"Yes, yes; they are good little fellows. Then there is poor Piers; he must always be an anxiety, poor boy!"
"I don't think any of us can be happier than Piers," Joyce said. "He never complains because he is lame; and he is as contented as possible, making his collection of moths and butterflies, and bird's eggs, and things. No, father, don't be unhappy about Piers."
"Do you think, Joyce, I ever forget that it was my carelessness which made the boy a cripple? I never forget it."
"No one else thinks of it, dear daddy," Joyce said, slipping her hand into her father's, as it rested on his knee. "No one else thinks of it; and you know the colt had been broken in, and——"
"The child ought never to have put his legs across it, Joyce; and I lifted him on, and told him not to be a coward. Ah!" said the squire, suddenly starting to his feet. "I cannot speak of it; I dare not."
He began an abrupt descent the way that they had come. Nip and Pip, who had been sleeping with their noses on their paws, and one eye open, raced off, while Duke drew himself into a standing position, and walked demurely down the steep bit of turf, with the brush of his tail waving from side to side as he went.
Joyce did not follow immediately. Her bright face was clouded with the sympathy she felt for her father. It all came back to her: the group before the Manor, the child of eight years old, saying, "I am afraid of riding Rioter, father." Then the father's answer, "Afraid! Don't be a coward, Piers; you have a good seat enough for such a little chap. Here, let me put you on." The boy's white, set face, as he grasped the reins; and Rioter was off like lightning. "His brothers rode long before they were his age," the squire had said; "it won't do to tie him to his mother's apron strings, because he happens to be the youngest." Then the sound of returning horse's feet, and Rioter rushed up the side drive to the stables riderless. Another minute and old Thomas appeared with a lifeless burden in his arms, which the squire took from him, with a groan of remorse, as he turned into the house with him and said to his wife, "I have killed the boy."
But Piers was not killed. His injuries were life-long, but his life was spared.
Whether it was from an instinctive feeling, that his father considered himself the cause of his lameness and generally invalided condition, or whether the latent buoyancy of his nature asserted itself above all the privations which the accident had brought upon him, or whether both of these causes were at work within him, certain it is that Piers was the most cheerful and most uncomplaining member of the squire's household, and never allowed any one to pity him, or to treat him as an object of compassion. Joyce was right when she said that no one was happier than Piers. Every bird and insect had a charm for him, and were his friends and companions. Books of natural history were rare; but Bewick's Birds sufficed for Piers' needs. The "Natural History of Selborne" and old Isaak Walton's "Angler" were also amongst the boy's scanty library, and keen perception and acute observation supplied the place of extraneous help; and Piers was content.
The cloud soon cleared from Joyce's face as a well-known whistle was heard from the copse, and Joyce answered it with a clear note of welcome: