In spring he was bird's nesting; in summer he was lying on the grass, or bathing in the river; in autumn he was nutting, and, I am sorry to say, was sometimes guilty of making an inroad on a neighbour's orchard; and in winter he was engaged in sliding on the ice, hunting squirrels, or some other diversion. Both his mother and Mr. Hooker lamented this, and in the kindest manner endeavoured to make him sensible of the folly of his conduct. He received their admonitions in sullen silence; and instead of feeling, as he ought to have felt, that their advice proceeded from a regard for his welfare, seemed to think that it was meant to answer some object of their own. When he was just past seventeen, he unluckily struck up a close intimacy with a young man in the village, a few years older than himself. His name was William Atkins, but he was usually called Black Will. Atkins was a lively fellow, with a good deal of coarse humour. He was one of those men who neither fear God nor regard man, and who take pleasure in turning religion and every thing serious into ridicule. With him young Wildgoose passed many of his leisure hours; and sometimes on a Sunday evening they used to join a party of idlers at the Fighting Cocks, a lone public house, about a quarter of a mile from the village. Mrs. Wildgoose saw the intimacy which her son had formed with great pain, and repeatedly cautioned him against it. "Jack," she one day said to him, "I do wish from my heart that you would not keep company with that Will Atkins. I am sure no good can come of it." "Why, mother," answered Jack, "what harm is there in poor Will? He is a good-humoured fellow, that loves a joke; and, I'm sure, he's always very kind and friendly to me." "As pleasant as you may find him," replied his mother, "you know that he bears but a middling character." "Yes," said the son, "but I shall take care not to be hurt by that." "Don't be too sure," rejoined she; "the _Good Book_ tells us, that _evil communications corrupt good manners, that he that toucheth pitch shall be defiled therewith_, and that _the companion of fools shall be destroyed_." Jack never liked any thing approaching to a lecture; and sulkily saying, "I think, mother, I'm old enough now to judge for myself," left the house.