze no hiding can avail, since He "looketh on the heart."

As it happened, Bill was just outside, off for a stroll. Seeing Dick, he turned the other way; but Dick ran after him.

"I say," cried he, "you're in for a pretty row. It's all come out about the goose and those two eggs you stole."

"Of course I haven't," answered Dick. "The gentleman that put you in his picture smelt it out; and the Squire's gone up with him to the farm, to see the picture and identify your phiz."

This information was so startling that poor Bill's hair positively stood on end.

"It's only to be hoped he hasn't drawn you well," continued Dick; "but somehow these things always do come out. It's what they call the law of justice I expect. If I were you, I guess I'd hide away a bit. You see, you don't exactly know what they may do. You wouldn't get less than a month, you may make pretty sure, with the Squire after you, and Farmer Bluff behind, to back him up."

"But where am I to go?" asked Bill, so seriously that Dick perceived at once how terrified he was.

"Why, right away somewhere," said he, determined upon striking whilst the iron of Bill's fear was hot. "If I were in your shoes, I wouldn't even stay to think. I'd set off this very minute, and I'd go on running till I dropped. I'd walk till night. I'd do anything, short of jumping into the river, to escape a month in gaol. I saw inside a cell once," continued Dick impressively.

And then he shook his head with such effect that Bill looked round, almost expecting that his gaolers were at hand. As nothing was to be seen of them, however, Bill began to examine the matter more closely.

"Work for it, of course," returned Dick contemptuously. "A boy your size must be a donkey if he can't pick up enough to buy his victuals. You mightn't get much else but bread; but if you come to think, you'd get no more than that in gaol."

And it struck Bill that bread and water, with liberty, would be sweeter far than the daintiest fare in a prison cell.

"You'd have your hair cropped too," urged Dick; "and all the boys would pelt you, and call names, when you came out again."

"Oh! You could get a lodging cheap enough," said Dick; "and anyhow—I'll tell you what. If don't make your mind up pretty quick, you'll have 'em down on you. The Squire's sure to recognise your picture; and he'll come right straight off here. If I were you, I'd go inside and grab whatever I could find to stuff my pockets with, and then I'd be off like a shot. I wouldn't stand stock-still and let 'em put the handcuffs on; not I!"

"Look here," said Dick, with a sudden show of generosity, "I'll start you with that sixpence I was to give you for the egg; and then, you mind!—You've never got to say a word about my name, d'ye hear?"

And Bill, convinced that he had better escape, and glad to get so much to start him on his wanderings, promised, and ran indoors. A minute later, he reappeared, his jacket-tails stuffed out to twice their size, and in his hand a huge hunch of bread, which he was cramming down his throat as fast as he could swallow.

"Good luck to you!" cried Dick. And having watched him out of sight, he clambered over the gate of a field just opposite the cottages, and hid behind the hedge, to wait and see what would happen.

Meanwhile, Elspeth had been astonished beyond measure at the formidable party that besieged her kitchen door. In the first place, she was not accustomed to let the Squire in that way; and in the second, she caught up at once, from odd remarks, that something was amiss; so having brought the easel out from its place behind the churn, she retired to a respectful distance to listen and pick up what hints she could.

The Squire was the first to look. He examined the canvas closely for an instant; then he said,—"Now, boys; let each one take a look; then tell me who this is. To my mind, there's no doubt."

"That was Bill Mumby—Bill the Kicker, as they call him," said Elspeth as she approached. "And so is this," she added, the instant she was near enough to see. "You've drawed him very true, sir, too."

"Then there remains no doubt," returned the Squire, summing up the evidence, and tapping briskly on the red-brick floor with his gold-headed cane. "We know whose door the mischief lies at now. The portrait does you credit, Grantley. You'll be a great man yet."

"Of whom it will be told in after days," said Grantley, not displeased, "that his first hit was made as a detective in the case of a country bumpkin versus a goose. Ah! Well, it remains to be seen whether or not it will be counted worthy of a place in the Academy."

"It shall certainly have a place in the Manor House," returned the Squire warmly, "if you will name your price."

So the picture found a purchaser before it was completed; and the young artist went out to his work well pleased.

CHAPTER XII.

Dick, from his hiding-place behind the hedge, saw him arrive, striking the ground importantly with his cane, and followed by his grandsons.

The Squire knocked; but no one answered, so he knocked again. Still no one came.

Will went, and returned with the news that he had tried the wash-house door and found it fast, but through the window he could see a little fire in the grate.

This time the upper window of the next door cottage opened, and a head was hastily thrust out. "Mrs. Mumby a'n't at home," the neighbour called. Then, seeing who was waiting down below, she humbly begged pardon, and further informed the Squire that Mrs. Mumby had gone up the road to carry home some linen.

The Squire thanked her with his customary courtesy; and having hoped the children were quite well, was going down the pathway, when the good woman called again to say that Mrs. Mumby was in sight.

When she arrived, her honest face was red with toiling through the sun; and it went redder when she saw the Squire at her door. But Mrs. Mumby knew her manners, so she asked him with a curtsey if he wouldn't step inside; and there she dusted chairs for him and the three young gentlemen, and stood up, with a corner of her apron in her hand, to hear what he had come about.

"It's about your boy, Mrs. Mumby," began the Squire, when he had said a pleasant thing or two about the weather and her health. "He isn't in just now, I believe."

"Two days ago?" reflected Mrs. Mumby. "Yes, sir; I believe I can. We did some mangling early, him and me, afore his father comed in to he's breakfast; and Bill went out to take it home. All the morning arter that, sir, he was in the field just by the farm, along o' some strange gent as took a fancy to the looks of him, and wanted for to put him in a pictur' of the church. A pretty bit it is, too, sir. I've often noticed it agoin' 'crost the fields on summer evenings, when the bells was ringing out for service, sir."

"Yes, sir; as I was a-saying," continued Bill's mother, "and I wanted him so bad that day to turn the mangle and carry linen home; but of course I naturally thinks, thinks I, 'he'll sure to give him something for his time.' But it's like such folks, sir; ne'er a copper did my Bill get out of him. Come home empty-handed, sir; that he did! And me near dragged to death."

"Did he though!" returned the Squire. "I've heard a different tale to that. The gentleman—a friend of mine, now staying at the Manor House—informs me that he gave the boy a silver sixpence for his time. Now what say you to that?"

"That I'm sorry I should have to tell it of my own, sir," answered Mrs. Mumby, looking down; "but I'm bound to own as Bill is often caught out in untruths. It a'n't for want of bringing up. His father never catches him but what he gets the strap; and so he shall this time, sir, that he shall. His father 'll be right mad to hear of it."

"But that is not all, I'm grieved to say," pursued the Squire, going on to tell her the rest of his charges against her rapscallion son.

"It's not for want o' being strict with him," repeated she. "Mumby and me, we're always at him, sir; and, as I say, his father never finds him out but what he straps him well."

But the Squire shook his head. "It isn't strapping that 'll make a boy right-minded," answered he, "any more than cutting back will make a wild plum bear a garden fruit."

"Then what's to do, sir?" said the mother ruefully. "Don't the good book tell us, 'Spare the rod, and spoil the child'?"

"But it also tells us," said the Squire, "that the evil deeds men do proceed out of their evil hearts; and that nothing can effect a change save the Holy Spirit of God, that 'bloweth where it listed' in this world of sin."

Mrs. Mumby was silent. She knew her Bible pretty well, as she had heard the parson read it from the desk; but she had hitherto thought only of the parent's duty of bringing up a child in the way he should go.

This idea that her boy Bill needed a changed heart to make him want less strapping, was new to her. It had never struck her that "bringing up" is only like preparing the heart—as ploughing does the field—and breaking up its hard surface to receive the gospel seed of truth.

"First of all, to bring the young culprit face to face with me," replied the Squire. "I will question him, and see what argument can do; and if I find him obdurate—well, I shall see what steps to take. There is no doubt about the truth of what the 'wise man' says; and there are many 'rods' that can be used to teach the wholesome lesson how that crooked ways are sure to find their chastisement."

"He'll be in by one, sir, sure," said Mrs. Mumby, half-doubtful whether to be glad or sorry that the Squire agreed with her about the need of punishment. "He never lags behind at dinner-time."

"We have his future to consider, Mrs. Mumby," answered he. "A boy who lies and thieves at his age, must be curbed, or he will end by worse. But we will hope that, by God's grace, we may turn him from his evil ways."

The Squire and his grandsons were no sooner fairly out of sight than Dick came out of hiding, and set off home.

"Bill's well out of that," said he to himself as he thrust his hands down in his trousers pockets, and set up whistling. Then, recollecting the price he had paid to get Bill off, he broke off his tune to add—"And I'm well rid of him." And for all the scarcity of sixpences with Dick, he even went so far as to count himself cheaply rid of Bill. "I wouldn't care to have the Squire looking after my future," said Dick.

Meantime, young Grantley's brushes worked busily at the picture of the church, whilst the Squire and his grandsons made their way across the fields and by the river to the wood; and having ascertained that the repairs were progressing satisfactorily, they returned to lunch.

Then the Squire sat down in his study to await the arrival of Mrs. Mumby and her scapegrace son; and the boys went out of doors to play about the plantation, taking care to keep well within sight of the gate, so that they might see when Bill arrived. But the afternoon wore on. Mumby came in to his dinner, and went back to work; and his wife put aside the plateful she had reserved for Bill. Then she went upstairs and cleaned herself against his coming in, so as to be ready to go up to the Manor House with him.

"I durstn't breathe a word of it till I've got my bonnet on," said she, "else he'd be off like a shot."

But Mrs. Mumby tidied up, and came downstairs again with her best bonnet in her hand; and still she found the plate untouched. And all the afternoon she worked away at her shirt-fronts; but still no Bill came in.

Presently she made the tea, and had a cup, setting the pot to keep warm on the hob. And six o'clock brought Mumby home; but still no Bill.

"It's just like he's got scent of it," said she. "A boy like him won't stand to be corrected while he got legs to run away."

Young Grantley had stowed his easel at the farm, and hurried in to dinner, all anxiety to hear what had been done. But all the Squire could tell him, was that neither Mrs. Mumby nor the boy had been.

"It's my opinion, grandfather," said Will, "that Mrs. Mumby has changed her mind. She's like a silly mother; doesn't want him punished. That's the fact of it."

"You oughtn't to have spoken out so plain," said Sigismund. "You've frightened her. You take my word; she's hiding Bill."

Next morning, just as breakfast was concluded, a servant came to say that, "Mrs. Mumby, from the cottages beyond the Manor Farm," was waiting in the hall.

"Bill's gone and drowned hisself, or run away," she sobbed. "He knew he'd catch it extra hard; and I shall never see my boy again—my only boy."

