es of
everything he saw during his walks, not so much for the purpose of
assisting contemporary science as to provide topics for conversation
afterwards. When the bluebells began to show themselves in flower he
made a point of informing every one of the fact; the season of the year
might have warned his hearers of the likelihood of such an occurrence,
but at least they felt that he was being absolutely frank with them.

What Van Cheele saw on this particular afternoon was, however, something
far removed from his ordinary range of experience. On a shelf of smooth
stone overhanging a deep pool in the hollow of an oak coppice a boy of
about sixteen lay asprawl, drying his wet brown limbs luxuriously in the
sun. His wet hair, parted by a recent dive, lay close to his head, and
his light-brown eyes, so light that there was an almost tigerish gleam in
them, were turned towards Van Cheele with a certain lazy watchfulness.
It was an unexpected apparition, and Van Cheele found himself engaged in
the novel process of thinking before he spoke. Where on earth could this
wild-looking boy hail from? The miller's wife had lost a child some two
months ago, supposed to have been swept away by the mill-race, but that
had been a mere baby, not a half-grown lad.

"What are you doing there?" he demanded.

"Obviously, sunning myself," replied the boy.

"Where do you live?"

"Here, in these woods."

"You can't live in the woods," said Van Cheele.

"They are very nice woods," said the boy, with a touch of patronage in
his voice.

"But where do you sleep at night?"

"I don't sleep at night; that's my busiest time."

Van Cheele began to have an irritated feeling that he was grappling with
a problem that was eluding him.

"What do you feed on?" he asked.

"Flesh," said the boy, and he pronounced the word with slow relish, as
though he were tasting it.

"Flesh! What Flesh?"

"Since it interests you, rabbits, wild-fowl, hares, poultry, lambs in
their season, children when I can get any; they're usually too well
locked in at night, when I do most of my hunting. It's quite two months
since I tasted child-flesh."

Ignoring the chaffing nature of the last remark Van Cheele tried to draw
the boy on the subject of possible poaching operations.

"You're talking rather through your hat when you speak of feeding on
hares." (Considering the nature of the boy's toilet the simile was
hardly an apt one.) "Our hillside hares aren't