It was June, the 'leafy month': Nature was dressed out in her newest and freshest of robes, and the homes of her feathered children were peopled with tiny birdlings, all agape with hunger and curiosity.

Through the shady Brattlesby Woods, and along the hedgerows, stealing softly, stepping cautiously, crept Jerry Blunt, with his empty sleeve flapping against his right side, and as he went he peered here and there where leaves grew thickest. In his wake followed, on tip-toe, Alick Carnegy and Ned Dempster, all three intent on seeking for young bullfinches.

When Jerry Blunt ran away to sea from his native village, Northbourne, with his soul athirst for adventure, his body was furnished with as many limbs as other folk. Little did he dream that the golden future he panted to grasp would make of him a cripple. As time went by, and he became a full-grown man, Jerry had his fill of hairbreadth escapes, his last exploit of all being to join an enterprising American expedition got up in the name of science to find the North Pole. This venture, one of many, proved the most unfortunate of all for Jerry Blunt. Through his own heedless carelessness in refusing to listen to the advice of his experienced betters, he neglected a severe frost-bite; in consequence, he lost his arm, which had to be amputated by the ship's surgeon. After this catastrophe, Jerry as a man on that expedition was worth little or nothing. So he returned, in course of time, to his native place, 'like a bad shilling,' said Northbourne—and with an empty coat-sleeve.

'The right arm, too, worse luck!' was all the sympathy he got, and Jerry, therefore, began to look round for himself. He knew it was imperative on him to do something for a living to help out his good old mother's feeble efforts, and to keep a roof over their two heads. He set his wits to work to puzzle out a way. Without a right arm he was of little or no use in the fishing-boats, which constituted the sole trade of Northbourne. So fishing was out of the question.

Now people don't go the length of Franz Josef Land without picking up a few odds and ends of information. Therefore it was not long before Jerry did hit upon a trade, and it was one thoroughly to his mind. From his boyhood he had been a passionate lover of the open, and Mother Nature had shared her secrets with him in no niggard fashion.

He was tolerably well acquainted with the ways and the haunts of his winged neighbours, and could, perhaps, have 'given points' to many a scientifically educated naturalist. And it came to pass that he bethought himself of certain valuable hints he had got anent the artificial training of the inhabitants of the air from an astute old Frenchman, one of those curiosities to be met with but rarely, whose minds are human museums—treasure-houses in which are stored scraps of varied knowledge.

'You may keep school, my lad,' dryly commented his mother when she had carefully digested Jerry's plan, 'but you won't find it easy to keep scholars.'

'Well, you'll see!' was the quietly spoken prediction; for Jerry Blunt had fully determined to be a bird-trainer, and the pupils he was in search of were young bullfinches.

Of course when this remarkable intention became known among the fisher-folk it was derisively condemned by the elders. On the other hand, Jerry's younger neighbours, particularly Ned Dempster, were immediately fired with an eager desire to assist him in the novel enterprise. Ned's enthusiasm naturally infected both the Carnegy boys; they also would fain become bird-trainers on the spot, lacking all knowledge of the matter though they, naturally, did. With the frenzy that possesses boys in regard to every absolutely new amusement, the two Carnegys slept, ate, drank, and, as it were, breathed to the tune of one thought—the determination that they also would be bird-teachers.

This all-powerful, novel freak was at the bottom of the furious meeting at the Bunk. Philip Price, the tutor, sympathising fully with the ardent pursuits of boyhood, had been over-indulgent in the matter of granting whole Wednesdays, instead of half-holidays. Any excuse sufficed. Skating on inland ponds in the winter; fishing in the bay, as the year wore on; and, latterly, digging for primrose or fern roots in Brattlesby Woods. But Philip Price was beginning to find out by results that too much play and not enough work was making dull scholars of his pupils, and he had determined to stand out firmly against any more indulgences in the future. It was high time that Alick and Geoff should realise that 'life is real, life is earnest'; put their shoulders to the wheel they must and should. The boys knew this, and in their hearts admitted the determination to be a just one enough. But the entrancing novelty of Jerry Blunt's proposed trade carried them away; they were extravagantly crazed to join in it, by fair means or by foul. Hence the outburst of rebellion, and Alick's stubborn refusal to sue for pardon.

When Wednesday morning arrived, he set off in company with Jerry and Ned before the early sun had dried the dew on the grass.

As they trudged at Jerry's heels he had explained to them, before entering the woods, the mode of operation to be carried out. In order to pipe tunes as bullfinches so marvellously do, they have to go through a period of training, and downright severe training the hapless mites find it. But, as Jerry tersely put it to his hearers, one of whom winced secretly, what is training but 'keeping the body under subjection'—a period of toilsome effort that any degree of perfection necessitates?

Taken from the nest at the age, say, of ten days or so—the most suitable to begin operations—the callow young things are carefully tended by one person solely, who accustoms the birds to himself, the sound of his voice and his cautiously tender touch, before he attempts anything approaching to training.

This treatment Jerry Blunt intended to carry out with his timid pupils, of which he gathered a goodly number, with the assistance of Ned and Alick, long before sunset came round again. The trainer explained his proposed code of education still more fully as he and the hungry boys sat enjoying the picnic repast they had brought with them. Alick, whose spirits were at their highest, thought it a delightful experience to be eating cold chunks of pork and dry bread, which each guest carved for himself with a clasp-knife. Infinitely superior was this delightfully natural, manly style of feeding, than all the rubbishy artificial formality of the decently appointed meals served at the Bunk, thought he scornfully. The only drawback to his sense of exhilarating pride was the fact that Geoff was not a witness of his emancipation from society rules.

'Do you actually mean to tell us, Jerry, that in time you will be able to teach those wretched young shavers to whistle real, proper tunes?' Alick asked presently, pointing with his knife, in careful imitation of the manners and customs of his company, to the shivery mites, each wrapped in a wisp of cotton-wool, which thoughtful Jerry had not forgotten to bring for the purpose of protecting the birdlings on their debut into the world out of their warm nest-homes.

'Yes; you bide a wee, Muster Alick!' rejoined Jerry confidently, if indistinctly, seeing his mouth was full at the moment. 'Before the summer's out I'll engage that my scholards will sing "The Blue Bells of Scotland" without a single false note! And when they do, I'll get a good price for each on 'em from a chap I knows of in London, who trades in singin' birds, and is always ready to buy 'em. But I was a-goin' to say, Muster Alick, that I'll want some help from you boys. I can't do the whole thing single-handed. I shall have to board out the birds, after a bit; so there will be plenty of work for each of you, if so be you're agreeable.'

Of course the boys were more than ready with their promises of help in the labour of teaching, as soon as they understood how it was to be set about.

'You will have to put us up to the trick first; how it's to be done, you know, Jerry,' said Alick.

'All right, muster! But there's no trick in the matter, and no secret, 'cept it be kindness and firmness. Them's the two great rulin' powers with dumb animals, same's with we humans. 'Tain't no good tryin' to train a child by lettin' him do jes' whatever he pleases. You wouldn't call that training, now, would you? Say!' Jerry looked up from the pipe he was filling to put the question, with so............