CHAPTER I.

IN SEARCH OF A COMPANION.

"I CAN'T see why I shouldn't use my own common sense," said Dick Crozier to himself one fine morning, as he sauntered along the lane. "What else was it given to me for, I should like to know?"

It was a holiday, and Dick had a mind to enjoy himself. Now it happened that Dick's idea of enjoyment on this particular morning did not quite agree with his father's. Before leaving home, Mr. Crozier had given him particular injunctions not to extend his walk beyond the common, and not to go near the river.

"Another time," said he, "I shall have leisure to teach you how to manage a boat. Then I shall not be afraid to trust you; but until then I would rather you kept away."

Dick ventured to argue the point. "Another time," he mightn't have a holiday. His parents had only recently removed into the neighbourhood; and he felt pretty certain that his father would put him to school as soon as ever they got settled in the new place.

"No time like the present," said Dick to himself, as he tried to shake his father's determination. "To-day is my own; no knowing whose to-morrow may be."

But when a wise father has really made up his mind, his determination is not to be shaken.

"You must be content to let me judge what is best for the present," said Mr. Crozier. "When you are older, you will see that I was right."

So Dick had to submit—outwardly, at any rate; and as soon as he had watched his father disappear round the corner towards the railway, away he walked in the opposite direction, grumbling to himself as he went.

It was not a morning for grumbling. The time of year was the end of March. The wind, having made the discovery that all its roar and bluster could not stop the trees and flowers from coming out to meet the spring, had gone to sleep, and left them to enjoy the sunshine till the April showers came on. Birds were singing blithely on the boughs, and even a few humble-bees were to be seen riding through the air with an important buzz, as if they felt that they had got things their own way at last; whilst their working relatives flew hither and thither in quest of honey, with a sharp-toned hum that plainly said—"We must be busy."

Dick heard them, and stopped grumbling. It was too bad to be in an ill-humour whilst everything else—from the kingcups in the hedge to the larks in the sky—was so full of enjoyment. It was not even as if all the ill-humour in the world could alter what his father had said. So he just gave one or two cuts at the hedge with the stick in his hand as a final protest, and began to whistle. A few minutes later he was climbing along a grassy bank, holding by the wooden palings at the top.

There was a plantation on the other side of these palings, and just then a clock in a little tower, with a golden weathercock, struck nine. Dick had heard his father speak of this house as the residence of the Lord of the Manor, so he stopped to have a peep at it through the trees.

It was a large, white stone building, with balconies to the upper windows, supported on twisted pillars, so as to form a shady verandah in front of the lower rooms. A smooth lawn, green as emerald and soft as velvet, sloped up to the gravelled terrace; and behind the house, the grass slanted away to an iron hurdle-fence, within which deer were grazing. Beyond was a little copse, where pines and Scotch firs showed dark against the pale green mist of leaf-buds on the other trees. A gate leading into this copse was painted red; and Dick now noticed that all the gates and railings about the place were of the same unusual colour—which formed a very pretty contrast with the grass.

As he clung to the fence, making these observations, a French window at one end of the verandah opened, and three boys trooped out, followed by a lady, whom Dick took to be their mother. She was young, and very beautiful—or so Dick thought, as she stepped into the sunlight, shading her eyes with one hand, to watch them off; so beautiful that, for the moment, his eyes seem riveted. But only for a moment. The boys no sooner reached the steps than Dick's eyes left her for them. The foremost two bounded down, three or four steps at a time, leaving the third one far behind; and Dick now perceived that the poor fellow went upon crutches, and that upon one sole he wore an iron stand, which raised it full two inches from the ground, whilst the other barely reached so low. In spite of this, he was considerably shorter than his brothers; and Dick immediately concluded that he was the youngest of the three.

"Poor fellow!" said he to himself. "I shouldn't care to be like that. I daresay, though, they're good to him,"' he added, as the others pulled up short and waited for the cripple, who swung himself carefully down, step by step.

But Dick little guessed how hard it is to "be good" to a boy who has to go at a snail's pace, when you yourself have the strength to run and jump. He didn't even notice how the others continually walked a step ahead, nor how the cripple laboured to keep up with them. Neither did he guess how tiring it was to get along so fast. Presently, however, something attracted the attention of the three boys—an early butterfly it must have been. The cripple saw it first, and nodded towards it, and forthwith off the others raced, and left him resting on his crutches watching them. Then Dick understood a little more clearly how hard it was for him; for his brothers entirely forgot him in their wild, mad chase, and he was left alone.

He followed them a minute with his eyes, then turned and looked towards the terrace; but his mother was not even there to wave her hand. She had gone in.

It came into Dick's head to wonder whether the poor fellow could see him there above the fence. He had half a mind to whistle. Dick—with nothing else to do—could very well spare time for half an hour's chat to cheer his loneliness. But just then he remembered who this cripple was, and how presumptuous it might be thought to dream of showing pity for a son of the great man to whom all the land about belonged. And as the other boys, panting and puffing, cap in hand, returned just then, the question was decided once for all. Dick watched them out of sight behind the avenue of trees that led to the lodge, then he jumped down from the bank and went his way, turning now and then to see if they were following.

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