Burr Junior | Page 7

very strict at other times, and we have to get
leave when we want to go out, but this is free day, and I want to show
you everything because you're new. Nobody showed me anything. I
had to find it all out, and I was so jolly miserable at first that I made up
my mind to run away and go back home."
"But you did not?" I said eagerly, for, though I felt better now in the
interest of meeting fresh people and learning something about the place,
I could fully appreciate his words.
"No, I didn't," he said thoughtfully. "You see, I knew I must come to
school, and if I ran away from this one, if I hadn't been sent back, I

should have been sent back to another one, and there would have been
whackings at home, and they would have hurt my mother, who always
hated to see me have it, though I always deserved it: father said so.
Then there would have been whackings here, and they'd have hurt me,
so I made up my mind to stay."
"That was wise," I said, laughing.
"Oh, I don't know," he replied, wrinkling up his face; "the cane only
hurts you outside, and it soon goes off, but being miserable hurts you
inside, and lasts ever 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,