CHAPTER I
THE TROUT-STREAM

"Here's a beauty, Jack!"

"Hold him, Jamie, till I come!"

"Come quickly then, old fellow–he's slipping away from me! Quick! Hang it, the fellow's gone! I've missed him, and–"

"Splash!" The sentence was never finished, for Jamie, stepping too excitedly on a treacherous, moss-covered rock in mid-stream, slipped, and the next instant found himself sitting down, up to the armpits in the water which raced past him like a mill-stream.

"Never mind," said his companion, when the laughter which greeted this mishap had subsided. "There's a likely spot, up under the fall there, where I've landed many a big fish; let's go and try it."

This "likely spot," however, was a difficult one, and for any other soul in the tiny village of Burnside–these two young rascals excepted–an impossible one. There, right under the overhanging rocks, over which a cascade tumbled twenty feet, into a swirling pool which formed one of the deepest parts of the stream, was a narrow ledge, where the moss grew thick upon the wet, slippery rocks, but in the cracks and fissures beneath that ledge, many a lusty trout was hidden.

While the two chums are wending their way to this "likely spot," which lay at a bend in the stream, just at the bottom of Hawk Woods, leaping from boulder to boulder as they crossed the broken stream, I will briefly introduce the reader to a little of their previous history.

Jack Elliot and Jamie Stuart were aged respectively fifteen and fourteen years. Only a week ago these two sturdy lads had been soundly thrashed by Dr. Birch, for playing truant and indulging in the tempting but forbidden pastime of "tickling trout" in the laughing stream, which, descending from the blue moorlands above, sang its way down through the densely wooded slopes of Crow Hill.

Jack was the youngest son of Squire Elliot of Rushworth Hall, an old but somewhat dilapidated manor, standing on one of the ridges of the Pennine Chain. His eldest brother, who was now twenty-two, was an ensign in the celebrated "John Company," and at the present time was engaged in active service in India. His second brother was at Oxford. Jack was still a scholar (though a dull one) at the old Elizabethan Grammar School just above the village, where stern Dr. Birch drilled little else but Greek and Latin into unwilling pupils.

Jack's bosom chum and schoolfellow was Jamie Stuart. Now, Jamie was an orphan, at least so far as he knew, for his mother died on the day that he was born, and his father, a somewhat daring village character, who once transgressed the game laws, was considered by a bench of land-owning gentry as "too dangerous a character to remain in Burnside, lest he should lead other folk astray," and was ultimately transported to the new colonies in North America, and forbidden to set foot in England again "on peril of his life," for those were the days of the cruel game laws, when sheep-stealing was a hanging business, and to touch a pheasant meant transportation for life.

All this happened when Jamie was a little chap of but two years, and so he never remembered either his father or his mother. His father was said to be very fond of his little boy–for despite his transgression, he was a good father and a brave man, and very much the type of man that Merry England needed at that time, to fight her enemies–and his only request when he was sentenced was, that before he left the country he might see again his little boy–a request which the selfish and hardened magistrates promptly refused.

Years passed away, and village rumours said that he had escaped from his captors directly he set foot on American soil, and had taken to the forest, amongst the Indians tribes that inhabited the backwoods of Pennsylvania, and that he had become a great chief amongst them; but this was perhaps only a rumour, for no one really knew whether he was dead or alive. So little Jamie grew up under the care of a maiden aunt, who kept a Dame School in the little village, and being a lady of some property, when the lad became ten years old, he was sent to the Old Grammar School.

The time of which I write was the middle of the eighteenth century, and England was just laying the foundations of her great future Empire, which was to be the wonder and envy of the world.

During the past twenty years, Anson and his brave sea-dogs, though always outnumbered in ships and men, had driven the French and Spaniards from the seas, and had made the name of England famous all over the world. On all the seven seas the old flag was supreme, and was proudly unfurled to every breeze that blew.

Across the burning plains of India, and under the very palace of the Old Mogul, was heard the boom of British guns, for against overwhelming odds Clive was winning brilliant victories, that would soon end in bringing the vast Indian Empire, with all its wealth and treasure, and its multitude of dark-skinned princes, to do homage at the feet of England's king. Nor was this all, for over the Atlantic, on the shores, the rivers, and the great lakes of the new world, the long campaign had already begun, which was to end in the capture of Quebec, and the wresting of the Canadas from our inveterate foes across the Channel.

