Buch lesen: «Wild Adventures in Wild Places»

Chapter One
Part I – The Moors and Fens of England
In the Depths of the Forest – Frank and his Toad – A Day with the Hounds – The Furies’ Leap – “That Fox was my Fate.”

There is no doubt at all that when young Frank Willoughby brought out his book with him, and seated himself on the trunk of the old fallen tree, he meant to read it; but this intention had soon been abandoned, and, at the moment our tale commences, the book lay on the grass at his feet, and Frank was dreaming. He was not asleep, not a bit of it; his eyes were as wide open as yours or mine are at this moment; but there was a far-away look in them, and you could tell by the cloud that seemed to hang on his lowered brow that his thoughts were none of the pleasantest. He was not alone, at least not quite, for, not a yard away from his feet, there sat gazing up into his face – why, what do you think? A great toad! Do not start; men in solitude have taken up with stranger companions than this. And Frank was solitary, or at least he conceived himself to be so; and day after day he left his home on the borders of the great forest of Epping, and wandered down here into the depths of the wood, and seated himself idly on that log as we see him now. The toad had come to know him, and he to know the toad. He even brought crumbs for him, which the batrachian never failed to discuss, and seemed to enjoy. So the two took a kindly interest in each other’s welfare.

On this particular forenoon the summer sun was very bright; it shimmered down through the trees like a shower of gold, it glittered on the grass-stems, it brightened the petals of the wild flowers, and burnished the backs of myriads of beetles, as they opened their cloaks and tried to fly in it. No wonder that on this glorious morning the birds sang in every tree, and that the happy hum of insect life was everywhere around.

“Well, old gentleman,” said Frank at last, addressing the toad, “you are like myself, I think; you are not over happy.”

“Pooh!” the toad seemed to reply. “I’m enjoying the sunshine and the free, fresh air, ain’t I? My house isn’t many yards round the corner. I’m a jolly old bachelor, that’s what I am, and there’s no life like it. No, I’m not unhappy, if you are. Pooh!”

“Heigho!” sighed Frank.

But list! There is some one singing, some one hidden at present by the trees, but evidently coming nearer and nearer to where Frank is sitting – a rich, mellow, manly voice; and the song comes directly from the heart, that you can easily tell, and from a gladsome heart, too, and one in unison with the freshness and brightness to be seen on every hand —

 
“I wish I were as I have been,
Hunting the hart in forests green.
With bended bow and bloodhound free;
For that’s the life that’s meet for me.”
 

Next moment, brushing the boughs aside, a tall, handsome young man of some five-and-twenty years appeared upon the scene. Brown he was as to beard and whiskers, bronzed as to cheeks and brow, and clear in eye as a little child.

“Why, Chisholm!” cried Frank, starting up and grasping his friend’s extended hand.

“Why, Frank!” cried Chisholm, “you terrible old recluse; and so I have found you at last, have I? Fairly ferreted you out. Sit down, old man, and give an account of yourself.”

“Well, you see,” said Willoughby, “I – I want to go up for my degree, and I – the fact is I’ve been reading.”

“Ha, ha, ha!” roared Chisholm, laughing till the forest rang again. “Been reading, have you?” As he spoke he kicked the book that lay on the grass. “Been reading Byron – ha, ha, ha! I do believe the boy’s in love.”

Young Frank turned red all over.

“Why, how do you know?” he said, “and how did you find me out, here in the forest? Chisholm, you’re a wizard, or something worse.”

“Been to your father’s house, dear boy,” replied Chisholm, explaining. “Splendid fellow, your father, by the way. Enjoyed some rare sport and fun – but missed you sadly, you may be sure; but your father told me everything. ‘My young rascal,’ – these are his very words, Frank – ‘my young rascal,’ he said, ‘has fallen in love, and wants to marry right away; of course I couldn’t give my consent, because he is only a boy, you know, so he went into a pet, and has taken lodgings somewhere on the borders of Epping Forest, under the pretence of reading.’ And that, Frank, was the only clue to your whereabouts that I could get; but you see I’ve found you, my boy. And now tell me all about it.”

“A most modest request, I do declare,” said Frank, with a smile; “but never mind, I never did have a secret from you, and it may do me good to unburden my mind.”

“That it will,” said Chisholm; “but before you begin just pitch Byron at that ugly toad there, will you?”

