Burr Junior | Page 7

so long. I say, don't you be miserable about coming away from home. You'll soon get over it, and there's lots of things to see. Look there," he cried, stopping at the edge of the road, "you can see the sea here. The doctor will give us leave to go some day, and we shall bathe. There it is. Don't look far off, does it? but it's six miles. But we've got a bathing pool, too. See those woods?"
"Yes," I said, as I gazed over the beautiful expanse of hill and dale, with a valley sweeping right away to the glittering sea.
"Those are the General's, where the pheasants are, and if you look between those fir-trees you can just get a peep of the hammer pond where the big eels are."
"Yes, I can see the water shining in the sun," I said eagerly.
"Yes, that's it; and those fields where you see the tall poles dotted over in threes and fours are--I say, did you ever see hops?"
"Yes, often," I said; "great, long, tight, round sacks piled-up on waggons."
"Yes, that's how they go to market. I mean growing?"
"No."
"Those are hops, then, climbing up the poles. That's where the partridges get. Oh, I say, I wish old Magg would sell us that gun. We'd go halves in buying it, and I'd play fair; you should shoot just as often as I did."
"But he will not sell it," I said.
"Oh, he will some day, when he wants some money."
"And what would Doctor Browne do if he knew?"
"Smug it!" said Mercer, with a comical look, "when he knew. Look! see that open ground there with the clump of fir-trees and the long slope of sand going down to that hollow place!"
"Yes."
"Rabbits, and blackberries. Such fine ones when they're ripe! And just beyond there, at the sandy patch at the edge of the wood, snakes!--big ones, too. I'm going to catch one and stuff it."
"But can you?"
"I should think so--badly, you know, but I'm getting better. I had to find all this out that I'm telling you, but perhaps you don't care about it, and want to go back to the cricket-field?"
"No, no," I cried; "I do like it."
"That's right. If we went back we should only have to bowl for old Eely. Everybody has to bowl for him, and he thinks he's such a dabster with the bat, but he's a regular muff. Never carried the bat out in his life. Like hedgehogs?"
"Well, I don't know," I said. "They're so prickly."
"Yes; but they can't help it, poor things. There's lots about here. Wish we could find one now, we'd take it back and hide it in old Eely's bed. I don't know though, it wouldn't be much fun now, because he'd know directly that I did it. I say, you never saw a dog with a hedgehog. Did you?"
"No," I said.
"It's the finest of fun. Piggy rolls himself up tight like a ball, and Nip,--that's Magg's dog, you know,--he tries to open him, and pricks his nose, and dances round him and barks, but it's no good, piggy knows better than to open out. I've had three. Magg gets them for me. He told me for sixpence how he got them."
"And how's that?" I said, eager to become a master in all this woodcraft.
"Why, you catch a hedgehog first."
"Yes," I said, "but how?"
Mercer looked at me, and rubbed his ear.
"Oh, that is only the first one," he said hurriedly.
"But you must know how to catch the first one first."
"Oh, I say, don't argue like that. It is like doing propositions in Euclid. You have to begin with one hedgehog, that's an axiom. Then you take him in your pocket."
"Doesn't it prick?" I said.
"Oh, I don't know. How you keep interrupting! And you go out at night when it's full moon, and then go and sit down on a felled tree right in the middle of an open place in the wood. You get a bit of stick, a rough bit, and take hold of piggy's foot and rub his hind leg with the stick."
"But suppose he curls up," I said.
"Oh, bother! Don't! How am I to tell you? You mustn't let him curl up. You rub his hind leg with the stick, and then he begins to sing."
"Oh, come!" I said, bursting out laughing.
"Well, squeal, then, ever so loud, and the louder he squeals, the harder you must rub."
"But it hurts him."
"Oh, not much. What's a hedgehog that he isn't to be hurt a bit! Boys get hurt pretty tidy here when the Doctor's cross. Well, as soon as he squeals out, all the hedgehogs who hear him come running to see what's the matter, and you get as many as you like, and put 'em in a hutch, but you mustn't keep live