will be home then and we're going to move. When I'm older I'm to have a pony. You haven't got a pony, have you?"
Richard shook his head, and the other pursued, "Rabbits?"
Again Richard shook his head and said no and then Boney cried, "I say, come and see mine. It isn't far." At first Richard hesitated, and then allowed himself to be led across the road to a path by the river side, over the hanging bridge that swayed, stooped, and recovered as they passed it, and then up between steep hot banks of dustless herbs. Twenty minutes brought them to a white gate, a short avenue of ragged elms, a barn with a gilded vane, another gate, and a courtyard which seemed to Richard a wonderful place for roller skates—large smooth flags with smaller flags for border, and grass growing at the edges. He had never been to the house before and looked round with a little envy at the spacious yard and the stone casements deep in the thick wall.
"Look at the date," said Boney, pointing to the 1617 cut over the doorway, with a faint A. M. traced in the greening stone. "Year after Shakespeare's death—always remember that now," he added. "Nobody at home, I expect, unless it's Myra."
Boney looked round before opening a heavy door: there wasn't a maid in sight; then with a furtive "Wait!" he entered and in a moment joined Richard with a canister of grain. "They won't let me feed them before feeding time," he explained, and laughed as they went under an arch and along a tiled path, soft with tarnishing mosses, into an orchard. The sun seemed cool under the trees, and as the wind shook the small pears and apples overhead, and bent the raspberry canes, Richard shivered as though the wind touched his branches also.
In a corner of the orchard the rabbit hutches hung, just beneath the glossy ivy. Boney thrust the canister into Richard’s hands, squeezed his head and shoulders into a door, and dragged out one by one the quivering white bodies. The sleek coats glistened in the sun as Boney held the quick-breathing startled creatures by the ears and felt the fatness of their bellies. "No, no one ever touches them, Clyne," said Boney, and refused to let Richard do more than stroke them and feel the silk of their ears. Suddenly a voice surprised the boys—"What on earth are you doing, Cassy?"
Richard was the first to turn and saw a girl of fifteen coming near over the grassy path, dressed in something richly red. He
