The Crew of the Water Wagtail by R. M. Ballantyne (the read aloud family TXT) 📖

the axe in his belt. Of course, none of the bolts or arrows had metal points; but that mattered little, as the wood of which they were made was very hard, and could be sharpened to a fine point; and, being feathered, the missiles flew straight to the mark when pointed in the right direction.

“Now, captain,” said Paul, on the morning they set out, “let’s see what you can do with your cross-bow at the first bird you meet. I mean the first eatable bird; for I have no heart to kill the little twitterers around us for the mere sake of practice.”

“That will I right gladly,” said Trench, fixing his bow and string, and inserting a bolt with a confident air.

“And there’s a chance, daddy! See! a bird that seems to wish to be shot, it sits so quietly on the tree.”

The seaman raised his weapon slowly to his shoulder, shut the wrong eye, glared at the bird with the other, took a long unsteady aim, and sent his bolt high over the creature’s head, as well as very much to one side.

“Might have been worse!” said the captain.

“Might have been better,” returned Paul, with equal truth. “Now it’s my turn.”

The bird, all ignorant of the fate intended for it, sat still, apparently in surprise.

Paul drew his cloth-yard shaft to his ear and let fly. It went apparently in search of the captain’s bolt.

“Now me!” cried the impatient Olly, in a hoarse whisper, as he placed a stone in the sling and whirled it round his head. His companions drew off! There was a “burring” noise as the stone sped on its mission and struck the tree-stem with a sounding crack, three yards from the bird, which, learning wisdom from experience, at last took wing.

In anticipation of their chance coming round again, both Paul and the captain had got ready their artillery, and Oliver hastily put another stone in his sling. A look and exclamation of disappointment were given by each as the bird vanished, but just at that moment a large rabbit darted across their path. Whiz! twang! burr! went bolt and bow and stone, and that rabbit, pierced in head and heart, and smitten on flank, fell to rise no more.

“Strange!” said Trench, in open-mouthed surprise, “I’ve often heard of coincidences, but I never did see or hear of the like of that.”

“All three to hit it at once!” exclaimed Paul.

“Ay, and all three of us doin’ our best to hit it, too,” exclaimed Oliver.

“Just so—that’s the puzzle, lad,” rejoined the captain. “If we had been tryin’ to hit something else now, there would have been nothing strange about it! But to hit what we all aimed at—”

Apparently the captain failed to find words adequately to express his ideas, for he did not finish the sentence; meanwhile Paul picked up the rabbit and attached it to his belt. After this, advancing through the woods in a north-westerly direction, they made for a somewhat elevated ridge, hoping to obtain from that point a more extended view of the land.

Towards noon, feeling hungry, they began to look out for a suitable spot whereon to lunch, or rather to dine; for while travelling on foot in wild countries men usually find it convenient to take a very substantial meal about, or soon after, noon.

“To have water handy,” remarked Paul, as they stopped to look round, “is essential to comfort as well as cookery.”

“Look there, away to the nor’-west o’ that bunch o’ trees,” said the captain, pointing to a distant spot, “there’s a depression in the ground there; and from the lie o’ the land all round I should say we shall find a stream o’ some sort near it.”

“I hope so,” said Oliver; “for I shall want water to wash the rabbit with, and I have a strong hope that we may find fish in the rivers of this land, and although my hooks are big, I think the fish may not be particular, seein’ that they have never before been tempted in that way.”

“That’s true, Olly; I hope you won’t be disappointed. But what makes you want to wash the rabbit, my boy?” asked the captain; “it is not dirty?”

“Perhaps not; but I don’t quite relish the dirty work of cleaning out a rabbit before cooking it, so I want to try the plan of cutting it open, holding it under water, and scraping out the inside while in that position.”

“My son, you won’t be so particular when you’ve been a few weeks huntin’ in the wild woods. But what about the hair?”

“Oh, we can singe that off, daddy.”

“What! singe off wet hair? And the skin—I doubt we might find that tough?”

The young cook—for such he became to the exploring expedition—looked puzzled.

“I never skinned a rabbit,” he said, “but no doubt it is easy enough. I’ll just cut it open at the head—or tail—and pull it off like a glove.”

“Not quite so easily done as that” remarked Paul, with a laugh; “but I happen to know something about skinning birds and beasts, Olly, so make your mind easy. I will show you how to do it.”

“You happen to know something about almost everything, I think,” said the captain. “Tell me now, d’ye happen to know what sort o’ beast it is that I see starin’ at us over the bushes yonder?”

“No, Master Trench, I do not; but it looks marvellously like a deer of some sort,” said Paul, as he hastily fitted an arrow to his bow. But before he could discharge it the animal wisely retired into the shelter of its native wilds.