"My good woman," said the Squire soothingly, "you may be quite sure your boy has too much respect for his own life, to do anything so foolish as jump into the river. Far more likely he is hiding somewhere near about, until the storm is past; so dry your eyes, and tell me what you can."

"He's took a lot o' food out o' the cupboard," said she, choking down her sobs, and speaking through her apron. "Pretty nigh a half a quartern loaf, he did. I always have 'em in a day before, to get 'em stale."

"What should he want with bread in the river, I wonder!" giggled Sigismund, snacking at the flies with a bit of whip-cord, and half thinking of Bill the whole time.

The mother answered tearfully that all the neighbours had turned out with lanterns after dark, on hearing that the boy had not come home; and many people in the village street had joined the search. Every outhouse and haystack in the neighbourhood had been ransacked; and many of the searchers had not given up till dawn.

"They reckoned, you see, sir, that he was bound to drop asleep somewheres, if so be he was alive," explained Mrs. Mumby; "and they'd liker hit upon him in the dark than by broad daylight, when he'd be upon the tramp."

"It looked remarkably as if he had made off," the Squire thought. "Well, well," said he, "the way will be to telegraph the fact to Scotland Yard. A thorough search will soon be set on foot." So, repairing to the study, a description of the runaway was written out, and a man on horseback forthwith despatched with it to the town.

Whilst this was being arranged, Hal had slipped round to Mrs. Mumby's side. "I think, you know," said he, "if I could get hold of Bill, and talk to him, it might do good; but then, you see, you don't know where he is."

"I wish you did," echoed Hal. "When you don't know where a person is, it makes you feel so bad. You see, he'll soon eat up that bread. It wouldn't last me long; and everybody says I eat so little, for a growing boy."

"And he eats such a lot," rejoined Bill's mother, comforted by the interest Hal seemed to take in her boy's fate. "Bless you, sir! You need to be poor people, like Mumby and me," she added, "to know how much he does eat."

"And the question is," said Hal reflectively, "what will he do when that's gone?"

"There was pretty near a score on us," old Kirkin told him when he ran down the garden, early that morning. "We didn't put our lanterns out till four; and up again at six. I can tell 'ee, I ha'n't had a wink o' sleep."

But Kirkin shook his head. He had been a gardener in his prime, but now had to get his living by odd jobs as best he could.

"Sleep or no sleep, can't afford to throw up work," said he. "But when a lad's missing, so that no one knows what's come of him, a man can't stay in bed to sleep. His mother's like to kill herself."

"I wonder where he's gone," said Dick, which was quite true, so far as it went. Nevertheless, he felt very uncomfortable, sitting down to breakfast with the secret of Bill's disappearance on his mind.

CHAPTER XIII.

A week went by, and still he was away. They had the river dragged, and all the ponds; every ditch and pitfall in the neighbourhood was searched; and printed bills, describing him, were posted up outside all the police stations of the district; but all to no effect.

The April rains had come on now, and the world had suddenly burst into verdure. It was a lovely vista that the Squire looked down over the gate of the wood, when he went to see after the repairs at the cottage. But he had to take his morning walks alone now. The tutor had returned, and Easter holidays were up.

Dick's presentiments, too, were realized. His father had found a school for him; and nine o'clock saw him strapping up his books and hurrying off to learn as much mischief and as little solid information as he could—after the fashion of boys made on his pattern.

Meanwhile, Farmer Bluff's gout and the repairs had gone on apace. The old fellow's prediction had come true more speedily than he desired. Not many days had elapsed when the left hand was seized, and he became entirely dependent upon Elspeth—being unable even to feed himself.

As long as the holidays had lasted, Hal had contrived to drop in pretty often; and he would hardly have believed how much he was missed, now that lessons and April showers combined to keep him away. One half-holiday proving fine, however, Hal slipped out between school and lunch, and set off for the farm. He rang, as usual, but no one came; so, finding the door on the latch, he pushed it open and announced himself.

A savoury smell greeted him. Farmer Bluff's dinner tray was on the table. Hal apologized for his intrusion.

"No more I do, it seems," returned Farmer Bluff gruffly. "That's how she serves me pretty nearly every day; just brings it in and takes the covers off. Then leaves it here for me to smell until it's all gone cold,—to go and eat her own, I s'pose. And here am I, can't move hand or foot!"

"That's bad," said Hal; "it spoils the gravy so. You get the fat all on the top."

It was a mutton chop, and there were greens with it, according to the doctor's express orders.

"Greens aren't nice cold, either," added Hal. "They get so dabby, don't they? I suppose it rather comes of your having gout in both hands, though. Grown-ups are intended to be able to help themselves, you see."

The farmer groaned. He always did, when Hal made these little moral reflections. If any one had scolded, it would have only angered him and made him obstinate; but Hal's remarks came out so naturally, and he looked so sympathetic all the while, that a more ill-tempered man than Farmer Bluff could scarcely have felt annoyed.

"I'll tell you what," said Hal suddenly. "As I happen to be here just now, why shouldn't I help you? I can manage quite as well as Mrs. Elspeth, if you like."

When Elspeth returned, she was astonished to find the young Squire seated on a corner of the table, with his crutches one side, and the bailiff's plate the other, preparing dainty mouthfuls with the knife and fork, and skilfully conveying them to her master's mouth.

"It seemed a pity all this gravy should get cold, because you were so busy that you couldn't come," explained Hal. "I think, if I were you, I'd try and make sure of that before I brought the dinner in. I shouldn't like mine cold. And you must excuse my sitting on the table too. If I stand, you see, I want my hands to hold my crutches with; and if I sit down on a chair, I come so low I couldn't reach. I hope I make it salt enough," he added, as he lodged another forkful in the great bird's mouth.

Hal's relations with the bailiff became of a far more confidential nature after this. We often hear it said that a right to give advice is earned by lending help. So Hal found; only he put it in a different way. He felt that he had found his way to Farmer Bluff's affection by performing such a homely office for him; and he treated him accordingly. He often managed to run in upon half-holidays; and he didn't only lecture him about the gout. He soon succeeded in making him talk; so that before long, he knew more of Farmer Bluff's history than most other people did. He found out how the old man liked to talk of sport and dogs; but he also learned how Mrs. Bluff had died quite young of fever, and how one by one, the children whom she left had gone to follow her, so that in six short weeks, he had been left alone.

"That was very sad for you," said he. "I shouldn't wonder if that partly made you have the gout."

"Trouble does act on the system, so the doctors say," said Farmer Bluff, glad of an excuse for what he knew Hal blamed as his own fault.

But that was not exactly Hal's meaning. "It might have been what made you take to beer," observed he.

"Now if you'd looked at it like this," continued Hal after due reflection: "My wife and children are gone on to heaven, where I mean to join them by and by, when I've done work. Just see what a difference it would have made. Some people," added he sagely, "only look at every day as it comes; and if it rains or snows, they think it's never going to stop. Other people look right ahead to the summer holidays—or to the harvest, if they're farmers, of course; and that makes all the difference. They know it will be all right in the long run, don't you see?"

But Hal's tacit reproof had not made Elspeth one whit more attentive to the invalid; indeed, if anything, she had been even more neglectful than before. Her master's time at the farm was getting short, and she had quite made up her mind to seek another place.

Farmer Bluff raged and swore when she informed him of her determination. But Elspeth only taunted him with his powerlessness to execute one word of all his threats or oaths; and finally, having done her best to rouse his worst passions, she left him to meditate upon his awkward situation.

Just then Hal, happening to get caught in a shower, swung himself up the yard and into the porch.

"He's in an awful temper, that I warn you, Master Hal," she said. "I'd a'most as soon go talk to Blazer as him."

But Hal was not afraid; and before the lapse of many minutes, Farmer Bluff—without a single oath—had told him how things stood.

"Well, now, let's see," said Hal. "What must you do? You must have somebody, that's clear. If you hadn't got this gout just now, it would be different, and you could laugh her in the face,—though I don't know that it would be exactly Christian to laugh the face of a person who 'despitefully used you;' but I mean you could do without her if she was determined not to stay. Or rather," added Hal, his thoughts suddenly taking a leap back to the source of all the difficulty, "you wouldn't be in such a bother at all; because she would never have given notice if you hadn't had to move out of the farm. It's all the gout, you see."

Farmer Bluff moved impatiently upon his chair. It was rather hard to be constantly twitted with that fact—even by Hal; because if it was "all the gout," it was therefore "all his own fault." But he was paid back for his pains with such a twinge in either leg, that he involuntarily moved his arms in their slings; whereupon each finger of each hand seemed to say—"No good, old fellow; you can't escape your punishment; for 'whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.'"

"Haven't you got somebody?" suggested he at last. "Relations are the best, I think, because they have an interest in you. You must have got a sister, haven't you?"

Farmer Bluff said "No" at first; but afterwards, he changed his mind. "Leastways not one who would come," said he. The matter stood thus. He had a sister once, who married somebody he did not like—a pious man, who would not drink for the sake of good fellowship, and did not swear. So he quarrelled with his sister; and when she wrote and told him that she had a baby boy named after him, he did not answer her; he had never seen or written to her since.

"She couldn't come in any case, you see," said Hal; "because she has her own home and her husband to look after."

"He's dead," said he. "He died about the same time as my wife, and so did the boy. She wrote to me to know if I could give her any help. There was a little girl, I think."

"Unless she's married some one else," added Farmer Bluff. "But she wouldn't come. 'Tain't likely, after how I've treated her."

"You don't deserve it, certainly," admitted Hal; which was not exactly what the farmer meant. "But sisters are amazingly forgiving—so they say. (I always wish I'd got one, do you know?) If I were you, I'd write to her."

This advice was rather out of place, seeing the helpless condition of the old fellow's hands. The upshot of it was, however, that Hal sat down to write from Farmer Bluff's dictation; and between them they made up a letter, setting forth the state of things, and offering Mrs. Rust a home, if she were willing to forgive the past, and come to live with him. Then Hal got up to say good-bye.

"I'll be sure and have it posted," said he. "If I put it in the hall with all the other letters, Perkins will take it when he goes from work."

CHAPTER XIV.

Although Mrs. Rust had been deeply wounded by her hard-hearted brother's evident lack of affection, she had never cherished the least ill-will against him. She rather mourned to think that his evil ways should separate them whilst so many years of life to love each other were theirs.

But, as it chanced, this proposal that she should make her home with him, came very opportunely to the lonely, hard-worked widow. Her little girl, now just eleven, had grown-up very delicate; and in their one poor room in London, poor Maggie could not have the air and nourishment of which she stood so much in need. Nothing could be better for her than the free life of the fields and lanes.

