"It was during his first term, in very early spring, that Leroux, accompanied by a fellow-pupil, took a wood-owl's eggs from a hollow ash-tree in the deserted park, and he subsequently spent many of his half-holidays birds'-nesting all over the neglected estate. He never met a keeper, nor, indeed, anyone else to question his right to be there, not even in the empty stables or in the thick shrubberies and weed-grown plots of ground near the great house which had once been gardens. There were two small lakes in the park, and in one of them during the autumn and winter months Leroux and one or two of his more adventurous fellow-students used to set 'trimmers,' on which they caught a good many pike, some of quite a good size, and now and again they shot a moorhen with a saloon pistol which belonged to a boy named Short. "Whatever the boys caught or shot was taken to a certain cottage in the village, the residence of an old woman who was a very clever cook, and at this cottage Leroux and his friends enjoyed many a good meal of baked pike stuffed with the orthodox 'pudding,' and even found the moorhens, which the old woman skinned before cooking, very palatable. "Belton being in the centre of a noted hunting-country, the hounds sometimes passed in full cry within sight of the Rectory, and whenever this happened the Rector's pupils were allowed by an old-established custom, even if they were in the middle of a lesson, to throw down their books and join in the run. "During the year he spent at the Rectory Leroux worked hard at his lessons, and made good progress in Greek as well as in all other subjects which he had to get up, in view of the approaching entrance examination to the great Midland school. Games were neglected at this period, as there were not enough pupils at the Rectory to make up two sides either at football or cricket, but for Leroux and his fellow-pupils of similar tastes, the old squire's deserted estate formed a most glorious playground in which they found a fine field for the exercise and development of the primitive instincts which had come down to them from their distant ancestors of palaeolithic times. The only pranks that Leroux indulged in during his year at Belton were all connected with the old church of which Mr. Darnell was the incumbent, and at which his pupils were obliged to attend the two services held every Sunday. As in many of the old churches in the remote districts of Northamptonshire at that time, there was no organ, but the hymns were sung to an accompaniment of flute, violin and 'cello, the performers on these instruments being seated in a kind of minstrels' gallery at the end of the church facing the pulpit.