By this time, having walked smartly, they had gained the crest of one of the lower ridges, or plateaus, that rose in gentle slopes from the rocky shore, and there, as had been anticipated, they found a small rivulet, such as Americans would call a creek, and Scotsmen a burn. It flowed in a north-easterly direction, and was broken by several small rapids and cascades.

With a little shout of satisfaction, Oliver ran down to its banks, getting his hooks out as he went. Arriving at the margin of a deep pool, he bent over it and gazed earnestly down. The water was as clear as crystal, showing every stone at the bottom as if it had been covered merely with a sheet of glass, and there, apparently undisturbed by the intruder, lay several large fish.

What they were he knew not—cared not. Sufficient for him that they seemed large and fat. His first impulse was to turn and shout the discovery to his companions; but seeing that they had already set to work to cut firewood a little higher up the stream, he checked himself.

“I’ll catch a fish first maybe,” he muttered, as he quickly adjusted to his piece of cord one of the smallest cod-hooks he possessed. A few minutes sufficed for this; but when he was ready, it occurred to him that he had no bait. He looked around him, but nothing suitable was to be seen, and he was about to attempt the all but hopeless task of tearing up the soil with his fingers in search of a worm, when his eyes fell on a small bright feather that had been dropped by some passing bird. “Happy thoughts” occurred to people in the days of which we write, even as now, though they were not recognised or classified as such.

Fly-fishing was instantly suggested to the eager boy. He had often tried it in Old England; why not try it in Newfoundland? A very brief period sufficed to unwind a thread from the cord, and therewith to attach the feather to the hook. He had no rod, and neither time nor patience to make one. Gathering the cord into a coil, such as wharfmen form when casting ropes to steamers; he swung it round his head, and hove his hook half-way across the glassy pool.

The fish looked up at him, apparently in calm surprise—certainly without alarm. Then Olly began to haul in the hook. It was a fearful fly to look at, such as had never desecrated those waters since the days of Adam, yet those covetous fish rushed at it in a body. The biggest caught it, and found himself caught! The boy held on tenderly, while the fish in wild amazement darted from side to side, or sprang high into the air. Oliver was far too experienced a fisher not to know that the captive might be but slightly hooked, so he played it skilfully, casting a sidelong glance now and then at his busy comrades in the hope that they had not observed him.

At last the fish became tired, and the fisher drew it slowly to the bank—a four- or five-pound trout at the very least! Unfortunately the bank was steep, and the boy found, to his distress, that the hook had only caught hold slightly of the fish’s lip. To lift out the heavy creature with the line was therefore impossible, to catch hold of it with the hand was almost equally so; for when he lay down and stretched out his arm as far as possible, he could scarcely touch it with the end of his finger.

“If it makes another dash it’ll escape,” muttered the anxious boy, as he slid further and further down the bank—a hairbreadth at a time.

Just then the fish showed symptoms of revival. Olly could stand this no longer. He made a desperate grasp and caught it by the gills just as the hook came away. The act destroyed what little balance he had retained, and he went with a sharp short yell into the pool.

Paul looked up in time to see his friend’s legs disappear. He ran to the spot in considerable alarm, supposing that the boy might have taken a fit, and not knowing whether he could swim. He was relieved, however, to find that Olly on reappearing struck out manfully with one hand for a shallow place at the lower end of the pool, while with the other he pressed some object tightly to his bosom.

“You don’t mean to say,” exclaimed Paul, as he assisted his friend out of the water, “that you went in for that splendid trout and caught it with your hands!”

“You saw me dive,” replied the boy, throwing the fish down with affected indifference, and stooping to wring the water from his garments as well as to hide his face; “and you don’t suppose, surely, that I caught it with my feet. Come, look at the depth I had to go down to catch him!”

Seizing his prize, Olly led his friend to the spot where he had fallen in, and pointed with a look of triumph to the clear, deep pool. At the moment a smile of intelligence lit up Paul’s features, and he pointed to the extemporised fly-hook which still dangled from the bank.

Bursting into a hearty fit of laughter, the successful fisher ran up to the encampment, swinging the trout round his head, to the surprise and great satisfaction of his father, who had already got the fire alight and the rabbit skinned.

Need it be said that the meal which followed was a hearty one, though there was no variety save roast rabbit, roast trout, and roast pork, with the last of the cakes as pudding?

“A first-rate dinner!” exclaimed Paul, after swallowing a draft of sparkling water from the stream.

“Not bad,” admitted Captain Trench, “if we only had something stronger than water to wash it down.”

Paul made no reply to this remark, but he secretly rejoiced in the necessity which delivered his friend from the only foe that had power to overcome him.

“Now,” remarked Paul, when he had finished dinner, “I will strengthen my bow before starting, for it does not send the arrows with sufficient force, and the only way to do that, that I can think of, is to shorten it.”

“And I will feather the last arrow I made,” said Oliver, drawing the