The next step was to speak to the lad himself and discover the bent of his tastes. It would be hard to say which of the boys was most pleased at the prospect thus held out—David or Bertie. The Squire was a good deal amused by the animation of his little adopted son, and was pleased at David’s visible gratitude and eagerness. A few questions soon elicited the fact that the farm attracted him more than the garden. He had a great love for all live animals, and had been more or less used to cows and pigs all his life, having often been employed by one or another of the village folks to look after their beasts when they themselves were too busy to do so. So David was promoted to be a cow-boy at the Manor Farm, and greatly did both he and Bertie rejoice in the new dignity thus conferred upon him. He had a certain number of cows to milk and look after, and the favorite Alderney was amongst these. Bertie began now to haunt the farm like a little “Squire born,” as the men used to say among themselves: “For all the world like poor Master Tom,” the elder laborers would add. And they all looked kindly upon the little boy, who on his side always spoke nicely and courteously to every one of the people, and they sometimes said amongst themselves that if Master Bertie succeeded in his day as Squire of Arlingham, there would be no fear but that the old traditions would be kept up. He was not the sort to let them die out. So Bertie went about very much as if he had been born and bred upon the place. He learned to milk the cows and to understand their ways. He had his own chickens and turkeys, and was fattening one of the latter with untiring assiduity for the Squire’s Christmas dinner. He could talk quite gravely and knowingly about the price of corn or the quality of hay, and modelled himself in all things upon the Squire in a way that often provoked a smile. He was very happy in those days—happier than he had once believed it possible for him to be. The forgotten past did not haunt him with vague, fleeting images and illusive dreams. The present was full of satisfaction and pleasure, and amid its many and vivid interests he never felt that blank sense of emptiness that had once so weighed upon his spirit. Dr. Lighton began to shake his head when questioned now as to the probability of the vanished past ever returning to him. “It may do still,” he would say: “the sight of a familiar face or a place that he has known might bring it all back in a flood; but he is so young that a few years of this life may cause actual forgetfulness, irrespective of the original injury, and he may never be able to recall the past at all. If he were older, the chances would be much greater; as things stand now, I confess I am doubtful.”