ever had a
brother, but fellows whom I have known at Winchester who have--they are
not so very fond of doing things for one another. They generally like
fighting and knocking one another about. I suppose they oughtn't to,
but they quarrel more with their brothers than they do with anyone else.
But you mustn't touch their brothers, for if you do--oh my! You have
them on to you at once. Here, I say, I wish you wouldn't talk like
that."

"Well, I will not. I don't want to go away and leave you, but I must.
I can think of nothing else."

"But why?"

"Because I am shut up here alone so much, a prisoner."

"Yes, but it's only until it's safe for you to go away. You must see
that you ought to be patient. There, I'll bring you up books to read,
to amuse you."

"I can't read them. They wouldn't amuse me with my mind in this state."

"Well; then, have a look at some of my things," cried Waller, pulling
out the drawer of a big press. "These are all traps and springs with
which I catch birds and animals in the forest. Bunny Wrigg taught me
how to make them and how to use them. I wish you knew him. He's a
capital fellow, and knows the forest ten times better than I do."

"Oh, I don't want to know the forest--nor, your friend," said the lad
wearily. "I want to be free to come and go--as free as the birds and
those little animals, the squirrels, that I see out of the window."

"Yes, of course you do, and so you shall be soon," cried Waller. "But
you haven't quite recovered yet from that feverishness and all you went
through. I say, have a look in this drawer."

Waller thrust the open one in and pulled out another. "Look here, these
are my old nets with which we drag the hammer pond, and catch the carp
and tench; great golden fellows they are, some of them; but the worst of
it is the pond's so deep that the fish dive under the net and escape."

"And those which do not," said the lad sadly, "you take in that net and
make prisoners of them. Poor things! And what good are they to you
when you have caught them?"

"Good? Good to eat! I say, what a fellow you are to talk of the fish
one catches as prisoners! Carp and tench are not human beings."

"No, they are not human beings," said the lad, smiling sadly; "but they
are prisoners, the same as I am."

"Oh, I say, what stuff! To call yourself a prisoner, when you are only
a visitor here, and could come and go just as you like--at least, not
quite, for it