more than he was aware of himself. He was always glad to get
back to it, for his home life was unattractive. He was the son of an
extremely conscientious but very overworked and very underpaid parson,
the vicar of a large and shabby-genteel suburban parish, and the fresh,
healthy, beautiful surroundings of Saint Kirwin's all unconsciously had
their effect upon his impressionable young mind, after the glaring
dustiness, or rain-sodden mud according to the season of the year--of
the said suburb. He was a good-looking lad of seventeen, well-grown for
his age, and seeming older, yet thus early somewhat soured, by reason of
the already felt narrowing effects of poverty, and an utter lack of
anything definite in the way of prospects; for he had no more idea of
what his future walk in life was to be than the man in the moon.

And so he sat, that lovely cloudless half-holiday afternoon, grinding
out his treadmill-like imposition, angrily, rebelliously, his one and
only thought to get that over as soon as possible.

CHAPTER THREE.

THE BULLY.

Haviland's gloomy prediction proved in so far correct, in that when,
after nearly a weary week of toil during his spare moments, he handed in
his imposition, his insatiable taskmaster insisted on his re-writing two
hundred of the lines. Then with lightened heart he found himself free
to resume his all-engrossing and gloriously healthy pursuit.

There is, or used to be, a superstition that a boy who didn't care for
cricket or football must necessarily be an ass, a loafer, and to be
regarded with some suspicion. Yet in point of fact such by no means
follows, and our friend Haviland was a case in point. He could cover as
many miles of ground in the limited time allowed as any one in the
school, and more than most. He could climb anything, could pick his way
delicately through the most forbidden ground, quartering it exhaustively
every yard, what time his natural enemy the keeper, his suspicions
roused, was on the watch in the very same covert, and return safe and
sound with his pearly treasures--to excite the envy and admiration of
the egg-collecting fraternity; yet though this represented his pet
hobby, he was something of an all-round naturalist, and his wanderings
in field and wood were by no means confined to the nesting season.

He might have liked cricket could he have been always in, but fielding
out he pronounced beastly slow. As for football he declared he couldn't