But he did not know the use of a rifle.  He had all sorts of lures for the creatures he wanted to tame, but no ways of killing them.  For why should he kill them?  There was always food enough; he was seldom hungry, and these were his friends.  He liked to look them in the eyes; he liked to win them to him, soothe their fears if they had any, and then watch their pretty joy when their liberty was regained.  And how could he have done this if their blood had been upon his hands?  How could he have quieted the throbbing little hearts if murder had been in his own?

Thus Leo spent his time, delightfully and innocently.  If life were only a summer’s day!  But already winter was approaching.  Discontent was brewing on the estate.  Taxes were unpaid; tenants were grumbling at high rents; laborers were threatening and their wives complaining.

Frequently, in the very midst of composing a poem, Morpheus would be called to adjust a difficulty, settle a dispute, or revise an account.  This so disturbed his delicate nerves that illness, or the appearance of it, was sure to follow.  He would then take to his bed, refuse all but a little spiced wine, allowing no coarse food to pass his lips, and strive to remember the beautiful words of which he had intended to make verses; but, alas! the words had flown, as well as the ideas which had suggested them, like so many giddy little butterflies.

CHAPTER II

The monastery had been a grand old pile in its day; it was not one simple building, but a cluster of habitations which had grown with the growth and resources of the order which founded it.  Like all feudal structures it had its means of defence—­its moat and drawbridge, its tower of observation, and in its heavy gates and thick walls loop-holes and embrasures for weapons.

But grass grew now in the moat and birds nested in the embrasures, while Leo’s dogs bounded through chapel and refectory and cloister, parts of the latter being converted into a stable.

Many of the walls had tumbled in hopeless confusion, but those of the buildings yet in use had carved buttresses and mullioned windows, on which much skill had been displayed.

Leo knew, or thought he knew, every nook and cranny of his home, for when it rained, or heavy fogs hung threateningly about, his rambles were confined to the various quarters of the monastery.

On such days the stone floors and bare walls were very inhospitable, but he would sometimes find a new passage to loiter in or a window-ledge to loll over and look from as he watched the rain drip from the carved nose of an ugly old monk whose head adorned the water-spout.

I don’t know whether it ever occurred to Leo that this world is a busy one.  The very persistence of the pouring rain might have suggested it, as well as the beehives down in the kitchen court, where some of his many friends were storing their winter provision, for bees as well as birds were familiar to him; but he had the true Lazybones instinct of not following a thought too far, and so he looked and lolled and yawned, wishing for fine weather, for a new lining to his ragged old coat, or soles to his slipshod shoes, but never once supposing that any effort of his own could gain them.