the passage with the buckle end of a strap? But you didn't do things
like that with Jim Horscroft. What tales we used to whisper about his
strength! How he put his fist through the oak-panel of the
game-room door; how, when Long Merridew was carrying the ball, he caught
up Merridew, ball and all, and ran swiftly past every opponent to the
goal. It did not seem fit to us that such a one as he should trouble
his head about spondees and dactyls, or care to know who signed the
Magna Charta. When he said in open class that King Alfred was the man,
we little boys all felt that very likely it was so, and that perhaps Jim
knew more about it than the man who wrote the book.

Well, it was this business of the burglar that drew his attention to me;
for he patted me on my head, and said that I was a spunky little devil,
which blew me out with pride for a week on end. For two years we were
close friends, for all the gap that the years had made between us, and
though in passion or in want of thought he did many a thing that galled
me, yet I loved him like a brother, and wept as much as would have
filled an ink bottle when at last he went off to Edinburgh to study his
father's profession. Five years after that did I tide at Birtwhistle's,
and when I left had become cock myself, for I was wiry and as tough as
whalebone, though I never ran to weight and sinew like my great
predecessor. It was in Jubilee Year that I left Birtwhistle's, and then
for three years I stayed at home learning the ways of the cattle; but
still the ships and the armies were wrestling, and still the great
shadow of Bonaparte lay across the country. How could I guess that I
too should have a hand in lifting that shadow for ever from our people?


CHAPTER II.