ied Mercer.

"Going for a walk, then?"

"Only as far as here," I replied, looking at him merrily.

"Eh? What? Why, hallo!" he cried. "I didn't know. They said you were
under punishment for something, but I didn't know what. Why, yes: both
of you. Look at your eyes. You've been fighting!"

I nodded, and Mercer laughed.

"We've come to tell you all about it."

Lomax drove his spade down into the ground and left it standing in the
bed.

"Here, come along," he cried excitedly, and he led the way into the
lodge, placed chairs for us, and re-lit his pipe, before standing
smoking with his back to the fire. "Now then," he cried, "let's have
it."

We described our encounter, and the old soldier laughed and chuckled
with satisfaction.

"Yes, that's it," he cried, as we came to an end, first one and then the
other carrying on the thread of the narration to the conclusion.
"That's science; that is just the same as with a well-drilled regiment,
which can beat a mob of fifty times its size. Well, I'm glad you won,
and were such good pupils. Shows you remembered all I taught you. Now
take my advice, both of you. Don't you fight again till you are
regularly obliged."

"Not going to," I said.

"That's right, boy. You'll be like a man now who has got a blunderbuss
in his house. Thieves all about know that he has got one, and so they
leave him alone. Well when are you going to have another riding
lesson?"

"Let's begin again at once," I said; and he promised to send or go down
to the General's, to ask the groom to bring up the horse in the morning.

"I'll go myself if I can," said Lomax, "and ride him up pretty quickly.
He'll have had such a rest that he'll be quite skittish."

All this being settled, and it being yet early, we had time for a walk,
and the discovery of sundry objects, which Mercer looked upon as
treasures, and carefully placed in boxes and pieces of paper.

The first was an unhappy-looking stag beetle which seemed to have been
in the wars, for one of its horns was gone, while not a dozen yards
farther on we came upon a dissipated cockchafer, with a dent in his
horny case, and upon both of these Mercer pounced with delight,
transferring them to a flat tin paste-blacking box, inside which we
could hear them scratching to get out.

The next thing to attract his attention was a fat worm, which, after a
crawl in the cool, dewy night, had lost his way back to his hole, and
was now crawling s