Farmer Bluff read and re-read the letter, which was full of affectionate expressions, reminding him how they had played together in the years gone by, before they had begun their separate paths in life, and learnt what trouble meant. It seemed so wonderful to think that after these ten years of estrangement on his part, she should still care for him.

"Far more so than you deserve," conscience added, in a tone he could not choose but hear.

He contrived to send a message up to Hal that afternoon. One of the men happening to come in about the selling of some piglings, he at once seized the opportunity of letting "the young Squire" know the result of their joint penmanship. Hal came directly lessons were over for the day.

Then, after talking it over for a little while, they composed the answer, directing Mrs. Rust to pack her things together, and come down next week, to superintend the remove.

Of course, when Elspeth heard of this arrangement, she declared that she wasn't going to be "mississed over" by a widow woman who was so hard up that she was ready to snap at the first chance of a home. And the end of it was that the ill-natured woman cleared out of the house the very day that Mrs. Rust came in, leaving no provisions ready cooked, and all the work to do.

But Mrs. Rust made light of that, for there were eggs in plenty to be had; with the sweet, fresh country bread and butter, she and Maggie made a hearty meal, and after a short rest, she set herself to work to take old Elspeth's place.

When the Squire heard of it from Hal, however, he was very angry, and sent a woman up at once to help her with the work. "It isn't fair," said he. "She cannot possibly do it all—look after Farmer Bluff, and see to things about the dairy and farmyard, and get the cottage into order too."

Next afternoon, he went round with Hal to see what Mrs. Rust was like, after her ten years of widowhood.

He found her all that her girlhood had given promise of; tidy, respectful, and cheery—a thorough specimen of English matronhood. Meanwhile Hal made acquaintance with her little girl, who stood shyly near the window, watching Grip, and playing with the flowers she had gathered in the fields. But she was not shy long; for Hal's frank ways soon put her at her ease, and they became good friends.

A week later, two of the farm waggons, piled with furniture, rolled slowly across the yard, and up the road towards the gate of the wood. And that same evening, with many groans and grunts—but not a single oath, for little Maggie Rust was by—poor, gouty Farmer Bluff himself, in a bath-chair, with his two dogs tied behind, was wheeled to his new home. Next day, the future bailiff took possession of the farm; and the old life was a thing of the past.

CHAPTER XV.

IT was more difficult for Hal to get as far as Farmer Bluffs cottage; nevertheless, on the very first half-holiday after the remove, he appeared there, just as Maggie ran out at the door.

Such a difference there was in her already! The fresh air seemed to have acted like magic on her languid frame. She would skip and bound and run; and everywhere her merry voice was heard, laughing, singing, calling to the dogs; mimicking the birds, or chattering through the open window to her uncle, who still sat in his arm-chair, bound hand and foot by gout.

Maggie had made great friends with both the dogs, but especially with Blazer. It was wonderful to see the fierce, rough creature jump up when he heard her voice, and stand there pulling at his chain, and whining for her to come and pat his great head.

And as for Maggie, she did not seem the least afraid of him. "He's ferocious, but he's honest," she would say. "I wouldn't come within a mile of him, if I were a thief; but he knows who are friends and who are not."

It was very pretty in the garden now. The wood was emerald green with the young foliage, and ferns were springing up through the carpet of dead leaves, uncrumpling their pale brown fronds in the sunlight that fell on them through the lacy branches of the beech and hornbeam trees.

Maggie had already learnt to leap the ditch. "Though mother says I mustn't stray into the wood," said she, "for fear of getting into mischief. So I just keep close at hand, and fancy that I'm far away. It's such a pity, too, my Uncle Bluff won't have the garden planted. He says the rabbits come across the ditch, and eat whatever grows. I mean to watch for them."

Indoors the doctor was talking in this sort of strain to Farmer Bluff. "Fact is, farmer, this gout is mounting to your stomach as fast as it can go; and if once it gets there, ten chances to one no power on earth will get it out. You'll die of it, that's all."

Farmer Bluff looked scared. "Is there nothing you can do to stop it, doctor?" asked he piteously.

"Do? When for the last five years and more you've undone every attempt I've made? Look at that!" And Dr. Winthrop pointed to the mug. "If you will drink beer, as I am sick of telling you, why, you must abide by the consequences. Dash my wigs!" exclaimed the doctor, warming up. "If I'd a mug of solid gold that made a fool of me, I'd throw it in the ditch and bury it."

In this strain, the doctor talked at him for ten minutes or more; then he went away. And Hal, seeing that the coast was clear, went in. But Farmer Bluff was unusually glum that morning. Do what Hal would, he could not cheer him up; for the poor old sinner had got it on his mind that he was doomed to die.

"If I were you," said Hal to Maggie, as he went out at the gate, "I think I'd sing to Farmer Bluff. I can't, you know, or else I would; but I can manage talking best. He's right down in the dumps to-day. I can't think why—unless it is because he had to leave the farm."

A few days later told them, though. Gout doesn't attack the more important parts of the body without letting a man know it. Farmer Bluff was in such fearful pain that Dr. Winthrop was sent for in a hurry.

"He's had no beer since you were here last, sir," said Mrs. Rust. "He called for it no end of times; but I refused to bring it in."

"You did quite right," the doctor said. "When grown-up patients won't be sensible, they must be treated like children."

He little knew the language Farmer Bluff had hurled at her for carrying out these orders for his good.

"Is there any change—for the better, doctor?" asked he eagerly. "What can be the cause of all this pain?"

"You mustn't think," said he, "that three days can cure disease brought on by the habits of a lifetime. I will do my best for you; but you have killed yourself."

"It's a pity," said he. "Dr. Winthrop says that Farmer Bluff can't possibly get well. The gout has reached his stomach. It's all through drinking too much beer."

Then he went on to the cottage to talk to Farmer Bluff in his own simple, sympathetic way. "I'm very sorry," he told him gently, "especially as it's your own fault. That makes so much worse of it."

"In this world and the next," put in Farmer Bluff gloomily. "But it's too late to talk about that now."

But although Farmer Bluff knew pretty well his own reasons for saying so, he did not answer the boy's question.

So Hal went on: "I don't at all think it's too late. 'Never too late to mend' is a good saying; but 'Never too late to repent' seems to me a better. Because, you see, if what Dr. Winthrop says is right, your gout won't let you mend; but Jesus said that everybody who repented in their heart, would be accepted and forgiven."

"I've tried singing to him," Maggie told Hal, when he came downstairs again. "I know a lot of hymns; and he likes it too."

But at school, Dick had made a lot of new acquaintances who were not likely to know anything about the adventure with Bill; so he preferred their company, and had gone off birds'-nesting with some of them.

Arrived on the terrace, Hal went straight to the Squire's library. He found his grandfather sitting in his great arm-chair, with his gold-rimmed spectacles upon his nose, reading a big folio volume that lay open on his knee; for the Squire was rather fond of learned books. He drew his glasses off as Hal came in, and laid them on the page.

"Grandfather," said Hal, in a tone of great concern, "the doctor says that Farmer Bluff will have to die. The gout has got so far it can't be stopped."

"It's as bad as that, is it?" replied the Squire. "I thought as much," added he, half to himself.

Hal looked up quickly, as if about to speak; then changed his mind and relapsed into silence again. He was disappointed. He had cherished the hope of being able to convince Farmer Bluff of his folly; and he had failed.

Hal shifted again, and looked like speaking, but got no further. There was a big lump in his throat.

"All the arguing in the world wouldn't do it, if tweaking and twinging wouldn't," continued the Squire, mentally referring to his own and the doctor's discourses, together with the pains and premonitions of the disease itself. "It's astonishing what a man will bear, rather than give up his besetting sin."

"I did my best," added Hal, thinking of nobody's efforts but his own. "I spoke out plainly too."

"Ah!" said the Squire, suddenly remembering those words of Hal's when first he learnt that the bailiff was to be discharged. "You've been in and out a good deal, I suppose, Hal; as you say, you've done your best."

"But, you see, it hasn't saved him," rejoined Hal mournfully. "That's the worst of it."

"It's very sad," said the Squire, after a pause, during which he put his gold-rimmed glasses on, and took them off again. "It's always sad when a man reaps the fruits of his own folly."

"Especially when he has had fair warning," added Hal, "and might have done so differently."

"I must go and see him one of these mornings, I suppose," observed the Squire presently.

The next few days made a great difference in Farmer Bluff. When the Squire went, he found the downstairs room vacant.

"Upstairs," answered Maggie, who had opened the door for them. "He can't get out of bed any more."

"Well, Bluff," said the Squire kindly, as he approached the bedside; "I'm sorry to see you like this."

Somehow, he had come to swear less and less since Maggie had been there. "My own fault!" he repeated, with a sigh.

"It's a hard thing to tell a man, when he's on his death-bed,"' said the Squire gently.

"And it's better that a man should know it's true," the Squire added solemnly; "for then he has a chance of taking comfort from the assurance that 'if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.' Though our sins and folly may have destroyed our body, the moment that we cast them from us by our faith in Him whom God sent to be our Saviour, they lose power to harm our soul; and the only condition of forgiveness and acceptance is we cease to cherish our sins, and, trusting in Jesus, seek to be restored."

Farmer Bluff was silent. Perhaps his conscience told him it was less the sin that he was sorry for than the consequences it had brought.

"You weren't far wrong, you see, sir, when you turned me out," said he presently. "It was a hard blow, but I deserved it. I had no right to murmur; for I wasn't equal to my work."

"And I didn't leave you unprovided for," the Squire added kindly. "I chose this place, too, because I thought you would be happier near the wood than anywhere. I see you've brought the dogs here, too."

The two dogs were barking "fit to fetch the house down," as the farmer put it. They had been barking so all night, and ever since sunset the evening before; so he told the Squire.

"I heard old Dobson throw his window up once or twice," said he; "and at last he took his gun and had a look about, to see if it was anybody prowling round."

"Perhaps it was only rabbits," suggested the Squire. "I've heard Dobson say that even hares will come into these gardens on moonlight nights."

"They will, sir, I can certify," said Farmer Bluff, amused for the minute; "though they won't find much to pay 'em here. I wasn't going to have the ground planted, for them to eat up every shoot that grew."

Hal was standing by the casement during this conversation, now watching his grandfather and the farmer, now looking out of the window at the kennel, where Blazer was jumping and plunging angrily, tearing the air with his furious cries. Just as Farmer Bluff finished speaking, he uttered a sudden exclamation.

At the same instant, the barking had ceased, and Blazer, without a scrap of chain about him, had gone racing down the clearing through the wood. The next minute Maggie's voice was heard on the staircase.

"Uncle Bluff! Uncle Bluff!" cried she, as she climbed. "Blazer has got loose and run away!"

