Chapter Twelve.
Those were busy times at Meade Place, for Mr Hasnip worked me hard; Mr Rebble harassed me a little whenever he had a chance; and every now and then the Doctor made a sudden unexpected attack upon me with questions uttered in the severest of tones.
All this meant long hours of what the masters called “private study” and the boys “private worry;” while in addition there were the lessons we inflicted upon ourselves, for we never once failed of being at the lodge by five o’clock on those summer mornings, to be scolded, punched, and generally knocked about by our instructor.
Join to these, other lessons in the art of skinning and preserving birds, given by Mercer up in the loft; compulsory games at cricket, as they were called, but which were really hours of toil, fielding for Burr major, Hodson, and Dicksee; sundry expeditions after specimens, visits to Bob Hopley, bathing, fishing, and excursions and incursions generally, and it will be seen that neither Mercer nor I had much spare time.
A busy life is after all the happiest, and, though my lessons often worried and puzzled me, I was perfectly content, and my friendly relations with Mercer rapidly grew more firm.
“I say,” he cried one morning, after Lomax had grumbled at us a little less than usual respecting our execution of several of the bits of guarding and hitting he put us through— “I say, don’t you think we are perfect yet?”
The serjeant opened his eyes wide, and then burst into a hearty laugh.
“Well,” he said, “you will grow into a man some day, and when you do, I daresay you will be a bit modest, for of all the cocksparrowy chaps I ever did meet, you are about the most impudent.”
“Thank-ye,” said Mercer, and he went off in dudgeon, while Lomax gave me a comical look.
“That’s the way to talk to him,” he said. “If you don’t, he’ll grow up so conceited he’ll want extra buttons on his jacket to keep him from swelling out too much.”