“That I certainly won’t; he has been my only companion for weeks.”

“Well, well, well,” said Chisholm, “buried in the depths of Epping Forest, his only companion a toad, the once gay and jolly Frank Willoughby. Why you must be deeply in love.”

“I am, and that is a fact, and if you only saw the object of my affections, I do not think you would wonder much. She is – ”

“Now Frank, dear boy,” Chisholm said, “I must apologise for interrupting you; but pray do not begin to dilate on the charms of your fair enslaver. I know she must be everything that is good and beautiful, else she never could have captivated you. Just tell me how it happened, and where it happened.”

“It happened down in Wales,” replied Frank, “that is where it happened; but the day, Chisholm, that was big with my fate, was a day with the hounds. You know how fond I am of hunting, don’t you?”

“I know,” said Chisholm, laughing, “that there used not to be a better man than yourself, Frank, in the field; that you crossed the very stiffest country at the very heels of the hounds, and though you often said you didn’t like to see a poor fox broken up, you managed, nevertheless, to be always in at the death. That is what you used to be, my boy. What you are now may be quite another thing, since a lady has come to be woven up in the web of your history. Remember the story of Hercules, Frank.”

“Oh! bother Hercules,” cried Frank impatiently; “pray let me get on with my own story.”

“Heave round then,” said Chisholm.

“Well, then, when I arrived this year, early in spring, back from my little trip to Malta, I brought with me a letter of introduction to General Lyell, of Penmawhr Castle, in Brecknockshire. He keeps a nice little pack of smallish foxhounds – oh! such rare ones for a run – they can puzzle out the coldest scent, and when they find, they follow in such beautiful form, that it seems to me you could cover the pack with the mainsail of my father’s yacht.”

“Go on,” cried Chisholm, “you’re warming to your subject; there’s life in you yet.”

“You may be sure,” continued Frank, “that I did not take long to forward my letter, and in due course an invitation followed. ‘Hounds meet at the Three Cross Roads,’ ran the epistle, ‘on Tuesday, the 9th. Come and spend the Easter holidays with us, and take us as you find us.’ There were three clear days before the 9th, but my impatience would not let me wait. I sent Bob, my man, down with my mare the next morning, and followed on the same evening. My man had chosen the best inn in the village, for I meant to meet the general for the first time with the hounds, and show him what sort of metal my mare and I were made of.

“Next morning, to my sorrow, the ground was hard with frost, the sky clear and blue, and the wind blowing high from the east. The day after there was no improvement, and my heart sank to zero; but my spirits rose that day, because down went the glass, and the wind veered round to about a south and by west. The sunset was a gorgeous one, and long after the god of day had sunk behind the hills, crimson clouds lying along in a sky of palest, purest yellow, shading off into the blue dome above, where bright stars shone, gave token of a beautiful to-morrow. I was up betimes, you may be certain, and found to my joy that a little rain had fallen. I ate a huntsman’s breakfast, and then dressed. I donned a new coat of scarlet – in fact, it was so new that I felt ashamed of it, and had half a mind to make Bob splash it a bit with mud. It was well splashed before night, I can tell you.

“The meet wasn’t a large one, but men and hounds and horses all looked as if they had plenty of go in them, and they required it too. The country is a rough, rolling one, and there is no want of stone fences; so you need pith and pluck if you’d keep the hounds in view.

“Not knowing any one, I kept aloof for a time until they drew a cover or two, until the mellow music of the hounds, mingling with the cheering notes of the huntsman’s horn, told me they had found, and that the run had commenced. Across country, straight almost as the crow could fly, for ten miles, that old fox led us. Then he changed course near a plantation, and took us five miles in another direction. Then, doubling round, he took us almost straight away back, so that the stragglers once more had a chance of joining the hunt. But the terribly rough state of the country told on all but the best of us, and if we were few in number to start, we were still less numerous when the fox finally took to earth and refused to show again. A fine old gentlemanly fox, I can assure you, who had apparently enjoyed the run as much as any of us, and having done so, bade us good-morning and retired.

“I had made acquaintance with the general, and we were laughing and talking together when he suddenly started and turned pale.

“‘Great heavens!’ he cried, ‘it is Eenie, my daughter. Black Bess, her mare, has bolted with her, and is heading straight for the Furies’ Leap. She is lost! she is lost!’