In the excitement of the moment, Farmer Bluff made a desperate effort to get to a sitting posture; but that was beyond him, and he earned nothing but pain for his exertion.

"He's run right away," said Maggie, appearing in the doorway with an agitated face.

"Oh! He'll come back right enough," returned her uncle, lifting his head to look at her. "The mischief is—mercy on any one he should meet. And I don't know the man, except old Dobson, who dare go after him."

"No, child," cried Farmer Bluff; but quick as lightning Maggie was gone. "Stop her!" roared he, as she sped downstairs and out at the house door. "He'll knock her down! He'll kill the child!"

"Not he!" said Hal. "Not Blazer! He's far too fond of Mag. She's not afraid of him; no more am I. I'll go too."

"I'd hardly dare go myself," said Farmer Bluff. "Hark! There she's calling him!"

And the little girl's voice was heard ringing out clear and loud—"Blazer, Blazer; where have you rushed off to? You bad old doggie, you!"

The Squire had his head out of the casement, calling her to come in; but Blazer had heard her voice and come back with a rush, leaping the ditch and bounding up to lick her hand, then crouching at her feet, whilst Maggie stood firm as a rock, and fearlessly patted his broad head. Then he leapt the ditch again, and barked, and looked towards the child; then came back, and jumped around her; then back to the ditch, as if he wanted her to go with him.

"Well, I'll leap the ditch then, Blazer," they heard her cry; "if that is what you want." And stepping back a pace or two, she took a run, and jumped it clean and clear.

"That was a good leap, my lass," the Squire called approvingly. "Surely she's not town-bred, Bluff," added he, drawing in his head to look back towards the bed.

"She is, sir," answered Farmer Bluff; "and such a white-faced thing, too, when her mother brought her here."

"Well, come!" rejoined the Squire cheerily. "There's something to set off against your leaving the farm. If you hadn't had to come up here, I suppose she'd be white-faced yet. But what about this dog? I don't see how he's going to be got upon the chain again. The collar is broken too."

For the brute had always seemed so fierce, they had not dared to depend upon a single one; but where it was, he could not say—though Mrs. Rust might know when she came in—nor who would undertake to put it on.

"I shouldn't be afraid if I could manage it," said Hal, who had reluctantly obeyed his grandfather's desire that he would not go down. "But you see my crutches are so in the way."

"Better wait till old Dobson's home," suggested Farmer Bluff. "The dog knows him."

"Only," put in Hal, "just think how frightened Mrs. Rust will be when she comes in."

Meanwhile Blazer was still rushing madly to and fro. Far from satisfied with having got Maggie across the ditch, he was evidently trying hard to prevail on her to go into the wood with him. If she ran a step or two he seemed so pleased, but as soon as she stopped, he barked and leapt, and tugged at her dress, making every sign dog ingenuity could suggest to coax her into going forward down the track.

"There's something at the bottom of all that, depend upon it," said the Squire, walking to the foot of the bed. "Blazer has found somebody or something; and he wants to show his find. I shell venture down and follow his lead. He knows me pretty well."

"We'll both go," said the Squire, setting off towards the stairs, Hal following.

A ditch was an obstacle both for the old gentleman and the cripple boy, neither of whom could leap like the little London maid. There was a way out of the difficulty, however, by going round to the gate of the wood; and in a very few minutes, the Squire and Hal had joined Maggie, and were following Blazer down the track, much to the jealousy of Grip, who stood watching from his kennel in the front garden, and uttering a series of short, snappish barks, by way of protest at this unfairness.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE old Squire had always made a point of having a civil word for both dogs whenever he went to the farm; so that, as he said, both Blazer and Grip were tolerably familiar with him. On the present occasion, however, Blazer was too much delighted at getting his own way to show any disagreeable tempers. He did nothing but run and leap and bark in an ecstasy of triumph, looking back from time to time, to make sure that he was being followed, and exerting himself ten times more than was necessary, in his efforts to incite them to speed.

But the uneven surface of the track was less easy for Hal's crutches than the open road; and Blazer had to be content with rather slow progress, whilst Maggie ran backwards and forwards, jumping and calling, thoroughly enjoying the fun, and doing her best, by her own excitement, to keep up Blazer's.

They had not proceeded very far in this manner, however, when Blazer changed his course, darting in amongst the undergrowth.

"Now, Blazer, old boy," said he, "that isn't just the sort of place an old gentleman finds convenient to scramble through. What do you want with it?"

But the dog was evidently in real earnest. There was no mistake about that. He trotted on a little way ahead, then turned and leapt and barked, and came bounding back, jumping round the Squire, and all but beckoning him to come.

"What a pity he can't speak!" exclaimed Hal, looking up into his grandfather's face, as if to read his thoughts.

"We must contrive to go with him somehow, that's certain," returned the Squire, stopping to consider; "or, at least, I must. He has found something, and he wants to show it us. Hal, you wait here with Maggie; no, stay! Let Maggie come with me, in case I want a messenger."

And putting one shoulder to the hazel bushes, to Blazer's infinite delight, the old gentleman commenced pushing his way in amongst them, Maggie following close upon his heels.

A shade of disappointment came over Hal's face. This was how he had to feel his affliction every now and then. But Hal was not a boy to stop at disappointment. He only stood still a minute or so; then turning, set off down the track again, to search for an opening by which to reach the spot whither the dog was leading them—sure, at all events, of knowing by his barks the direction that they took.

He had but just lighted on a cross track when the barking ceased. They must have reached the place.

Hal stopped to listen just an instant, then set forward, breathing fast, and flushing with his exertions to lose no time, and hoping that as Blazer had led them off in a slanting direction, this track, which crossed the cartway at right angles, would converge with their path.

Presently, however, the track ended in a sort of winding path, which seemed to lead into thicker and thicker tangle. Hal stopped, perplexed, and listened, but could hear no sound. Next minute, however, Blazer's bark sounded out again, short and sharp; once, twice, thrice. Hal set forward instantly, with increased vigour, and after following the windings of the path for a short distance, he was able to distinguish voices, whilst every now and then Blazer gave a sharp bark, as if to call him on.

All on a sudden, an idea struck Hal, and resting on his crutches to get breath, he called Blazer's name with all his might.

The plan succeeded. Blazer heard, and gave an answering bark. In a few seconds, Hal heard the crackling of the dry leaves under his paws; then out he rushed along the path. They were not far off, and Hal was going straight for them. He hurried on after the dog.

"Where are you, grandfather?" called he, when he got near enough to distinguish the Squire's voice.

Hal paused a second; then pushing one crutch in among the twigs, he made his way to where the others were.

The Squire was bending over something on the ground, Maggie kneeling by his side. "He's opening his eyes!" cried she, as Hal came up.

And there, to his astonishment, half-raised upon the turf mound at the foot of a hazel clump, lay the long-lost runaway, Bill the Kicker.

Bill drew a long breath and rolled his eyes round; then the lids dropped to again.

Maggie gave vent to an exclamation of mingled pity and disappointment, and the Squire observed,—

"It's evidently a case of starvation. From the look of him, I should imagine that the young scamp has kept away as long as he could hold out. If Blazer hadn't happened to find him, he would have died here before night."

The sound of voices roused Bill again. His eyes opened, and he drew another long breath. Then suddenly a look of bewilderment came over his face. "Where 'm I got to?" he asked excitedly.

But before any one could answer, he had recognised the Squire. The bewildered look gave place to one of terror, and Bill made a desperate effort at scrambling to his feet; but he had long since reached the point when starved and exhausted nature could do no more. He only fell back upon the bank with a sick and dizzy sensation, and his eyelids closed again.

"Lie still, my boy," said the Squire kindly. "You must have something to eat. You're starving."

Bill put his hand to his waist-belt. He had ceased to remember that he was hungry; but the Squire's words brought back the craving. He recollected how he had felt before he swooned.

"Have either of you anything eatable about you?"' asked the Squire, turning to Hal and Maggie. "A sweetmeat, or a bit of biscuit; anything that he could suck or munch."

Hal had not. He was not a boy who cared for sweets. Maggie, however, produced a chocolate drop, given her over the counter by the grocer's man.

"All the better," returned the Squire. "In his present state, it would be dangerous to give him much. But you may run home," added he, as Bill eagerly took the tiny mouthful and crunched it up. "Run home—you can find your way?—And bring cup of bread or biscuit sopped in milk—or water, if you can't find milk; be as quick as ever you can. The poor boy is nearly starved."

Some good people would have tried to get Bill's story out of him whilst Maggie was running for the food. But Hal's grandfather did no such thing, having too much common sense, as well as too much pity for the boy. Besides, his story was so plainly told by every feature of his face, and every inch of tattered garment that he wore. His whole appearance seemed to say, in language that no eyes could fail to read, that it was one thing to get into a scrape and run away in order to escape the consequence, but quite another thing to keep decent clothes upon his back, and pick up food enough to hold the wolf at bay. In short, poor Bill had learnt the value of a home.

Meanwhile, Maggie had scrambled back to the cart-track, making fearful havoc of her zephyr apron in her haste; and had torn home, panting and breathless, taking the ditch at a bound, and astonishing beyond measure her mother, who was just returning up the garden path. On learning what had happened, however, Mrs. Rust quickly made the pap, and, calling up the stairs to Farmer Bluff, set off with Maggie to the spot.

"I made it warm, sir," said she, as she knelt down by Bill's side to feed him from the cup.

Bill took it eagerly, and would have made short work of it, had he not been restrained. It quickly revived him, however, and he sat up, looking very much as if he would like to run away again.

"You'll be all the better for that, my boy," said Mrs. Rust, standing back a step or two with the empty cup in her hand.

But Bill felt rather foolish. He looked from one to another of the group round him, and said nothing.

The Squire was the first to speak. "Well, young man," said he, possessing himself of his gold-headed cane, which he had laid down beside Bill on first stooping to examine him; "I'm glad to see you've come home again. And I hope you've had enough of a lesson about the folly of running away."

Bill hung his head. "I don't know as I'm going home," said he, in a low, dogged tone of voice.

"Perhaps, if you behave well, and answer all I want to know," returned the Squire, "I may feel inclined to beg you off the strapping—though I must confess that you deserve it every bit."

Bill subsided and looked down, waiting in sullen silence to be questioned, whilst Maggie drew a little nearer, moving her eyes rapidly from him to the Squire with lively interest.

"Dick Crozier!" exclaimed Hal and his grandfather in a breath. "Mind you're not inventing lies," added the Squire. "Why, dear me," he continued half-aside, "I had fancied him a better lad. It seems incredible!"

"He said as you was comin' round a purpose to 'indemnifight' me," Bill went on; "an' if he was me, he wouldn't stand still to be took."

