The Black Tor: A Tale of the Reign of James the First by George Manville Fenn (best romance books of all time .txt) 📖

lambs, but sheep, had disappeared, and in the case of a miner and his wife, who lived some distance off, and who had been away for a week to a wedding beyond the mountains, they returned to their solitary cottage to find that it had been entered in their absence, and completely stripped of everything movable, even to the bed, while the very cabbages in the garden had been torn up and carried away.

Mark had the news from the man himself, and he carried it to his father and sister, as he had carried Dummy Rugg’s rumour about the witches and their fire, which went out so suddenly on being seen.

“Humph!” said Sir Edward, smiling; “that looks as if the witches liked vegetables with their lamb and mutton. Stripped the cottage, and took the meal-tub too?”

“Everything, father,” said Mark.

“Then it’s time the men made a search, my boy,” said Sir Edward; “we must have a robber about. There is the whole explanation of the old women’s tales. Well, they will have to bestir themselves, and catch the thief.”

It was on that same morning that the news reached Cliff Castle, where similar stories had floated about witches and warlocks having taken possession of the shivering hills, where the slatey rocks were always falling, and forming what the country people called screes, which, at a distance, when wet and shiny, looked in the sunshine like cascades descending from on high.

“If it comes to any of our sheep being taken, we shall have to take to a hunt, Ralph,” Sir Morton had said. “The people like to have a witch or two to curdle their blood, but I’m not going to find them in sheep.”

It was a glorious morning, and the lad went into the courtyard with his sister to have a look at her new fad, as Nick Garth called it, that is to say, the well-plastered pool with its surrounding of rock-work, in which various plants were beginning to flourish and reflect themselves in the crystal water with which the little pond was filled.

“Capital!” cried Ralph; “but you ought to have a few fish in it. They’d look well.”

“That is just what I wanted you to say, sir,” cried Minnie, clapping her hands; “and if you hadn’t been such a solemn, serious brother, you would have taken your rod and line, and caught me a few.”

“Well, I will,” said the lad eagerly; “and some for a fry as well. The little ones will be best for you, and I’ll take a tin can for them, as well as a creel.”

An hour later, with a plentiful supply of caddis, caterpillars, and other tempting bait, and rod in hand, Ralph descended to the side of the stream. He was not long in following suit with old Master Rayburn as to his hose; and then stepping into the water, he began to wade upstream, where it was shallow, going on to the bank where it grew deep.

But the day was too bright and the water too clear for his task. The fish saw him, and darted away, and when his keen eyes followed them to their lair, they refused to be tempted out by any bait he threw.

“Just my luck when I come fishing,” muttered Ralph, as he waded slowly on, picking his way among the stones. “There’s always something wrong; either it’s too hot, or it’s too cold, or there’s too much water, or there isn’t enough, or the wind’s somewhere in the wrong quarter, or I haven’t got the right bait; and so sure as I was to meet old Master Rayburn, picking flowers on the bank, he’d say: ‘Ah, you should have come yesterday, or last week, and then you’d have caught a fish at every throw.’

“Stupid work, fishing,” he said, half-aloud, when he had waded as far as he could without getting wet, for the water had suddenly deepened and curved round out of sight, all calm and still beneath the boughs shading it on either side. “Seems very easy, though, when you watch old Rayburn. He always knows where to throw.”

For the moment, he was ready to give up, but feeling that his sister would be disappointed if he went back empty-handed, he waded out, and taking a short cut across the horseshoe formed by the stream, he reached it again beyond the deeps, where it was possible to wade once more; and before entering the bubbling waters, he stood looking upward, thinking how beautiful it all was, with the flashing water gurgling and swirling round the great stones which dotted the bed. Every here and there the sides were glowing with patches of the deep golden, yellow globe-flower; a little farther on, there was a deeper spot with a patch of the great glistening leaves of the water-lily, not yet in bloom; and as he stepped down into the water, there was a flutter from a bird seated on a dead twig, and a flash of azure light gleamed over the river, as the disturbed kingfisher darted upstream, to be watched till it disappeared.

Flies danced up and down above the water, and every now and then one dropped on the surface, with its wings closed, and sailed downward like a tiny boat. Bees swept by with a humming, slumberous sound; and among the sedges at the sides, where the golden irises displayed their lovely blossoms, the thin-bodied dragon-flies, steel-blue or green, darted on transparent wing, pairs every now and then encountering fiercely with a faint rustling of wings, and battling for a few seconds, when one would dart away with the other in pursuit.

