sting them all. No, here is one with nothing the
matter, save the contusion consequent from its fall from the mother
tree."

"On to mother earth," said Vane laughing. "I say, uncle, wouldn't it be
a good plan to get a lot of that narrow old fishing net, and spread it
out hanging from the wall, so as to catch all the peaches that fall?"

"Excellent," said the doctor.

"I'll do it," said Vane, wrinkling up his brow, as he began to puzzle
his brains about the best way to suspend the net for the purpose.

Soon after, the lad was in the doctor's study, going over some papers he
had written, ready for his morning visit to the rectory; and this put
him in mind of the encounter with his fellow-pupil, Distin, and made him
thoughtful.

"He doesn't like me," the boy said to himself; "and somehow I feel as if
I do not like him. I don't want to quarrel, and it always seems as if
one was getting into hot-water with him. He's hot-blooded, I suppose,
from being born in the West Indies. Well, if that's it," mused Vane,
"he can't help it any more than I can help being cool because I was born
in England. I won't quarrel with him. There."

And taking up his books and papers, he strapped them together, and set
off for the rectory, passing out of the swing-gate, going along the road
toward the little town above which the tall grey-stone tower stood up in
the clear autumn air with its flagstaff at the corner of the
battlements, its secondary tower at the other corner, holding within it
the narrow spiral staircase which led from the floor to the leads; and
about it a little flock of jackdaws sailing round and round before
settling on the corner stones, and the top.

"Wish I could invent something to fly with," thought Vane, as he reached
the turning some distance short of the first houses of the town. "It
does seem so easy. Those birds just spread out their wings, and float
about wherever they please with hardly a beat. There must be a way, if
one could only find it out."

He went off into the pleasant lane to the left, and caught sight of a
bunch of blackberries apparently within reach, and he was about to cross
the dewy band of grass which bordered the road, when he recollected that
he had just put on clean boots, and the result of a scramble through and
among brambles would be unsatisfactory for their appearance in the
rector's prim study. So the berries hung in their place, left to ripen,
and he went on till a great dra