The boy was a young Scot, and wore that most picturesque of all costumes, the garb of old Gaul, but he was not afraid of getting his bare knees frozen as he lay there. In fact, I do not think that Leonard was afraid of anything.
As I have said the lad was a Scot, there is little need to add that Grayling House and the beautiful river that went wimpling by it were on the northern side of the Tweed.
It was very still and quiet all round Grayling House to-day, and the sky was very bright and almost cloudless. There was not wind enough to bend the course of the spiral wreaths of smoke that rose straight up into the frosty air, higher than the dark-roofed pines, before it melted away into a white haze across the woods.
High up yonder among the sturdy arms of the elms were many huge nests, but the rooks were far away foraging in some farmer’s field. In the other trees many an old nest was visible that could not have been seen in summer—nests of the chattering magpies, in the moss and lichen-covered larches; nests of the tree-sparrows everywhere high or low, great untidy wisps of weeds, with feathers sticking here and strings hanging there, nests that any other bird except a sparrow would feel ashamed to enter or go near. Then there were nests of the bold, bright-voiced cheery chaffinch close to the trunk of beech or elm, little gems of nests tricked out with lichens white and red, and looking all over like shapely bits of coral; and nests of the missel-thrush, so sturdily fixed between the tree forks that storm or tempest could not blow them down.
“I say, Effet,” said Leonard, looking up, “the birds are almost too clever for me. I can count dozens of nests now up there that I couldn’t find in summer. Wait till spring comes—I’ll be wiser then.
“Listen,” he continued, “was that a mole?”
“No,” said his sister, “it was only a sycamore leaf; I saw it falling.”
“Hullo! here comes another, and another, and another.” And off he flew, cap in hand, to catch the leaves as they fell.
He soon tired, however.
“I say, Effet, I don’t call this keeping a holiday. Let’s have some real fun.”