“I hardly heard the last word. I had struck the spurs into my own good mare, and was off like a meteor. I could see the lady’s terrible danger. She was heading for an awful precipice. I saw I might intercept her if I crossed her bows, as a sailor would say. It was a ride for life – we near each other, riding swift as arrows. Onward she comes – onwards I dash, and we are barely fifty yards from the Furies’ Leap, when our horses come into collision with fearful force.

“I remember nothing more until I open my eyes and find myself in bed, powerless to move. But a beautiful young girl rose from a seat near the window, and, approaching the bed, gave me to drink, but enjoined me to be still. This was Miss Lyell; she nursed me back to life, and the next few weeks seemed all one happy dream.”

“She loves you?”

“She does, and has promised never to be another’s.”

“And she’ll be yours, Frank, my boy. Come, I’ve news to give you. Neither your father nor her father object, except on the score of your youth and hers, and your inexperience of the world. Now, depend upon it, Frank, what your father advises is best. He wants you to spend your next few years in travelling.”

“And I will,” cried Frank; “I’ll seek adventures and dangers in every part of the globe – among the snows of the north, amidst the jungles of India, in Afric’s bush, and the wild plain-lands of far distant Australia. I care not if I am killed; life without my Eenie is not worth having.”

“Bravo! Frank,” cried Chisholm, jumping up and shaking him by the hand. “I’ll go with you; and my friend, Fred Freeman, will go too. There’s luck in odd numbers. But don’t talk about being killed; it is time that we want to kill, and all the wild beasts we can draw a bead upon.”

Frank left the gloomy forest a happier man than he had entered it. He was laughing right merrily too.

“Bless that dear old fox, though,” he was saying; “may he always be jolly and fat and frolicsome ’mid summer’s sunshine or winter’s snow. That fox was my fate.”

Chapter Two
Frank undergoes the Process of “Hardening Off” – Camp-life on the Banks of the Thames – A Week among Rabbits – “’Ware Hare.”

There was something about Fred Freeman which is difficult to describe, but which caused everybody to like him. He had the manners of a high-bred English gentleman, but that did not, of course, constitute the something that made him a favourite, because bon ton, manners are happily not rare. However, there’s no harm in my trying to describe him to you, because he is one of our three heroes. Fred wasn’t much, if any, above the middle height; he had a short dark beard and moustache – they were not black, however. He was very regular in features – handsome, in fact, handsome when he was in his quiet moods, which he very frequently was, and even more so when merry, for then he was simply all sunshine, and it made you laugh to look at him. He was very unobtrusive. He was a capital shot, and a daring hunter and sportsman, but never boasted about his own doings. His constitution was as tough as india-rubber, and as hard as nails. If there be anything wanting in this description, the reader must supply it himself. Anyhow, Fred was a genuine good fellow. He had hitherto travelled a good deal, sport-intent, chiefly on the Continent; but he jumped at the proposal to go round the world on “a big shoot,” as he called it.

Freeman was a bachelor, and said he would always remain so; Chisholm O’Grahame was also a bachelor. Perhaps he was seen to the best advantage when his foot was on his native heath, and a covey of grouse ahead of him. He was one of the so-called “lucky dogs” of this world. On the death of an uncle, he would come into a fine old Highland estate. Meanwhile he had nothing to do, and plenty of time to do it in. After his visit to Frank, he went back to see Frank’s father, who was delighted at the success of his mission.

“Ah,” said he, “I’m so pleased! And so you must take the young dog off, and show him the world. But look here, he’s in your charge, mind you; and if you take my advice, you’ll show him some shooting in England before you go abroad. He’s only a hot-house plant as yet; he wants hardening off.”

Chisholm laughed. “I’ll harden him off,” he said.

And so the hardening-off process commenced at once. Frank was not sorry, after all, to leave the gloom of Epping Forest, and commence a sportsman’s life in earnest. The plan adopted by Chisholm and his friend, Fred, to “break young Frank in, and to harden him off,” was, I think, a good one. They were to travel a good deal in England, be here to-day and away to-morrow, and visit any of the fens or moors or shores where there was the chance of a week or two of good shooting.

That was one part of the plan. The other was that they were, as Fred called it, “to forswear civilisation, and to live in tents;” in other words, to do a deal of camping out, instead of living in hotels or houses of any kind.

