regularly every day
on the top of the wall, and Rob's eagerness to master all hard words,
and his humble diffidence, when his little teachers waxed wrath with
him, was touching to witness. Sometimes conversation would bear a large
part in the lessons, especially when Roy was the teacher. And Dudley
would always insist on having a break for refreshments.

"You will be able to write letters for me, Rob, when I grow up," said
Roy, one afternoon, pausing in the lesson. "I don't like writing
letters, and I'm thinking of travelling round the world and discovering
countries, so I shall have to write home sometimes. You will come with
me, won't you?"

"For certain I will," was the emphatic reply.

"I've been thinking," pursued Roy, thoughtfully, as he let his gaze
wander from the book between them to the top of the dark pines swaying
gently in the summer breeze; "that I may be quite strong enough when I
grow up to be a discoverer. You see I can't be a soldier or sailor, but
I haven't anything the matter with me but a weak chest, and doctors say
sea voyages and travelling do weak chests good sometimes. Do you think
I'm a very poor body to look at, Rob? That's what some of the villagers
say I am, but my head and legs and arms are all right. I'm not a cripple
or a hunchback, or blind, or deaf, or dumb, so I must be very glad of
that. What do you think?"

"You're just as straight and plucky as Master Dudley, and you'll grow
up a big, strong man, I dare say," said Hob, sympathetically.

"Old Principle says you may be a maker, a mender, or a breaker in your
life. I want to be a maker. And I should like to find a country and make
it into a nice big town. I want to do something big. I ask God every day
to let me find something to do."

"Do you believe in--in God?" asked Rob, rather sheepishly.

"Of course I do; what do you mean? Don't you?"

"I don't know. I don't know much about Him, only you often talk as if
you're--well quite friends with Him, and I've wondered at it."

Roy brought down his gaze from the hilltops to his companion's face with
grave interest.

"I've known God since I was a baby," he said. "I don't remember when I
didn't know Him. Nurse used to talk to me when I was very small, and
when my father was dying he called me to him, and said,--'Fitz Roy!
Serve God first, then your Queen, and then your fellow men!' I've always
remembered it, only you know we don't talk about these things, and I've
only told Dudle