Christmas Eve in a Punt. 215 



innocent of tale-bearing and other amusements of the genus 

 sneak, and he was a most lovable brother and son. But 

 he seemed to have been born with a love for natural history. 

 In the eyes of the pater that was a high crime and mis- 

 demeanour, for the old man, a month before the lad was 

 born, had decided that, if he proved to be a boy, he should 

 be a clergyman, a canon, a dean, and a bishop. But 

 Harvey junior cared-for none of these things : gun and fish- 

 ing rod, butterfly net and botanist's box, were the things 

 which he promised from the earliest days to make the 

 articles of his life's creed; and Harvey Kype, of Kype 

 Manor, Esquire, therefore lived and died a dissatisfied man. 



Harvey junior, nevertheless, contrived to make a good 

 many excellent friends. J. B. Thornbury, B.A., was one of 

 them, and the very merriest Christmases of his life were 

 spent at Kype Manor, over which Harvey junior in due 

 time became titular lord. The young squire was a sterling 

 fellow ; even his father could not deny that. His master at 

 Harrow would account for the pupil's backwardness by 

 deploring his inordinate love for out-of-door studies, but 

 would take the edge off the complaint by admiration of the 

 lad's noble nature. His Cambridge tutors knew that the 

 youth who was scouring the fens when he ought to have 

 been poring over his books would never be a bright light of 

 the University ; but they would say there wasn't a fellow in 

 his college with less vice. Yes, he was a sterling English- 

 man ; and, after all, he was rich enough to survive any little 

 scholastic shortcomings. 



You grip a man's hand all the heartier after indulging in 

 some such mental preface as the foregoing. So gripped 

 Thornbury, B.A., on that memorable Christmas visit, to 

 which the reader is being gradually led up. Let his delight 

 at finding the train not more than two hours late ; at spying 