What Bill had supposed this terrible word to mean, it would be hard to determine; but he had kept on repeating it to himself all the way he had run, until it had got so mixed up as to come out entirely wrong. "Nor I wasn't going to neither," added Bill, with the defiant look again.

"'Cause I wanted sixpence," answered Bill. "But he's as bad as me," added Bill eagerly. "He hadn't ought to ha' taken what I'd stole. I've heard my father say so once."

"Quite right," rejoined the Squire. "Receiving stolen goods is punishable by law. He sucked this egg, then, I suppose; and gave you sixpence for it."

Then came out the history of how Bill's evil conscience had brought about the smashing of the eggs; and how, in self-defence, he had inflicted on the unfortunate goose the injuries that had caused her death. "I didn't want to hurt her, sir," said Bill; "but when one o' them things is after you—"

"It's rather terrible, I must admit," returned the Squire, hardly able to restrain a smile. "Then you didn't get your sixpence after all?"

"Yes, I did though," replied Bill quickly, with a cunning grin. "He guv it me to keep from splitting, 'cause he knew as how if I was caught, I was bound to let out who I'd stole it for. If it hadn't been for that," said Bill, whose meal had pretty well revived him by this time, "and t' other, what I got for bein' made a pictur' of, I'm blest if I'd 'a' had a rag o' flesh on any o' my bones by now—grub's that hard to get."

"Ah! Recollect that, next time that you're tempted to do wrong," returned the Squire solemnly.

"But he was just as bad as me," repeated Bill, who seemed inclined to take comfort in companionship in his disgrace.

He found, however, that the Squire entertained a different view of the matter. "Gently," said he. "You had the first of it; for you put temptation in his way, by offering to undertake the theft. But now, one question more. What did you want the sixpence for?"

Bill hung his head and looked more than half a mind not to answer; but he changed his mind, thinking that it was sure to come out, and that, all things considered, he had better enjoy the merit of making a clean breast of the whole affair.

"'Cause I wanted a new knife," said he; "and so I'd borrowed sixpence from the rent."

"You've got to beg me off the strapping, sir," said Bill, as they set off back towards the cartway, a few minutes later; "'cause you promised if I answered square."

"And when I promise anything, I keep my word," replied the Squire, rather pleased than otherwise with the boy's straightforwardness. He took occasion by the way, however, to administer a lecture on the wickedness of breaking in through hedges after other people's property. "If Blazer had caught you there, instead of half dead in this wood," said he, "he would have shown you little mercy, you may make quite sure."

Bill also related by degrees a lot of his adventures since leaving home; how he had escaped along the riverbank, running till his breath gave out, and walking till he nearly dropped, to reach the town before the night came on; how he had slept under porches or in doorways, in wind and wet and darkness, frightened, cold, and wretched, night after night; and how, after his food and money were all gone, he had begged for work, and gone from door to door to ask a piece of bread, until he grew so weak and wild with living on the scanty crusts he got, that he began to wish he had not run away.

And he went on to tell how at the last he had determined to come back, but had not had the courage to face his parents' anger; and so had wandered on into the wood, and round to the back of the two cottages, where he was about to beg food, when to his surprise, he spied Blazer chained up, and Blazer spied him.

"And for the life of me I durstn't ask," said Bill; "so I cut away into the wood, and there I tumbled down."

"And there you would have died," the Squire added, "if Blazer had not broken loose and followed on your track, and found you where you lay, you poor silly boy. Well, you have had your punishment; and I can promise you, your parents will be glad enough to see you back. Only mind you show that you are worthy of forgiveness by making a fresh start."

Arrived at Farmer Bluffs, Bill was glad to sit down quietly and have some more to eat, whilst the Squire went and saw Blazer's collar mended up. As for Blazer, he came quite gently to take a biscuit and a lump of sugar out of Maggie's hand, and then submitted to have the chain put on; after which, he retired into his kennel, and lay down to rest.

Then the Squire, having directed Mrs. Rust to search the other collar out, or get a new one made, set out with Bill, to see him safe into his parents' hands.

CHAPTER XVII.

ON reaching the stile by the Manor Farm, the Squire went on to the cottages with Bill, leaving Hal to return home alone, and tell his mother all that had happened. They had scarcely parted, when Dick, surrounded by a number of his schoolfellows, overtook him.

Dick threw Hal a nod, proud to show off his grand acquaintance; but Hal beckoned him.

"Hooray!" shouted the other boys, who, of course, had seen the whole story in the local newspaper. "Hooray!" And half-a-dozen caps flew in the air.

"I didn't think you were the sort of boy to encourage other boys in stealing eggs for you to suck," said Hal. "It seems to me, I'd rather steal myself than get another boy to do it for me. You see, it's very mean to put your dirty work upon another fellow, isn't it?"

Hal considered a minute. This line of argument was rather difficult to answer, and yet Hal's sense of right and wrong told him it was false.

"You'd no right to pay him for dishonesty," said he; "so no payment could be fair."

"I don't know so much about that," returned Dick stoutly. "If a fellow's fool enough to sell his soul for sixpence, that's his own look out. It's always fair to pay a fellow what he'll take."

"That's not the way to look at it at all," said Hal. "A fellow's soul is worth a great deal more than any one can pay, and if he loses it, he's done for outright. And whoever gets it from him, is his murderer for ever," added Hal quite solemnly. "The Bible tells you that."

"Chapter the one hundredth, verse the millionth!" sang out Dick in a mocking tone.

"Well, I must be getting home," said Hal. "I'm sorry, for I liked you at the first. And I thought that when I came to be Squire—if ever I do—you would be one of my best tenants, and help me to make the Manor prosperous. You see, a Squire wouldn't be able to do much good if all his tenants were like that, and didn't care a pin about each other's souls."

Will and Sigismund would have been rather envious of Hal's good fortune in the enjoyment of such an adventure as the finding of a runaway by Farmer Bluff's dog Blazer, had not their attention been rather taken up just then with the half-term holiday, which some cousins were to spend with them. These cousins were London boys, and were coming down that same evening, to make the most of a whole day at the Manor House. When Hal got in, his brothers were just getting up into the waggonette to fetch them from the station, and there was plenty else to talk about when they came in.

The first thing after breakfast next morning, the six boys all turned out, bent upon fun and frolic.

Dick was on his way down the hill with his books as they came out shouting and laughing on to the terrace, and he sprang up to the palings to see what was going on.

But, unfortunately for Dick, it was not "half-term" at his school; so with a feeling of envy, he leapt back to the pathway, and continued his road.

Will was with the foremost ones, but Sigismund, always more considerate for his brother, lagged behind, as Hal came hurrying after on his crutches.

"The woods will be the place," cried Will, in front, "Say, Sidge; the woods—eh?"

"The woods, by all means," echoed Hal, however, interrupting him. "It's no use, Sidge, don't you see," added he, in a lower tone to Sigismund. "If you'd got my legs, you wouldn't want everybody to stop playing on your account."

A boy of Hal's brave disposition was sure to find it less hard to bear his affliction quietly than to feel himself a constant mar-joy to the others.

"I'll go as far as the wood with you," continued he; "and then I'll go inside and rest. I told Farmer Bluff the boys were coming, but I said that I expected I should be able to go and see him all the same."

So at the gate of the wood they parted; and whilst Will, as swiftest runner, was being chosen "hare," Hal was climbing up the narrow stair to Farmer Bluff's room.

"It's rather early, I'm afraid," continued Hal; "but I came down with the others as far as this. They've all gone into the wood for hare and hounds, and I can't manage that, you know. I hope you don't mind."

Farmer Bluff, on the contrary, expressed himself heartily delighted to see "the young Squire."

"You and Maggie," said he, "I don't know what I should do without the two of you—though I suppose I oughtn't to mention you in one breath."

Hal, with a puzzled expression, said that he did not see why. He generally managed to see to the bottom of things pretty quickly, and to catch people's meaning when it was not quite on the surface. But this notion perplexed him not a little. Inequality of rank did not enter much into Hal's ideas.

"She sings to you, doesn't she?" observed he presently, after having thought all round the question in vain.

"And you talk," rejoined Farmer Bluff. "Maggie doesn't talk; she chatters, if she does anything in that line."

"I like to talk," answered Hal simply; "as much as other boys like to run and jump, I fancy; perhaps it is because I can't run and jump."

"Perhaps it is," said Farmer Bluff. He was thinking that it seemed as if God had given the boy a better power in exchange for the one He had withheld. "A ready tongue 'll be useful to you when you come to the Manor," added he.

"Never you grieve for that," returned Farmer Bluff. "You'll have the hearts of your tenantry; that I'll certify."

"Farmer Bluff," said Hal suddenly, "I've been thinking a good deal about Dick Crozier since yesterday. I expect he'll be one of my tenants by and by, you know, and I'm afraid he won't be a very good one."

"About the average run, perhaps," said Farmer Bluff. "Some better, and some worse."

"But don't you see," said Hal, "he's got no principle. He doesn't think it matters the least bit in the world if a boy chooses to sell his soul for sixpence—like Bill, when he thieved to get the goose egg for him."

Farmer Bluff was silent. He knew so well how many men there were among the tenantry—how many who owned manors, too—with little or no principle.

It was on his conscience, too, how he himself had sold his soul time and again for drink, for pleasure, or for gain.

"There 'll be some things you'll have to take as you find 'em," said he presently.

"Perhaps they haven't looked in the right place," said Hal. "I expect it's in the Bible, if it's anywhere."

"Maybe 'tis," said Farmer Bluff; and then he was silent a good while again. "I don't know much, about the Bible," he continued presently. "I didn't use to read it when I could, and I can't hold a feather now, much less a book."

So it came about, that Hal proposed to read it for him. And when Maggie came upstairs, he was sitting by her uncle's bedside, with the Bible on his knee. But the information Maggie brought put a stop to reading rather suddenly.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Upon the stroke of noon, he left his study and started up the hill. "He'll be in by half-past twelve, or thereabouts," he calculated; "and I'll have a talk with him."

Now it happened that Dick's master, having a train to catch for town on important business, Dick had got out of school rather earlier than usual. Just as he turned the corner by the Manor Farm, he spied the Squire plodding up the hill with his gold-headed cane.

Dick halted instantly, for it occurred to him that precisely the same thing he had warned Bill of was about to happen to himself.

"I'm in for a good lecture," said he, "and if my father don't 'give it me' when he hears, my name ain't Dick, that's all."

So, after due reflection, Dick concluded that it would be most prudent policy to give the Squire the slip.

"I shan't go in till dinner-time," said Dick. And going back across the road, he struck into the pathway for that still forbidden ground, the riverbank.

Meanwhile the Squire, totally unconscious of having been spied out, was seated in the sunny little parlour which Dick's mother loved so well, making acquaintance with his tenant's wife, and explaining the nature of his errand.