Ralph waded on, catching nothing; but the beauties of the place increased, and satisfied him so that he began to forget his mission, and paused now to listen to the soft coo of the wood-pigeon in the grove, to the quick sharp tah! of the jackdaws sailing about high up, where they nested in the bare face of the creviced cliffs. Then on and on again, in sunshine or in shade, for quite a couple of hours, fishing in a desultory way, but with not the slightest result. Then his luck turned.

He had been driven ashore several times by the deep water, but always returned to the bed of the river where it shallowed, for it was easier going than forcing his way amidst the stones, bushes, and trees at the side; and now, as he was wading up toward where the water came over a ridge in a cascade, a little shoal of half-a-dozen fish darted upward, and he followed them, with the water growing more and more shallow, till his pulses beat with satisfaction, for a little investigation showed him that he would be able to drive the slippery prey right into a broad stretch where the water was but an inch or two deep, and dotted everywhere with shoals that were nearly dry.

Fishing was out of the question in a place like that, so twisting his line round his rod, he used the latter as a walking-staff, and followed till the prey he sought were compelled to flap themselves along upon their sides; two trout on finding themselves in such straits leaping right on to one of the half-dried pebbly shoals. Here Ralph pounced upon one after the other, and transferred them to his creel, after first taking out his shoes and hose, which had been reclining there, at rest from their ordinary avocation of protecting his feet.

“Queer fishing,” muttered the lad; “but I’ve caught them. Now for you.”

This to the rest of the shoal, which he chased so perseveringly that he caught four more by driving them into the shallowest water, the two largest succeeding by desperate rushes in getting through the treacherous part, and disappearing in the deeps toward the cascade.

“All too big to go in the little can,” thought Ralph. “Never mind; they will make a fry. Perhaps I can catch some smaller ones the same way.”

He tied his shoes together by the strings, and fastened them to the strap of his creel, tucked his hose through his belt, and went ashore again, to make his way beyond the little cascade which fell musically over the rocks; and as he was going on by the dammed-up deeps, there was suddenly a rush among the sedges and rushes, followed by a splash, the lad catching sight of a long, wet, brown body, as the animal made a plunge and disappeared in deep water.

The next moment his eyes rested upon the remains of a feast, in the shape of a fine trout, half-eaten, evidently quite freshly caught.

“Better fisherman than I am,” said Ralph to himself, as he searched the surface of the water to see if the otter he had disturbed would rise. But the cunning animal had reached its hole in the bank, and was not likely to return to its banquet: so Ralph went on beyond the deeps to where the river ran shallow again beneath the overhanging trees, just catching a glimpse at times of the great cliffs, whose tops often resembled the ruins of neglected towers, so regularly were they laid in fissured blocks.

Encouraged by his success, though conscious of the fact that it was the work of a poacher more than an angler, Ralph was not long in finding a suitable place for driving a few more fish. Fate favoured him in this, and in their being just of a suitable size for the little pool, and he had just secured one about six inches long, and was filling his little can with water, when he was startled by hearing a half-stifled bark uttered, as if by a dog whose muzzle was being held.

He looked sharply round, and suddenly woke to the fact that, for how long he could not tell, while he had been stalking the trout, he had been stalked in turn.

For a man suddenly appeared among the bushes on the right, looked across the river, and shouted, “Come on, now.”

Three more appeared on the other side, one of whom leaped at once into the river, while simultaneously a couple of dogs were let loose, and dashed into the shallow water.

“Don’t let him go back, lads,” shouted the first man. “Run him up: he can’t get away.”

Ralph was equal to the occasion. In a sharp glance round, while snapping his rod in two where the butt was lashed to the thinner part, he saw that his retreat was cut off down the river, and that his only chance of escape was to go forward, right and left being sheer wall, twenty feet on one side, two hundred, at least, on the other. He grasped, too, the fact that the men about to attack him were evidently lead-miners, and the thought flashed upon him that he had inadvertently come higher till, after a fashion, he was occupying Mark Eden’s position, trespassing upon an enemy’s ground.

These thoughts were lightning-like, as he swung his rod-butt round, and brought it down heavily upon a big mongrel dog that splashed through the shallows, knocked it right over, to lie yelping and whining as it tore up water and sand, the second dog contenting itself with yapping, snarling, and making little charges, till a lucky blow caught it upon the leg, and sent it howling back.

This was sufficient for the moment, and Ralph began to retreat, with the men following him.

“There,” shouted the one who seemed to be the leader. “It’s of no use, so you may give in. We know you, so come out, fish and all. You haven’t no right up here.”

Ralph made no reply, but flushing with anger and annoyance, he hurried on over the shallows, with the men now in full pursuit, shouting, too, at the dogs, and urging them to renew their attack.

“What an idiot I have been!” muttered the lad, as he splashed on, wishing that he was on open ground, so that he could run; but wishing was in vain. He was unarmed,