So the Squire's son and the poacher's son became fast friends. All the Squire's efforts to separate them had failed. They were kindred spirits, and there was no mischief or devilry ever set afoot, either in the school or the village, in which they did not participate. All the rules and laws that were ever invented failed to keep them within bounds.

Their three great enemies were, Dr. Birch, Old Click, the keeper of Hawk Woods, and Beagle, the village constable. The first had thrashed them a score of times, the second had threatened to bring the penalties of the game laws upon them, if they did not desist from their depredations, whilst the third had once put them in the stocks, and threatened them with the lock-up for the next offence.

Thus it happened, on this glorious afternoon in the early summer of 1757, when the school bell was calling its unwilling pupils to their lessons, that these two boys were robbing the nest of a humble-bee, in a meadow below the school, extracting the wild honey from the combs, when the bell suddenly ceased ringing.

"There goes!–that confounded bell has stopped ringing, Jamie."

"So it has. Now we're in for it again."

"The second time this week, too," and Jack sat down and began to whistle, "There's nae luck aboot the house," while a look of grim despair settled on the countenance of his friend.

"And my back's still sore with that last thrashing. What shall we do, Jack?"

"Let's go trouting in Hawk Woods."

"And what about Old Click? He said that the next time he caught us, he'd take us before the magistrates."

"Oh, hang the magistrates and Old Click too! Why shouldn't we fish there if we like? Shall we go?"

"Agreed!"

And the next moment they were scampering across the meadows in the direction of the woods, taking care to keep under the shelter of the hedges and walls as much as possible, till they had entered the friendly cover of the trees.

Hawk Woods was a lovely bit of primeval forest, that covered both sides of a deep valley. In places, the descent was almost precipitous, right down to the bottom of the gully, where the burn threaded its way amongst the rocks, boulders, and fallen tree-trunks. It was a bewitching spot. The shimmering of a thousand trees, on whose leaves flashed the sunlight, their brown, aged and distorted trunks, the huge scattered rocks, and above all, the music of the stream as it tumbled half a hundred little cascades, with the speckled trout leaping amid its whirls and eddies, made it a charming place. Who that has seen that spot can forget it?

This was the place that had wooed these two boys from their lessons, and here beside the big cascade we have found them again.

Jamie had tried twice to reach the ledge behind the falls, by climbing along the face of the rock, and clinging to the ivy roots, but there was no foothold.

"It's no use," said Jack, "there's only one way to get there, and that is by swimming. We can easily duck, when we come to the fall."

"Then we'll try it, for I'm already wet through, what with the spray from the falls, and sitting down in the stream."

They quickly divested themselves of their clothing, plunged in, swam across the pool, ducked under the cascade, and reached the narrow ledge, which was the object of their immediate ambition, and within a quarter of an hour they had succeeded in capturing half-a-dozen fine trout, by the process known as "tickling," and as they caught them, they flung them far out on the bank.

Then they swam back, and after drying themselves in the warm rays of the sun, they dressed, and prepared to cook their afternoon meal.

An armful of twigs and broken branches, a bit of dry grass–these were quickly gathered. Then Jack struck a spark with his tinder-box, and there was a fire! Now the blue smoke was curling upwards, and hanging like a wreath over the tree-tops. Alas, that fatal smoke! This it was that betrayed them, and was the means of changing the whole course of their lives, for other eyes had seen it from afar, and were hastening to the spot.

In later days, amongst the backwoods of another continent, when their nearest neighbours were a scalping party of Algonquins or fierce Iroquois, they learnt to be more careful about that thin column of blue smoke which rose from their evening camp-fire.

But at present they were unconscious of any such danger. The feeling that they were most conscious of at this moment was one of hunger somewhere amidships, for their outdoor exercise, and above all, the cold dip, had given them healthy appetites. As soon, therefore, as the fire had burned sufficiently clear, they laid the spoils of the chase across a rude grid, made of a few wet sticks.

Then the savoury smell of roasted trout filled the wood, and when this delicate repast was ready, our two young heroes feasted sumptuously on the royal dish of red-spotted trout. When they had finished their repast, they washed it down with a copious draught of cold water from the stream.

"There goes the old magpie back to her nest. I wonder if the young ones are hatched yet. I'm going aloft to see," said Jamie, and he immediately began to climb the tall, straight fir-tree, which stood on the very edge of a steep slope, about twenty yards away.

When he had shinned some fifteen feet up the trunk he was able to clasp the lowest branch, and in another minute he had ascended to the very top of the tree, and was swaying dangerously amongst the slender twigs where the magpie had built her nest.

