“I, I, I,” answered several voices.
“Come along, Bracebridge, try your hand at it.”
Ernest declined at first, for he did not much admire having a number of fellows jumping over his head and sitting on his shoulders, but Tommy pressed him so hard that at last he consented to try. His side was to leap.
“Go on, go on!” shouted Buttar.
Ernest had for some time practised vaulting; he ran, measuring his distance, and sprang over the heads of all the boys right up to the wall.
“Bravo!” cried Buttar, delighted, “you’ll do, I see; there’s no fear of you now.”
Ernest felt much pleased by the praise bestowed on him by his new friend, and turning round he waved to the other boys to come on. The last boy failed, and his side had to go under. He proved as staunch, however, with two heavy boys on his shoulders, as any of the most practised players, and his side were much oftener riders than horses.
“I say, though, you don’t mean to say, Bracebridge, that you have never been to school before?” said Buttar, as they were summoned away to their bedrooms. “I should have thought, from the way you do things, that you were an old boy.”
Ernest assured him that he had never been in any school whatever, and that he had associated very little with any boys, except his own brothers.
“I’ll tell you how it is,” he continued; “my father says we should do everything on principle. He has made us practise all sorts of athletic exercises, and shown us how we can make the best use of our muscles and bones. The balls of the foot and toes are given us, for instance, as pads from which we may spring, and on which we may alight, but clumsy fellows will attempt to leap from their heels or jump down on them; however, I’ll tell you what I know about the matter another time. He has us taught to row and swim, and climb and ride. He says that they are essential accomplishments for people who have to knock about the world, as all of us will have to do. He has always told us that we must labour before we can be fed; it is the lot of humanity. If we by any chance neglected to do what he ordered, we had to go without our dinner or breakfast, as the case might be; so you see we have learned to depend a good deal upon ourselves, and to feel that if we do not try our best to get on, no one else will help us.”