farmhouse."

"Oh, exactly--I understand," interrupted the young man. "You want
somewhere where they'll put you up tidily for a few days--just for a
breath of country air."

"Well, no; not exactly," said Geoffrey. "The fact is, I'm looking out
for--for some sort of situation about a farm. I'm very fond of country
life. I don't care what I do. I'm not a fine gentleman!"

The countryman looked at him with interest.

"I see," he said. "You're tired of town, I take it, sir. But what do
your friends say to it, sir? At sixteen, or even seventeen, you have
still to ask leave, I suppose?"

"Not always," said Geoff. "I've made no secret of it. I've no father,
and--I'm pretty much my own master."

"'I care for nobody, and nobody cares for me,' eh?" quoted the young
man, laughing.

"Something like it, I suppose," said Geoff, laughing too, though rather
forcedly. For a vision of Vicky, sobbing, perhaps, over her lonely
breakfast, would come before him--of Elsa and Frances trying how to
break to their mother the news that Geoff had really run away. "They'll
soon get over it," he said to himself. "They've got that old curmudgeon
to console them, and I don't want to live on _his_ money."

"Do you think I can easily find a place of some kind?" he went on, after
a pause.

The countryman this time did scratch his head, while he considered.

"How old may you be, sir? Sixteen or seventeen, maybe?" he inquired.

"I'm not so much; I'm only fourteen," said Geoff, rather reluctantly.

"Really! now, who'd 'a' thought it?" said his new friend, admiringly.
"You'll be just the man for a country life when you're full-grown. Not
afraid of roughing it? Fond of riding, I dare say?"

"Oh yes," said Geoff. "At least, in town of course I haven't had as much
of it as I'd like." He had never ridden in his life, except the previous
summer, on a peculiarly gentle old pony of Mrs. Colethorne's.

"No, in course not. Well now, sir, if you'd no objection to stopping at
Shalecray with me, it strikes me my friend there, Farmer Eames, might
likely enough know of something to suit you. He's a very decent fellow--a
bit rough-spoken, maybe. But you're used to country ways--you'd not mind
that."

"Oh, not a bit!" said Geoff. "I'm much obliged to you for thinking of
it. And you say it's possible--that this Farmer Eames may perhaps have a
place that I should do for?"

"Nay, sir, I can't say that. It's just a chance. I only said he'd maybe
know of som