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

Eden recovered his presence of mind on the instant, and looking coolly up at Nick Garth, who had shouted at him so insolently, he replied haughtily: “What is it to you, sir? Be off!”

Then, entirely ignoring Ralph, who was looking down, breathless with rage and exertion, he carefully withdrew the egg from the nest, in spite of the pecking of the young ravens, and transferred it to the lining of his cap.

After this he took off his kerchief, and began to twist it up tightly to make an apology for a line with which to tie together the young ravens’ legs.

The two men on either side of Ralph looked at him, as if wondering what he would say.

“Now, then, it’s of no use to peck: out you come, my fine fellows. Quiet, or I’ll wring your necks.”

As Mark spoke, his right hand was in the nest, feeling about so as to get four legs together in his grasp, but this took some little time, and a great deal of fluttering and squealing accompanied the act. But as he worked, Mark thought hard, and of something else beside ravens. How was he to get out of this unpleasant fix, being as he was quite at his enemy’s mercy? But all the same, with assumed nonchalance, he drew out the fluttering ravens, loosened his hold of the shrub with his left hand, and trusted to his powers of retaining his balance, in spite of the birds’ struggles, while in the coolest way possible he transferred the legs from his right hand to his left, and proceeded to tie them tightly.

“There you are,” he said. “I think that’s safe.”

Then, to Ralph’s astonishment, the lad began to hum over his song again about the ravens as, completely ignoring those above, he took hold of the bush again, and leaned forward to gaze down into the dizzy depths as if in search of an easy path, but really to try and make out, in his despair, what would be his chance of escape if he suddenly rose to his feet and boldly jumped outward. Would he clear all the trees and come down into the river? And if the last, would it be deep enough to save him from injury at the bottom?

Where he had crossed was only ankle deep, but there was a broad, still patch, close up under the cliff, for he had noticed it as he came; but whether he could reach it in a bold leap, and whether it would be deep enough to save him from harm, he could not tell; but he was afraid that if he missed it he would be broken upon the pieces of rock which had fallen from above.

That way of escape was too desperate, and the more repellent from the fact that the beech-trees below prevented him from seeing what awaited him.

He busied himself in pretending to examine the knot he had made about the birds’ legs, and then, raising his sword-belt, he passed one young raven inside, leaving the other out, so that they hung from his back, not in a very comfortable position for them, but where they would not be hurt. All the time though the lad was scanning the rocky face, first to right then to left, to seek for a way by which he could climb down, escape upwards being impossible; and he had quickly come to the conclusion that if unmolested he could manage, by taking his time, to get down in safety.

He had just decided this when Ralph, who had remained perfectly silent, exclaimed abruptly, “Now then, come up.”

Mark took not the slightest notice, and the order was repeated.

“Hear what the young master says?” growled Nick. “Come up!”

“Are you speaking to me, fellow?” cried Mark angrily. “Be off, I tell you, before I come up and chastise you.”

“Going to stand this, Master Ralph?” growled the man. “Shall I heave a bit o’ stone down upon him, and knock him off?”

For answer, Ralph drew back out of sight, and the two men followed at a sign, leaving Mark alone, seated upon his perilous perch; but directly after Ralph’s head reappeared, and Nick’s close beside it, when Mark realised—rightly—that the other man had been sent on some mission—what, he could not tell, but in all probability to fetch more help, so as to be sure of taking him.

“Now,” said Ralph sternly, “are you coming up to surrender?”

“What!” said Mark sharply; “why am I to surrender to you?”

“For trespass and robbery. This is my father’s land, and those are our birds.”

Mark laughed scornfully to hide his annoyance, for conscience pricked hard.

“Your land, indeed!” he cried. “Wild moorland, open to anybody; and as to the birds, are all the crows yours too?”

Ralph did not condescend to reply, but lay there looking down at the young representative of his father’s rival.

“I wish you good day, Master Owner of the land, and lord of the birds of the air,” said Mark mockingly. “If you had asked me civilly, I might perhaps have given you a young raven. As it is, I shall not.”

“What are you going to do?” said Ralph sharply. “Wait and see,” was the mocking reply. “Shan’t I heave this stone down on his head, Master Ralph?” said Nick in a low tone; but the words came plainly to Mark’s ear, and sent a cold chill of horror thrilling through his nerves; but he felt better the next moment, and then anger took the place of dread, for Ralph said sharply, “Put the stone down, sirrah! You know I want to take the wolf’s cub alive.”

