his eyes strayed into a glade of bracken, gold
gleaming through silver--a glade shadowed by noble oaks and beeches,
with one birch tree in the middle of it surpassingly graceful. Upon this
each delicate bough and spray were outlined sharply against the sky.
Beyond the glade stretched the moor, rugged, bleak, and treeless,
sloping sharply upward. Beyond the moor lay the Forest--belts of firs
darkly purple; and flanking these the irregular masses of oaks and
beeches, varying in tint from palest lavender to rose and brown, some
still in shadow, some in ever-increasing glow of sunlight; not one the
same and each in itself containing a thousand differing forms, yet all
harmonious parts of the resplendent whole.

"I'm so glad you like my home," said John. "Shall we have a gallop
before breakfast? It's only a white frost."

So they galloped away into fairyland, returning with mortal appetites to
the oak-panelled dining-hall, whence a Verney had ridden forth to join
his kinsman, Sir Edmund, in arms for the King upon the distant field of
Edge Hill. After breakfast the boys explored the quaint old house; and
John showed Caesar the twenty-bore gun, and promised his guest much
rabbit-shooting, and two days' hunting, at least, with the New Forest
Hounds, and some pike-fishing, and possibly an encounter with a big
grayling--which, later, the boys saw walloping about in the Test above
Broadlands--a splendid fish, once hooked by John, and lost--a
three-pounder, of course.

O golden age! You will never forget that Christmas--will you, John? If
you live to be Prime Minister of England, the memory of those first days
alone with your friend will remain green when the colour has been sucked
by Time out of everything else. Fifty years hence, maybe, you will see
Caesar's curly head and his blue eyes full of fun and life, and you will
hear his joyous laughter--peal upon peal--echoing through the corridors
of Verney Boscobel. Your mother took him to her heart--didn't she? And
all the servants, from butler to scullery maid, voted him the jolliest,
cheeriest boy that ever came to Hampshire. Why, Mrs. Osman, the cook,
with a temper like tinder from too much heat, refused flatly to let
Caesar make toffee in her kitchen. But just then a barrel-organ turned
up, and before she could open her mouth, Caesar was dancing a polka with
her; and after that he could make toffee, or hay, or anything else,
wherever and whenever he pleased.

When they return