“How do you think you will like that kind of thing?” asked Chisholm.

“Oh, I think it will be perfectly delightful,” said Frank, enthusiastically.

“But Frank is a bit of a shot, isn’t he?” asked Fred.

“Always during vacation times,” said Frank, speaking for himself. “I used to potter around my father’s property. I have done so ever since I was a boy.”

“Ha! ha!” laughed Chisholm. “Why, you’re only a boy yet.”

“All stuff,” said Frank stoutly. “I’ll be twenty next birthday.”

“Well, well,” said Chisholm; “but tell Fred what you used to shoot.”

“Oh, anything about the farms, you know, bar the song-birds; father thought it cruel to kill them. But there were rats, such lots of rats, and sometimes a hawk or a rabbit, or even a hare. Then there were the wild pigeons – wary beggars they are, too; I used to wait for them under the fir-trees.”

“What, and kill them sitting?” asked Fred.

“Well,” said Frank, “it isn’t sportsman-like, I know; but I could hardly ever get near them else. Then the young rooks were great fun in spring; and mind you, there is many a worse dish to set before a hungry man than rook-pie.”

“I believe you, lad,” said Fred.

“Well, I’ve shot stoats and weasels by the score; and I once shot a polecat, and another day an otter, and another day an owl.”

“Well, well, well,” cried Fred. “What bags you must have made, to be sure! Never mind, you’ve got the makings of a good sportsman in you. Chisholm and I will bring you out, never fear. Did you often go owl-shooting?”

“No,” replied Frank; “I only remember one owl, and I don’t know which of the two of us had the bigger fright – Ponto the pointer, or myself. I had killed nothing that day but one old rook, a few field-mice, and a snake or two, and we were coming home in the dusk, when some great bird flew heavily out of the ivy-covered old tree near the churchyard. ‘Down you come, whatever you are,’ says I; and bang! bang! went both barrels. He flew a goodly way, but finally fell; and off went Ponto, and off went I in search of him. Ponto was in a way, I can tell you; he wasn’t pointing half prettily. ‘Hoo! hoo! hoo!’ the owl was screaming. ‘Come a bit nearer, and out come both your eyes.’ ‘I’ll stand here, anyhow,’ Ponto seemed saying, ‘till master comes up.’ Well, Chisholm, when I came up and saw the creature, it looked so like one of the winged images you see on tombstones, that, troth, I thought I’d shot a cherub of some sort.”

“Well done, Frank,” cried Chisholm, laughing. “Now,” he continued, pulling a letter from his pocket, “How will this suit? It is from a farmer friend of mine in Berkshire, a rough and right sort of a fellow. He farms about five hundred acres close to the Thames. He invites us down for a rabbit shoot, shall we go?”

“Oh! by all means,” cried Frank.

“I’m ready,” said Fred quietly.

And that “rabbit shoot” began Frank Willoughby’s sporting adventures. They had a whole week of it, and very much they enjoyed it. Chestnut Farm was a dear old-fashioned, rustic, rumble-tumble of a place, with a rolling country all around it, and the river quietly meandering through its midst. They pitched their tent not far from the river; under canvas they lived and ate and slept. Fred Freeman was a capital cook; he built his fire of wood and hung his kettle-pot gipsy fashion on a tripod, and the curries and stews he used to turn out were quite delightful. The farmer and his wife would fain have had them to live in their hospitable dwelling, but being told that Frank was undergoing the process of hardening off and general tuition in camp and sporting life, the good farmer looked at the young man for a moment or two from top to bottom, just as if he had been a colt.

“Oh!” he said, with a grunt of satisfaction, “bein’ broke, is he? Well, a rare, fine, upstanding one he be. He’ll do.”

But the farmer’s wife sent to the tent every day the freshest of butter and sweetest of creamy milk, with eggs that never had time to get cool, and so, on the whole, they were very well off.