"He should be in by now, sir," said Dick's mother, looking at her watch,—her grandparents' present on her wedding day,—"but he gets late sometimes."

So the Squire proposed to wait awhile, if Mrs. Crozier would allow him to; and they talked, to pass away the time, Mrs. Crozier taking the Squire's heart by storm with her gentle manners, but looking uneasily at her watch from time to time.

Bill had been received back home with open arms, and without a word of scolding, on a promise—signed by the Squire, as it were—of future good behaviour. It happened that, being anxious to avoid a meeting with Dick Crozier, whose school stood within a stone's throw of the parish school which he attended, Bill had conceived the idea of returning by the riverbank. In arriving at this resolution, he had not forgotten the geese; but Bill was sharp enough to know that now the grass was laid down for hay, these terrors of humanity would no longer be abroad. He set off, accordingly, with the virtuous intention of running great part of the way, so as to reach home punctually. Dick had not proceeded far along the bank, therefore, when he perceived Bill coming full speed towards him.

Bill, too much out of breath to look higher than his toes, failed to perceive Dick until they were within a few yards of each other, when he suddenly awoke to the unpleasant fact that he was face to face with his enemy.

"Made you tell?" sneered Dick. "When you had sixpence of me to hold your tongue! I'd have had mine cut out before I'd have been guilty of such a dirty trick."

"You'd 'a' had your'n cut out afore you'd 'a' been guilty of such a dirty trick as to suck an egg what you got another boy to steal for you!" retorted Bill, stammering and spluttering in his warmth. "It's 'receiving stolen goods.' The Squire said so; and you're to be had up for it."

Bill was getting exasperated. Moreover, he saw only one way out of it. "Now, then," threatened he suddenly, gathering up all his pluck, "do you mean to give in?"

Dick answered by striding across the bank, a foot each side and both arms akimbo, and burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. But Bill cut him short.

"All right," grinned Dick, accepting the challenge. "Look out for a ducking, pockets and all. It was a goosing last time."

"Come on!" roared he, maddened beyond control. And rushing for Dick with both fists doubled, he went at him with all his might.

Dick was a pretty tough boy, and had done his share of fights at school; but Bill was tougher, and Dick soon found that he was in for such a mauling as he had never had in all his previous experience. For full five minutes, they tugged and tussled, and pounded and hammered at all available portions of each other's frames, until Dick began to wish that he had never provoked the combat. He was almost at the end of his strength, when a most unlooked-for accident delivered him out of Bill's hands.

Forgetting the narrowness of the footway in the heat of the fight, the boys had got crosswise, instead of lengthwise of it, when Dick, suddenly growing furious, to find that he was being worsted, drew off an instant, to gather up all his strength for a final onset; but, inadvertently stepping too far back, his heel struck over the treacherous grass of the shelving bank, and, with a slip and a yell, he went splashing backwards into the water.

Bill's first impulse was a shout of triumph; his second, that when a boy goes head over heels out of his depth, there is no telling how he will come up. Bill knew the look of a drowned dog, and had no wish to be taxed with making Dick look that way. Quick as thought, he turned to fly.

But though a scamp, Bill was not altogether bad. In the midst of all his fears, it struck him that people always rose to the surface before they drowned. If Dick rose, he might reach him. In an instant, he was back again. The exact spot was easy to find by the heel-mark on the bank and the brown swirl in the water, where the mud had been disturbed. Some distance out, too, beyond the ripples where the water had closed over Dick, was his cap, floating merrily down stream; but not a sign of Dick himself.

Bill went hot all over. Once having turned back, he seemed rooted to the spot by a strange fascination that forced him to watch for Dick's rising.

"It was his own fault," said he, mopping his forehead with one jacket cuff: "He should ha' let me by! I guess though, if he ain't comin' up, I'd better be off, afore I'm caught here! Golly!" exclaimed Bill, giving vent to his favourite expression, as a sudden thought flashed upon him. "Better rob a goose's nest and break her breast-bone than drownd a boy." And off he started at a run.

But as he ran away down the stream, following the cap, a dark brown object caught his eye. It was the drenched hair of Dick's head. The current there below the bend was very strong, and had washed him out into mid-stream, and was carrying him rapidly along towards the weir.

For a moment Bill scarcely knew whether to be glad or sorry; then the nobler instincts of his nature gained the upper hand, and he dashed along the bank, shouting—"Hold on! Keep it up till I catch hold of something to fish you out!"

At the same instant, there was an outcry from among the willow-trees. A dog sprang forward with a bark, and a dear treble voice rang out excitedly—"Why! It's some one's head! In, Blazer; in! Fetch him out! Oh! Quick! Quick!"

It was Maggie Rust, who had gone out with Hal to look for the dog, and found him on the riverbank, worrying at a knuckle bone dropped there by a careless butcher boy on his way to the Vicarage.

A bare moment sufficed Blazer to reach the bank, and in he splashed, paddling bravely across the current, with his fierce eyes starting, and his hard breaths frothing the surface of the water as he swam.

Maggie cheered him on. "Quick, Blazer; quick! Oh, he's floating down so fast!" she cried towards Hal, who had been slower getting to his feet to gain the spot. "He'll never reach in time."

But Blazer was also going with the stream as well as crossing it. In a few minutes more, the brave animal was up with Dick, and had his teeth firmly fastened in his jacket. And now came the tug of war. Maggie watched breathlessly, with beating heart and tightly clasped hands, whilst Hal, his face white and his lips parted, hung by her on his crutches. But Blazer was strong, and the water buoyed his burden up. The stream, too, helped in one way, whilst it hindered in another; for it lengthened every stroke, and carried him forward as he tried to cross back to the shore.

"Hurrah!" shouted Hal, at length unable any longer to keep his excitement in. "Hurrah! He'll do it! He'll do it! Hurrah!"

On first recognising "the young Squire," Bill had come to a sudden halt, and watched from a safe distance, half a mind to turn back; then he had come slowly on. Now he, too, took up the cheer with his whole might, and shouted—"Hooray!—Hooray!" as he ran excitedly forward.

A minute more, Dick was at the bank, and Maggie had sprung forward to help him out, whilst Blazer ran round about them in great glee, claiming praise for his heroic rescue, and splashing everybody with the water of his coat. Bill hung back an instant; then he, too, sprang to Maggie's side, and seizing Dick by the other arm, soon had him up on to the bank.

A wretched-looking object was Dick as he sat up and gazed round about him. His wet clothes clung tightly to his benumbed limbs; his teeth chattered with cold and fright; water dripped from his hair; and his face and knuckles were a mass of cuts and bruises, from their recent acquaintance with Bill's fists.

But Dick had caught sight of Bill, whom in his anxiety to get safely on terra firma he had not recognised.

"Better go home and get some gruel," was Bill's contemptuous rejoinder. "Golly how your teeth clack!"

This taunt put the last limit to endurance. The blood rushed to Dick's face, and his fists clenched; then to his feet, he flew at Bill.

But before he could get at him, Hal had guessed how matters stood, and raised one crutch between them; and the two antagonists stood glowering at each other across this forbidding barrier.

Bill burst out laughing; but Hal quickly put his crutch to the ground and swung himself between them. "Look here," said he, "nobody ever thinks of fighting before a girl; besides, when a fellow has just escaped from drowning, he ought to have something else to think of; and so ought you," he added, turning round on Bill.

"He might ha' been in t' other world by now," jeered Bill, with an attempt at drollery.

But Hal turned round on him with dignified reproof. "A boy who has just seen a life saved ought to know better than to mock," said he. "It's a shame," he added, looking from one to another with a pained expression, "when boys who have both done wrong want to tear each other to pieces for it. They ought to be too much ashamed. So get home both of you, and let us have no more such unchristian behaviour."

At this point in the young Squire's discourse, Blazer, probably considering that he had not received due notice for his deed of valour, began to growl and whine. The consciences of both boys being somewhat overloaded, however, they interpreted his remarks as referring to themselves; and not desiring to provoke him further, they dropped their hostile attitude.

But Bill's magnanimity was not capable of rising to this degree; and he felt as if he was being quite as generous as any one could reasonably expect in allowing poor dripping Dick to slip through his fingers in this easy way.

Hal stood gazing after Dick's retreating figure, as he ran off home at the top of his speed. "It's a pity that boys don't care more about being like Jesus Christ," observed he. "Of course, it's a sort of thing that takes a lot of trying, and boys naturally don't like trouble. They like play a good deal better. But then they ought to consider that they won't have to play when they're men; and what sort of men will they make, if they don't choose a good copy? As to it's being hard to imitate such a grand example as Jesus Christ—well! It isn't as if you'd got it all to do by yourself. There's the Holy Spirit, you know, who is promised in the Bible to all those who want to get along well."

Having delivered himself of these originally expressed sentiments, Hal also set forward; Maggie, with a thoughtful expression on her brow, walking by his side, and Blazer trotting on in front.

"And that," added Hal, "is why there are so many bad men and women in the world. I should like it, when I'm Squire, if all the people on my estate were Christians—real ones, you know; not shams. You'd see the difference! It would entirely do away with policemen and gaols, and all that sort of thing."

CHAPTER XIX.

ALL this while the Squire had been waiting for Dick in vain. At length, his usual luncheon-time being nearly half an hour past, he gave up, and set off down the hill, still thinking that he might meet him by the way; but desiring Mrs. Crozier, if such should not prove the case, to send Dick up to the Manor House that afternoon.

This, however, Mrs. Crozier had no chance of doing. Hurrying up the fields from the riverbank, it had occurred to Dick that it would be more prudent to dry his clothes before going home; so, taking a short cut across the grass to the back of the Manor Farm, he made his way to a haystack he knew of, which had been partly cut away on the sunny side. Here, stripping off his garments, and spreading them out in the sun, he covered himself up with the loose, warm hay, to wait and think over the story by which he would account for his absence from dinner, and his battered face.

Meanwhile Hal, hearing the church clock strike half-past one, had left Maggie to take Blazer home, and had struck across the fields and past the farm. Hot and flushed with hurrying, he arrived at the lodge gate just as the Squire came in sight.

The Squire was walking briskly. "We shall deserve a scolding for keeping lunch waiting," said he as he came up. "How come you to be late too?—And what have you done with the other boys? By the by, have you seen anything of Dick Crozier?"

"That's what made me late," answered Hal, guessing that his grandfather must have met Dick in his deplorable condition. "He had enough of his ducking, I should think."

"Not a bit of it," returned the Squire. "I've been waiting this hour or more in Mrs. Crozier's parlour to lecture him."

