BOYHOOD. 7 



Vixen snaps him up, gives him one scrunch, and he was 

 as dead as the Sphinx. Hundreds of rats have I seen 

 killed in this way in a single day's sport. 



SPARROW PIE. 



Then wasn't it glorious when, on a dark winter's 

 night, we got one of the farm servants to arm himself 

 with a large "riddle," fixed on the end of a long 

 pikle (as it was called, or pitchfork), and a horn 

 lantern fixed at the back of it, and we all sallied forth to 

 the stackyard ? The riddle was carefully placed against 

 the eaves and sides of the rick, and attracted by the 

 light and frightened by the rumpus scores of sparrows 

 would fly out ; and that was how we got 4 ' sparrow 

 pie." 



MY PONY. 



Our farm was a very large one, and, as I have always 

 thought, beautiful in a romantic sense, because of the 

 great variety of its picturesque scenery, its undu- 

 lating green, lush meadows, its gigantic elms and 

 oaks, its woods of every kind of timber and shrub, 

 and its brimming river. Was I not proud when I was 

 first commissioned to ride my pony round, sometimes 

 to count sheep, ewes, and lambs, and see that the 

 shepherd was on duty on one side of the farm, and 

 then to gallop off to look after cattle and colts on the 

 other side ! 



That was a plucky little brown mare of mine. I 

 one day rode her forty miles galloping most of the 

 way. I had ridden with my father to market ten 

 miles away when he remembered that he had in his 