“Wolf’s cub!” said Mark to himself. “Never mind; I may meet him some day when it is not three to one, and then he shall find that the wolf’s cub can bite.”

Then, conscious that his every movement was watched, he cautiously rose to his feet, made an effort to ignore the presence of lookers-on, and began to climb sideways along the ledge, by the route he had come. Still he had no intention of going up, knowing full well that he would only be giving himself up to insult, and perhaps serious injury, taken at a disadvantage, as he felt that he must be; but calmly, and in the most sure-footed way, sidled along, with the ledge getting more and more narrow, but the hand-hold better.

In this way he passed the spot where he had lowered himself down, and reached a slight angle, by which he expected, from long experience in cliff-climbing, to be able to descend to the next.

He was quite right, and it proved to be easier than he had expected; but a looker-on would have shuddered to see the way in which the lad clung to the rough stones, where the slightest slip would have sent him down headlong for at least three hundred feet before he touched anywhere, and then bounded off again, a mere mass of shapeless flesh.

Mark knew of his danger, but it did not trouble him, for his brain was too much occupied by the presence of young Darley; and as he descended he felt a slight flush of pride in doing what he was certain his young enemy dare not attempt.

In a moment or two he was standing safely—that is, so long as he held on tightly with his fingers in the crack above—upon the next ledge, a few inches wide, and his intention had been to go on in the same direction, so as to be farther from his watchers; but he was not long in finding that this was impossible, and he had to go back till he was well beneath Ralph Darley, and saw that he must go farther still before he attempted to descend to the next rest for his feet.

“It will take a long time to get down like this,” he thought; “and perhaps he’ll send below to meet me at the bottom. Perhaps that is what he has already done. But never mind; I shall have done as I liked, and not obeyed his insolent orders. Let him see, too, that I’m quite at home on the rocks, and can do as I like. Wonder whether I shall get Master Rayburn’s egg down safely! Not if they throw a stone down upon my head.—Now for it.”

He had reached another comparatively easy place for descending from the course of blocks on which he stood, when he suddenly found himself embarrassed, not by the egg, but by the young birds, which nearly upset his equilibrium by beginning all at once to struggle and flap vigorously with their half-fledged wings.

The lad’s first impulse, as he clung to the ledge, was to tear the birds from his belt and throw them down; but his spirit revolted from the cruelty of the proceeding, and his vanity helped to keep the trophies of his daring where they were.

“It would look as if I was afraid,” he said to himself; and lowering one foot, he felt for a safe projection, found one, and his other foot joined the first. A few seconds later his hands were holding the ledge on which he had just been standing, but his chin was level with them, and his feet were feeling for the next ledge below, but feeling in vain.

He was disappointed, for experience had taught him that this course of stones would be about the same thickness as the others, and yet he could find no crack, not even one big enough to insert his toes.

But he was quite right; the range of stones in that stratum was just about the same thickness as the others, but the crack between them and the next in the series, the merest line, over which his feet slipped again and again, giving him the impression that they were passing over solid stone; and the birds chose this awkward moment to renew their struggling and screaming.

“You miserable little wretches,” he muttered; “be quiet! Well, it might be worse. I should have been in a sad pickle if the old birds had chosen this moment to attack me.”

He hung in the same position, with his chin resting on the ledge, as well as his hands, till the birds were quiet again, and then wondering whether Ralph Darley was still watching, he slowly let his muscles relax, and his body subside, till he hung at full stretch, seeking steadily the while for foot-hold, but finding none, and forced now to look down between his chest and the rock, to see how far the next ledge might be.

To his disgust, it was quite two feet lower, and it was forced upon him that unless he could climb back to the ledge upon which his hands were clasped, he must let himself drop to the resting-place below.

It was no time for hesitation, and condensing his energies upon what he knew to be a difficult task, he drew himself up by strong muscular contraction till his chin once more rested between his hands, and then grasped the bitter fact that to get up and stand upon the ledge was impossible; it was too narrow, and he could find no foot-hold to help.

Accepting the position, he let himself sink again to the full length of his arms, hung motionless for a few moments, and then, keeping himself perfectly rigid, allowed his fingers to glide over the stone, and dropped the two feet to the ledge below, perfectly upright and firm. In all probability he would have found hand-hold the next moment, but, scared anew by the rush through the air, the young ravens began to flap their wings violently, and that was sufficient to disturb the lad’s equilibrium. He made a desperate effort to recover it, but one foot gave way, and he fell, scraping the edge.

Another desperate effort, and he clung to the ledge for a brief moment or two, and then a