Bill also had heard half-past one go, and had suddenly recollected that he was on a promise of good behaviour. Now, he was sorely perplexed what to do. It was clear enough that his behaviour was not exactly good; but how to tell his story to his own credit, or, in fact, to get believed at all, Bill was entirely at a loss. So, hungry as he was, he did what cowards always do—kept out of it, and went wandering about the fields behind the farm.

"I don't see much in Bill's fine promises," remarked his mother, as her husband set foot on the threshold; "for all the Squire made himself surety for the boy. He ought to ha' been in this hour ago; and I ha'n't set eyes on him since nine o'clock, when he went down to school."

"'Spare the rod and spoil the child,'" quoted Mumby, sitting down heavily in his accustomed corner by the chimney-piece. "I wouldn't ha' let him off so easy for anybody else; but if the worst comes to the worst, why, I must reckon up wi' him, for all the Squires in the world. A father's got his dooty to his boy to think of first; and I ain't agoin' to shirk mine, not for all the firmament." After which paternal speech, he fell to work in silence on the steaming lump of steak pudding which his wife served out to him.

"Now, wife," said he, as he pushed his plate back and got up, "when Bill turns up, you don't give him a scrap o' this, d'ye mind? Dinner-time's when I come in, and, if he ain't ready for his'n then, why, he can go without, or else make shift to fill himself with bread." And having lighted his pipe, he went out again.

But Bill, having once given way to his cowardly fears, grew less and less brave about showing his face at home, and, as he was getting dreadfully famished, he began to wonder how he could get a meal. He thought of the gap in the hedge; but that was almost within sight of home, and the men would be just returning to work. Besides, Bill had had enough of stealing eggs. But it struck him that he might find some small birds' eggs to suck. At the bottom of the field in the hedge which bounded it from the orchard were some trees of which the blackbirds were particularly fond; and to these Bill now directed his steps, in hopes that he might find something to stay his hunger.

He was unusually lucky too. The first nest which he found contained four or five fledglings; but the second and the third had each five eggs in it, all of which he sucked.

"Better than nothing," said Bill to himself, as he threw the last shell down, and prepared to descend the trunk again. "It'd take a lot o' them to make up a goose's egg, though."

But in moving on to the next group of trees, Bill passed the haystack, and, casting a look round, to see that no one was about, whom should he discover but his old enemy, lying fast asleep in the hay, his clothes spread out around him on the grass to dry?

Once out of his wet garments, and snugly covered up, with the hot May sun shining down upon him, Dick had soon become so helplessly drowsy, that before the lapse of many minutes, he had become oblivious to everything, and was soundly sleeping off the effects of his cold plunge.

Bill stood still a moment in sheer amazement; then he tiptoed nearer, with his neck outstretched, laughing to himself, to think how completely luck had placed Dick in his power. A moment more, and he had darted forward, gathered up the clothes, and, as swiftly as caution would allow, had sped up the ladder with them.

"Now you're done, my fine fellow, or my name ain't Bill!" said he to himself, as he lodged his bundle, and took up his position at the top of the ladder, where the thatched slant was cut away. "Let's see how you'll look running home without your clothes!"

At first Bill had forgotten his hunger; now he began to cast longing looks at the branches of the trees beyond the stack. It was already seven or eight hours since he breakfasted; and he was beginning to find revenge rather painful.

Bill's patience was nearly exhausted, but Dick was still sound asleep, entirely unconscious of the trick that had been played him.

But the idea of Dick's awakening only suggested other difficulties; for the longer Bill put off going home, the less pleasant he found the prospect of having to face it out in the end. It would certainly make ten times worse of it, if this should come out. Perhaps, on the whole, it would be better to descend at once, and leave Dick to make the discovery of his loss alone; but Bill somehow could not give up the fun.

"Let's rouse him up," said he at length; and pulling out some of the osier switches with which the thatch was pegged, he broke them into bits, and commenced pelting at Dick's upturned face. The first half-dozen missed, but presently one hit the mark. Dick stirred in his sleep, and turned over on his back, baring one arm and poking one foot up through the hay.

Bill chuckled, and sent another missile straight for his face. This time it missed; but the next hit hard, right in the centre of his forehead. Dick's eyes opened, then dropped to again, and he turned over on his other side. Bill aimed again, and hit him in the ear. This time, up went one of Dick's hands to rub the place, and he awoke outright.

First of all, he stared round in a bewildered sort of way, as if unable to make out his surroundings; then he examined his bare arm, and pushed the hay back from his chest, as if to remind himself that he was without garments. Finally he sat upright, the dry covering falling back from his arms and shoulders.

Now was Bill's time of triumph. Feasting on Dick's look of utter dismay, he no longer even felt his hunger. The very thought of Dick's having to get from the farm to the top of the hill beyond the Manor House without a rag to his back, was ample reward for all his waiting and fasting. Bill's revenge was so delicious to the taste, that it was all he could do to restrain his chuckles of delight. But Bill was not going to spoil the fun. By a strong effort of self-control, he mastered his merriment, and sat still to watch what course his unfortunate victim would adopt.

Whilst Dick had been snugly rolled up in the hay, the Manor House boys and their cousins, not satisfied with their morning's game at hare and hounds, had been for a long walk round in the opposite direction; and just as Dick sat up, hardly able to believe his eyes, yet guessing who had played him the trick, and wondering what in the world he was to do, up they came along the favourite pathway from the riverbank across the fields.

Bill from the top of the stack not only heard, but saw them trooping merrily along—Hal, on his crutches in the midst, keeping up bravely with the rest. Dick, also, from the shelter of the stack, heard the sound of their gay laughter, as they chattered by the way; and it just flashed across his mind that here was an opportunity to get helped out of his awkward predicament. Only the situation was so utterly ridiculous, that natural pride made him shrink from exposure. He was still hesitating, unable to make up his mind whether to call to them or to wait till dark should lend a friendly cloak to flight, when he heard Sigismund shout, "Who'll climb a haystack?"

Will took up the challenge, and off they raced across the grass, Hal following at his quickest.

Will and Sigismund were first at the stack. They had scarcely reached it, however, when there was a grand outcry, and a tremendous explosion of laughter; for there, bolt upright, and stark naked to the waist, sat Dick Crozier, with the most comical look of helplessness upon his face.

"A leaf out of Robinson Crusoe," yelled one of the cousins, holding his sides; "a naked savage!"

"They say it's very salutary," added one of the others, his eyes running over with merriment.

"Don't let the police catch you at it, that's all," said another, as Dick tried to scrape the hay together round him.

Sigismund had turned back towards Hal, who by this time was nearly at the spot. "It's Dick Crozier," called he.

The next instant, however, the question answered itself, and for a brief space Hal was at a loss whether to laugh or look serious.

"Can't you understand!" broke out Dick, with injured dignity most ludicrous to behold. "Some one's taken 'em."

The others roared with laughter anew; but the whole thing suddenly flashed upon Hal. Dick, afraid to go home, had conceived the idea of drying his clothes in the sun; and Bill, finding him there asleep, had played him this waggish but shameful trick.

"Run for some clothes, one of you," ordered he; "to the cottages will be quickest. Bill shall answer for this—the mean scoundrel!" added he, in a tone of voice that changed the expression of that youth's face in a twinkling, and made the others look in awe at Hal.

Sigismund, always ready to do his elder brother's bidding, dashed off, followed by one of his cousins; but at that instant, Will, recollecting what they had come for, glanced upward, and caught sight of Bill.

All eyes were instantly directed to the top of the stack. But Bill, suddenly arriving at the determination that it would be more prudent to make off, had scrambled to the ridge, and over; and all of him except his hands had disappeared.

"Why! He's got the clothes up there!" exclaimed one of the cousins, catching sight of the bundle.

"Stop, stop!" cried Hal, afraid of a tussle at such a height from the ground, and half hoping that some one would come back from the cottages with Sigismund, and see fair play. "Let be till Sidge and Watt come back."

But Bill had caught Will's words like a shot, and, determined upon escape at all costs, had let go the ridge. Almost the same instant they heard a heavy thud upon the ground.

Not a sound came from the other side of the stack; but there was scarcely a doubt as to what had happened. For a moment none of them dared stir; then Hal put one crutch forward, and nerved himself for the awful possibility, praying as he went,—"God grant he isn't dead!"

On the grass, a yard or so from the foot of the stack, lay Bill, white as a sheet. At first sight Hal uttered a cry of horror, thinking that his worst fears were realized. But at the sound of his voice Bill's eyes opened.

The others had followed him, however, and were closer than he knew of. Half-a-dozen hands were instantly stretched out; Bill was quickly lifted, and the injured limb straightened.

"Bring him round on to the hay," directed Hal. "He'll lie easier there, whilst you go for help."

So Bill was carried round to where Dick sat—now shivering with terror and alarm.

"He'll want a stretcher," said Hal next. "You three can't carry him; and I should think it will be a case for the Infirmary."

The three boys declared themselves quite equal to the task of carrying Bill, and were anxious to start at once. But as they were in the midst of a warm debate with Hal, who stood out for the superior merits of a stretcher, the sound of footsteps announced the return of Sigismund and Watt.

"Grandfather is behind," shouted Sigismund triumphantly, as he advanced. "Now we shall see fair play."

The Squire had been up the hill to Mrs. Crozier's again, after hearing Hal's account of Dick's ducking; and perplexed at finding him still absent, had proceeded to Mrs. Mumby's cottage, to hear what Bill had to tell on the subject. Learning from Sigismund the fresh turn of affairs, he now at once followed to the scene of action, Mrs. Mumby hurrying after, vowing punishment on Bill for this fresh escapade, and carrying his Sunday suit for Dick.

Seeing Mrs. Mumby, Hal, with a quick thought for her mother's heart, at once started forward.

"Don't be frightened," called he, as he swung himself towards her; "it's only his leg. Bill went and tried to jump down from the top, and he has broken his thigh."

Of course, as neither Mrs. Mumby nor the Squire knew anything about the "king o' the haystack" position which Bill had for the last three hours enjoyed, further explanation was called for. But Hal soon put them in possession of the principal facts—how Will had caught sight of the young rascal, and started to go up after him; and how Bill, resolved not to be caught, had left his hold and slidden down with a rush.

In another minute, Will and Sigismund were racing to the farmyard, with the Squire's orders that a cart be brought round at once, to convey Bill to the Infirmary.

"Well, young man," said the Squire, as he stood over Bill awaiting their return, "I should think that you have had lessons enough by this time. For, remember, this all comes of getting through a hedge to steal goose eggs."

CHAPTER XX.