It was deliciously comfortable, so thought Frank, this camping out. His bed was a hammock, and, though there were at first some things he looked upon as drawbacks, he soon got used to them. If a heavy shower came on it made noise enough to waken the seven sleepers, and large drops used to ooze in through the canvas. The gnats’ bites were hard to put up with, but Chisholm comforted him by bidding him “just wait until he went to India and had a touch of the jungle bugs.” Early to bed and early to rise was our heroes’ motto; early to bed to calm and dreamless slumber, such as your dwellers within brick walls never know; early to rise to have a header in the river, and to return to breakfast as fresh as a jack; early to rise to get the lines and punt clear and ready for a few hours’ fishing; early to rise if only to hear the birds singing, to watch the squirrels skipping about aloft among the trees, or to observe the thousand-and-one queer ways of the tiny dwellers by the river side, friends in fur and friends in feather. Why, in one week Frank felt himself growing quite a naturalist.

They had come down to shoot rabbits, but it must not be supposed that this was all the sport they had down by the charming river; for many wild-fowl fell to Frank’s gun, and he procured a good many beautiful specimens of birds, which he took the pains to skin and preserve for the purpose of having them stuffed. A good deal of their time was spent in fishing. They did not catch a Thames salmon, it is true, and grayling were not in season; but there were trout and perch and jack in abundance, and one day, greatly to his joy, Frank landed a lordly pike.

“I must tell you this, Mr O’Grahame and gen’l’m’n all,” said the farmer to our friends on the very first day of their arrival, “I have an order to kill five hundred to seven hundred rabbits, so there is plenty of sport for you all, and ’specially for the young ’un that’s bein’ broke; but mind, gen’l’m’n, ’ware hare, that’s wot I says, ’ware hare. My man’ll go with ye and see it is all right like, and my boys will carry the bags.”

“Whatever does he mean by ‘’ware hare’?” asked Frank afterwards.

“Why, that we mustn’t shoot a hare on any account,” replied Chisholm; “rabbits and nothing but rabbits.”

“Gearge,” the farmer’s man, went with them every day to help to carry the rabbits our sportsmen killed. On the other hand, there were boys in the rear to help Gearge. Besides Gearge and the boys, there were two dogs – a beautiful setter and a pointer, but good useful country dogs – dogs that did not think it beneath their dignity to retrieve as well as set and point. The most curious part of the whole business to young Frank, was the fact that these dogs knew a hare from a rabbit at first sight far better than he did. Well, to a young sportsman, to see a beautiful hare pass within easy shooting distance was a great temptation to fire. Frank had his doubts whether Gearge always knew one from the other, or t’other from which, because, no matter what it was, if Gearge saw only a bit of brown fur flitting from one bush to another, he sang out in stentorian tones, “’Ware hare.”

So it was “’Ware hare” all day long with Gearge. But once Frank did make a mistake, or his gun did, for the latter seemed to rise to his shoulder of its own accord, and next moment a hare was dead.

The pointer brought it and laid it solemnly down at Frank’s feet, and looked up into his face.

“See what you’ve done,” he seemed to say; “here is a pretty kettle of fish. What do you think of yourself? and how do you feel?”

And when Gearge came up and saw the result of the accident, his red, round face, which, as a rule, was wreathed in smiles, got long, and his jaw fell, while his eyes seemed wanting to jump out of their sockets.

“Well, I never?” said Gearge, rubbing the palms of his hands nervously in his cow-gown, “and I warned ye sir, too.”

“Bag him,” said Frank, “and never mind.”

“Bag ’im!” cried Gearge, aghast. “Bag he, bag a hare! No, sir, not if I knows it. Master’d give me the sack myself. We’ll leave ’im to the blue-bottles and the beetles; but oh! sir, in future, ’ware hare.”

“You seem fond of hare-shooting,” said Fred that evening, when Frank told him his adventure, or rather misadventure. “Why, if you had been where I was last winter you would have had hare-shooting to your heart’s content.”

“Beaters was it you had?” asked Chisholm.

“Yes, we had no dogs; but good sport, mind you – right and left sometimes, and one to each barrel if you only chose to hold straight.”

About the third morning, when Gearge came to the tent as usual, his face seemed rounder and redder than ever; his eyes, too, were so wreathed in smile-begotten wrinkles that they had almost disappeared. It was moreover observed that the pockets of his cow-gown were more bulky than usual.

“We’ll have a rare lark to-day,” said Gearge, pulling out first one polecat ferret and then another.

And so they had; for what with working the banks all the morning and shooting the rabbits in the open that succeeded in running the blockade, they had wonderful bags. Though Frank didn’t say much, he was glad to get back to the tent; his feet were swollen, and he could hardly carry his gun. He was certainly “bein’ broke” with a vengeance.