7O

A STIRRING TIME.

mw AL HAMMOND was particularly happy.
He was home for the Christmas holidays ;
and of that fact everybody in the house was
fully aware, from his father, a grave clergy-
man who loved peace and quietness, right
down to the venerable household cat, who
was well-nigh worried out of her wits with all his noise:and
commotion.

He had only been home three days; but in that short
time he had managed to get through a surprising amount of
mischief. On the first day of his holiday, he and the doctor’s
son, Matt Wilson, had gone to the Valley Woods for holly.
Both boys knew they were trespassing, for the woods were
the private property of the squire, who, for a certain special
reason, had caused notices to be posted on various trees near
the road, stating that the woods were dangerous, and that
trespassers would be prosecuted. The reason was simply that
some time previously shafts had been sunk in many parts of
the wood, where it had been supposed coal might be found.
The operations, however, had not been successful, and the
‘work was abandoned. Railings had been placed round the
shafts, but in course of time they had broken away; and the
squire, hearing that one or two people had had narrow escapes
through nearly tumbling into the old overgrown holes, had
forbidden any one to go into the wood. The boys knew this
well enough; but they went all the same—and came to grief.
Boy-like, they tried to find one of the shafts—and they found —
it sooner than they expected, for Hal tumbled over the edge,
and had he not managed to hold on to some rank grass till