Page:Cuthbert Bede--Little Mr Bouncer and Tales of College Life.djvu/169

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
AND HIS FRIEND VERDANT GREEN.
149

CHAPTER XXI.


LITTLE MR. BOUNCER JOINS IN A VERY PECULIAR PIC-NIC.


WAKING up the next morning, and reviewing the events of the preceding day, little Mr. Bouncer was gratified to find that the bright June sun was shining down upon him at the Woodlands, and was not streaming into a bedroom occupied by him in Dr. Dustacre's house. During the day, he and his friend Mr. Smalls had a gallop over the Squire's estate, accompanied by Huz and Buz, who enjoyed themselves with a famous rat-hunt in the farmyard of one of the Squire's tenants, where Mr. Smalls and Mr. Bouncer put up their horses, stopped to have a glass of ale and a smoke, and to make a critical survey of certain fat oxen and pigs that were expected to cover themselves with glory and prize medals at the next meeting of the County Agricultural Society. Then they cantered back again to the Woodlands, across fields and through woods and plantations, where Huz and Buz were temporarily demoralised by the sudden up-springing of hares and the scuttling of rabbits in and