A FEW hours later, Bill had made acquaintance with one of the narrow beds in the accident ward of the Riverbridge Infirmary, where—after going through the exhausting process of having his clothes removed, and his leg put in splints—he fell asleep and dreamt all sorts of extraordinary things. Amongst others, that the Squire had caught him stealing eggs in the hay, and had him nailed out on a flat board—like the stoats on the lower boarding of the barn; and that when he tried to get away, Farmer Bluff's dog came and barked at him. Then the dog suddenly changed into a woman with a snow-cloud on her head, who clapped ice on his forehead, to make him forget for a little while. This imaginary ice being none other than the hand of the kind-hearted night nurse, under the touch of whose cool palm Bill from time to time forgot his feverish struggles to toss about. And so the morning dawned; the first of forty days, or more, that the Bill would have to spend upon that narrow bed.

In the meantime, Dick, arrayed in Bill's Sunday suit, and escorted by the Squire, had gone off up the hill, leaving his half-dry clothes in Mrs. Mumby's charge.

Arrived at home, he was at once put to bed between blankets, and made to swallow a large basinful of hot gruel, which would have been unpalatable enough, had he not been so long fasting that anything of the nature of food was welcome.

Between the gruel and the blankets, he was soon perspiring violently, and in a sound sleep, from which he did not rouse until long after Bill—in accordance with the early rule of the Infirmary—had breakfasted. Then, feeling very much dispirited and out of sorts, and looking a wretched object, with his bruised and battered face and fists, he dressed and came downstairs, more thankful than words can describe, to find his father already gone, and as grateful for the message he had left behind, excusing him from school for the day, on condition that he did not stir outside the house.

Dick, as may readily be imagined, willingly accepted the condition, and remained at home, answering his mother's numerous questions, and enduring her reproaches as stoically as he could; and looking forward with great misgivings to the lecture which, he knew only too well, he could not hope to escape, on his father's return from business.

Next morning, he went back to school as usual, and after several days of quizzing and jeering on the part of his schoolmates, things fell back into their ordinary course. By degrees the cuts and bruises disappeared; and but for two things Dick might perhaps have soon succeeded in forgetting the whole occurrence—at any rate until Bill's discharge from the Infirmary brought him home, with one leg a full inch shorter than the other, to limp for life—a perpetual reminder of the whole disgraceful affair.

Meanwhile, Dick had been forced to abide by the harsh, though just words with which his father had concluded his lecture that evening.

"You pride yourself on common sense," said Mr. Crozier, "and have on more than one occasion rebelled against seeing by the light of my maturer wisdom. Common sense should have taught you that no person, young or old, can violate the laws of God, but they are sure to reap due punishment. Bill has learnt the wholesome truth in a manner that I hope he will not easily forget. It will be my duty to make sure that you remember too. I had intended taking you on the river this coming Bank Holiday, to give you your first lesson in rowing. But since you have so persistently and dishonourably disregarded my injunctions with regard to it, I shall put off doing so another year, or until I find that you have learnt obedience."

As time went on, Dick found this decision of his father's harder than he had even thought; for several of his schoolmates had boats upon the river, and every invitation to their water-parties had to be refused.

Hal's birthday was always the closing fête of the summer holidays; and this year the Squire had planned an excursion to some picturesque old ruins, eight or ten miles up stream. A large pleasure-boat had been hired, with men to tow or row, as convenience required; and there were grand preparations to be undertaken in the Manor House kitchen for the rural spread. A number of cousins, boys and girls, were to join them, and Hal—as hero of the day—was invested with carte blanche to invite as many as the boat would accommodate.

"Ask just whom you please," the Squire said to him, knowing that he might rely on Hal's good taste. "The more the merrier, so long as we can see our water-mark. I want your picnic to be a grand success."

Now, it was not surprising that Dick, heartily ashamed of the figure he had cut on the unfortunate afternoon of Bill's accident, should have so carefully avoided Hal ever since, that they had not once so much as exchanged nods. The fact was, Dick hardly thought that Hal would care to speak to him again. But Hal, much as he disapproved of Dick's conduct, was not the sort of boy to throw him up on that account; and guessing that shame was most probably Dick's chief reason for holding aloof, he was determined to do his utmost towards bringing about a correct understanding. And here was his opportunity.

The first thing was to waylay Dick. This was not difficult. Hal had only to watch at the plantation palings till he saw Dick coming down the hill; then lay in wait inside the gate till just as he came up, and pop out on him before he had a chance to run.

Dick looked "caught," and tried to get away; but Hal was not to be done in that fashion. He button-holed him without ado, and stated his business.

Dick stammered an excuse; but Hal saw, by the blank look on his face, that there was something behind it. A little pressing brought it out.

"And it's no go," said Dick regretfully. "You might as well waste your strength trying to move a mountain as my father when his mind is made up."

Hal offered to see what he could do to soften Mr. Crozier's heart; but Dick shook his head.

So all that glorious September day Dick spent in vain regrets that but for his own folly, he might have been one of Hal's merry birthday party.

But as the autumn days fell on the woods, a shadow settled on the cottage by the gate, where Farmer Bluff was drawing towards his death. Death is not always dark. The end of life is sometimes like a glorious sunset, when the light of day sinks in triumphant promise of another dawn. But Farmer Bluff had sinned, and had never made the Bible promises his own.

"The others play as well without me," he would say. "I'm not much good in games, you see; and I would rather come and help you bear your pain."

"It's not so much the pain," the farmer said to him one day. "I'd go on bearing that. But they tell me that I'm going fast; and I can't see where. I've never been a praying man; and now it's dark. 'Prepare to meet thy God,' they say. How can a man prepare?—What can I do?—I've lost my right to think of ever getting Him to listen to my prayers; and I must go before His judgment-seat with all my sins upon my back."

"It's very sad," said he presently; "because, you see, you've wasted all the best part of your life. And I should think a man wouldn't like to have to go to God and ask to be taken into heaven, when he'd done so badly all along. Of course, there was the prodigal, who squandered all his father gave him so disgracefully; but you see, he was a young man, and he went back to work again as soon as the feast was over. The Bible doesn't say so; but it seems to me he'd work like two, whenever he remembered how his father ran to meet him, open-armed. You're more like the man who didn't come to work until the eleventh hour," added Hal thoughtfully.

"He got his penny just the same as all the rest, you see," said Hal, when he had finished it.

"That's not like me," he said. "He worked one hour. I'm past that. I'm good for nothing; I've destroyed myself."

And Hal went away grieved; for he felt the words were just. And yet—although he knew that God was ready to receive all those who turn to Him through Christ—he could not think of how to tell him so.

But the following Sunday, as he sat beside the Squire in the high-backed Manor pew, his crutches either side of him, the "how" was made quite plain.

"This is the work of God," the vicar read, "that ye believe on Him whom God hath sent."

Will and Sigismund were very busy watching a wasp that had strayed in at one of the windows, and was making up its mind to settle on the velvet hangings of the pew. They glanced at Hal, but his thoughts were too much occupied with Farmer Bluff to notice any of their signs.

All at once he seemed to see how it is faith in Christ alone that gives the sinner peace, when looking back repentant on a misspent life.

He seemed to see, too, how that "faith" can be called "work," since "to be" alone enables man "to do."

"I've got it, Farmer Bluff!" he cried, next time he went up to his room. "Believe in Jesus Christ,—that is 'the work of God;' and you can do that lying here. It's only to be sorry, and to trust in Christ, who died for us." And sitting down by him, he found the verse and read it out.

"And I think," he added, "that perhaps in heaven God will give you something to do for Him, to make amends for what you left undone down here."

The dying man lay still for some minutes; then a light broke over his face, and he repeated,—"Only to be sorry—He knows I'm truly sorry—and to trust in Christ—who died for me. That's all 'the work of God.'"

And so, just when the bitter punishment of all his sins was near at hand, the Saviour's sacrifice brought peace and light; and Farmer Bluff began the life that might have been so full of fruit in this world and the next, had he but commenced it earlier.

But next time Hal came upstairs to see him, he said he had been thinking there was one thing he could do. "I could warn some other sinner what an awful grief it is to go down to the grave with nothing but a wasted life," said he; "and maybe they might listen to a man who hasn't many days to live."

So Hal brought Dick and Bill to see the dying man; and Farmer Bluff talked to them in a way that neither of the boys ever forgot.

"There's one thing more I want to do before I die," said Farmer Bluff to Hal, when they were gone. "I feel the end is coming fast; another day I mayn't have strength. That mug. It's on the chest of drawers. Bring it me, will you?"

"I want to give it to you," he said at length; "because I'd like it melted down. I wouldn't like to put the blame of all my folly on this silver mug; because the evil was inside me, in my evil heart, that nothing save the grace of God could change. But it seems like part of the old life. It stood there by my side and tempted me; and I should like to feel that when my body's underneath the grass, the old life is all done away. No matter what you make of it, so you promise me to have it melted down."

"Then there's Grip and Blazer," continued Farmer Bluff. "I've given Grip to Dobson there, next door; but Maggie and her mother very likely mayn't stay here, and Blazer is very much attached to you. I'd like to know he'll have a master when I'm gone."

"And why not have the silver made into a collar for him?" cried Hal suddenly. "And he shall wear the mug upon his neck, in memory of you."

Hal never saw his old friend any more alive. Going home through heavy rain that afternoon, he caught a chill that forced him to stay indoors for several days; and one morning, before the week was out, a message came to say that at the break of dawn, poor Farmer Bluff's spirit had departed to its rest.

The cottage by the wood was soon untenanted again. Maggie, through the Squire's interest, was got into an orphan school, where she soon gave promise of a bright and useful womanhood; and Mrs. Rust obtained a responsible place as housekeeper, where she went on saving up whatever she could spare, to lay by with the little sum of money left her by her brother at his death; so that when old age crept on she might not be a burden on her child.

Meanwhile, from the day when Blazer became Hal's property, the young Squire was seldom seen abroad without his dog; and on his neck, Blazer always wore a massive silver collar, bearing on one side his name and the four words—"Who saved two lives;" and on the other, the inscription—"In memory of his old master, Farmer Bluff."

Thus reminded what a solemn charge is God's great gift of life, Hal went onward towards the time when his aged grandfather must follow Farmer Bluff, and leave the Manor in his hands.

There is little hope that he will ever be robust enough to lead the steeplechase, or ride out in the morning mist behind the hounds. Probably he will never learn to do without his crutches, and will never be "a stalwart Englishman" to look upon. But his heart is brave and true; and these are things he does not much regret. His strong determination is to do his best in hunting out the sin and godlessness that work such havoc in the lives of men; and—God helping him—to be the foremost in the race that has the throne of heaven for its aim.

Meanwhile, he strives to gather wisdom as he grows; and since his copy—as he told Dick Crozier—is the perfect God-man, Jesus Christ, there is no doubt that he will grow to be a useful, honoured man, and at last receive the incorruptible crown.

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