The Weathercock | Page 7

dragon-fly, a couple of swallows
skimmed by him, darted over the wall, and were gone. Then, flopping
idly along in its clumsy flight, came a white butterfly, and directly after
a bee--one of the great, dark, golden-banded fellows, with a soft,
velvety coat.
"And all fly in a different way," said Vane to himself, thoughtfully.
"They all use wings, but all differently; and they have so much
command over them, darting here and there, just as they please. I
wonder whether I could make a pair of wings and a machine to work
them. It doesn't seem impossible. People float up in balloons, but that
isn't enough. I think I could do it, and--oh, hang it, there goes ten, and
the rector will be waiting. I wonder whether I can recollect all he said
about those Greek verbs."
CHAPTER THREE.
IN THE STUDY.
Vane reached the rectory gate and turned in with his brains in the air,
dashing here and there like a dragon-fly, skimming after the fashion of
a swallow, flying steadily, bumble-bee-fashion, and flopping faintly as
the butterfly did whose wings were so much out of proportion to the
size of its body. Either way would do, he thought, or better still, if he
could fly by a wide-spread membrane stretched upon steel or
whalebone ribs or fingers like a bat. Why not? he mused. There could
be no reason; and he was beginning to wonder why he had never
thought of making some flying machine before, when he was brought
back to earth from his imaginary soarings by a voice saying,--

"Hullo! here's old Weathercock!" and this was followed by a laugh
which brought the colour into his cheeks.
"I don't care," he thought. "Let him laugh. Better be a weathercock and
change about, than be always sticking fast. Uncle says we can't help
learning something for one's trouble."
By this time he was at the porch, which he entered just as the footman
was carrying out the breakfast things.
"Rector isn't in the study then, Joseph?" said Vane.
"No, sir; just coming in out of the garden. Young gents is in there
together."
Vane felt disposed to wait and go in with the rector, but, feeling that it
would be cowardly, he walked straight in at the study door to find
Distin, Gilmore, and Macey seated at the table, all hard at work, but
apparently not over their studies.
"Why, gracious!" cried Macey.
"Alive?" said Gilmore.
"Used to it," sneered Distin. "That sort of creature takes a deal of
killing."
"What's the matter?" said Vane, good-humouredly, taking a seat.
"Why," said Gilmore, "we were all thinking of writing to our tailors to
send us suits of mourning out of respect for you--believe it or not as
you please."
"Thankye," said Vane quietly. "Then I will not believe it, because
Distin wouldn't order black if I were drowned."
"Who said a word about drowned? I said poisoned," cried Gilmore.
"Not a word about it. But why?"

"Because you went home and ate those toadstools."
"Wrong," said Vane quietly, "I haven't eaten them yet."
"Then three cheers for the tailors; there's a chance for them yet," cried
Macey.
"Why didn't you eat them?" asked Gilmore. "Afraid?"
"I don't think so. They'll be ready by dinner time, will you come?"
Grimaces followed, as Vane quietly opened his books, and glanced
round the rector's room with its handsome book-cases all well filled,
chimney-piece ornamented with classic looking bronzes; and the whole
place with its subdued lights and heavily curtained windows suggestive
of repose for the mind and uninterrupted thought and study.
Books and newly-written papers lay on the table, ready for application,
but the rector's pupils did not seem to care about work in their tutor's
absence, for Macey, who was in the act of handing round a tin box
when Vane entered, now passed it on to the latter.
"Lay hold, old chap," he said. Vane opened it, and took out a piece of
crisp dark brown stickiness generally known as "jumble," and
transferred it to his mouth, while four lower jaws were now seen at
work, giving the pupils the aspect of being members of that portion of
the quadrupedal animal kingdom known as ruminants.
"Worst of this stuff is," said Macey, "that you get your teeth stuck
together. Oh, I say, Gil, what hooks! A whole dozen?"
Gilmore nodded as he opened a ring of fine silkworm gut, and began to
examine the points and backs of the twelve bright blue steel hooks at
the ends of the gut lengths, and the carefully-tied loops at the other.
"Where did you buy them?" continued Macey, as he gloated over the
bright hookah.
No answer.

"Where did you buy them, Gil?" said Macey again.
"Cuoz--duoz--ooze."
"What!" cried Macey; and Distin and Vane