The boy leaped the new X fence very cleverly, through the fork of the fingers, and stood before his father in a flame of indignation. Mr. Garnet, with that queer expression which the face of a middle–aged man wears when he recalls his boyhood, ere yet he begins to admire it, was looking at his own young life with a contemplative terror. He was saying to himself, “What cheek this boy has got”! and he was feeling all the while that he loved him the more for having it. “Hurrah, Bob, my boy; youʼre come just in time”. Mr. Garnet tried very hard to look as if he expected approval. Well enough all the time he knew that he had no chance of getting it. For Bob loved nature in any form, especially as expressed in the noble eloquence of a tree. And now he saw why he had been sent to the village on a trifling errand that morning. “Just in time for what, sir”? Bobʼs indignation waxed yet more. That his father should dare to chaff him! “Just in time to tell us all about these wonderful red–combed fungi. What do you call them—some long name, as wonderful as themselves”? Bob kicked them aside contemptuously. He could have told a long story about them, and things which men of thrice his age, who have neglected their mother, would be glad to listen to. Nature, desiring not revenge, has it in the credulous itch of the sons who have turned their backs on her. “Oh, father”, said Bob, with the tears in his eyes; “father, you canʼt have known that three purple emperors came to this oak, and sat upon the top of it, every morning for nearly a week, in the middle of July. And it was the most handsomest thirty–year oak till you come right to Brockenhurst bridge”. “Most handsomest, Bob”! cried Mr. Garnet, glad to lay hold of anything; “come along with me, my son; I must see to your education”.