"How many young ones are there?" called Jack from the foot of the tree.

"Three and one egg left."

"Good! Bring the egg down. It's no good to the old bird now. It's sure to be addled. Bring it down–you know we promised to get one for Tiny Tim the lame boy, who can't climb."

"Why, what's the matter? Anything wrong?"

"Sh! Sh!"

Jamie was signalling desperately from the tree-top to his companion below, and pointing across the stream, beyond the camp-fire.

"Who is it?" asked Jack, in a hoarse whisper.

"Old Click, I do believe–and–Beagle!"

"Snakes alive! What now?"

"Better come up the tree. Quietly now."

Jack was just as expert at climbing as Jamie, and never sailor-boy shinned up the truck to the mast-head more quickly or more neatly than he did up that tall fir-tree. In another moment they were both perched aloft, and hidden amongst the branches.

The two men had seen the smoke from the distance, as it ascended above the trees, and suspecting either trespassers or poachers, they had crept quietly down to the place, and had reached the neighbourhood of the fire, soon after the boys had left the spot.

Imagine the feelings of the latter, as from their lofty perch they looked down upon their two bitterest enemies, only a stone's throw away, and effectually cutting off their retreat. Only a fortnight before, they had been hauled before the magistrates for this very same offence, and it had required all the influence of Jack's father to protect the youngsters from the penalty of the law.

"The young vagabonds–" Old Click was saying, as he kicked aside the embers of the fire.

"Look! Here be the heads of six foine trout they have stolen," said Beagle.

"I don't know whether be the worst–Squire's son or the poacher's son; but this I know, they be both framing for Wakefield gaol, or else the gallows."

"How do ye know it be they, Mr. Click?" asked the constable. "There be noa evidence that I con see, as yet."

"How do I know? Why, there ain't another rascal in the village who dare come into the woods and touch either fish or game since Jem Mason was transported. Nobody dare do it, 'cept these two vagabonds, who are the plague o' my life."

"Aye, the place is wunn'erfully quiet sin' I copt Jem at his old tricks," said Beagle, straightening his shoulders, as he recalled that stirring incident, in which, however, he took a very small part.

"And I do think, constable, that you ain't done your duty lately, to let these two rascals play the pranks they ha' played."

"What's that you say, Mr. Click?" said Beagle, rather testily. "What have they done?"

"Why, 'twas only last Friday that Gaffer John had a dead cat dropped down his chimney, when he was just cooking his supper, too, and it was all spoiled. And who was it that fired Farmer Giles's hayrick, but these same 'gallows-birds'? The young varmint!"

"First catch your man, Mr. Click, and then you'll have evidence 'red-hot' that a bench of magistrates will look at."

"Do you hear that, Jamie?" whispered Jack. "They're on our scent for dropping that dead cat down 'Surly John's' chimney. He deserved it, too, the skulking old miser, for turning poor old Betty Lamb out of her cottage. I'd do it again. But fancy blaming us for firing that hayrick! Surely he can't mean it!"

"I'll tell you what, Jack. This place is getting too warm for us. Let's run away and go to sea, as we always said we should."

"Chance is a fine thing. Wait till we're out of this hole. Wish we'd the chance to run now, but if we stir they'll see us."

At this point a shrill whistle rang through the woods and startled them, and before they had recovered from their surprise, the deep bay of a hound was heard approaching from the distance.

"Phew–" The boys looked at each other, and for a moment their faces blanched, as in an undertone these words simultaneously escaped from their lips.

"Old Click's dog–"

"We're up a tree now, Jack, in more than one sense." And they were, for they both knew the reputation of this wonderful hound. He could track a poacher for miles, and having once got the scent, he rarely let it go till he had run his victim down. Nearer and nearer came that deep bay, and soon the trampling of the shrubs and undergrowth gave notice of its arrival.

"Here, Charlie. Good dog.–Seek 'em.–Seek 'em," cried its master.

Instantly the hound began sniffing round about the embers of the fire, till picking up the newly-placed scent, it suddenly gave vent to a peculiar howl, and then dashed directly towards the stream. Here it paused abruptly, and began sniffing the air, then it ran back to the fire, picked up the scent again, and stopped once more at the edge of the stream.

"They've crossed the water, that's certain," said the keeper.

The boys had watched this with great consternation. They had given up all hope of escape, but when they saw this fine dog twice baffled by the stream, hope returned in an overflowing measure.

"There is just a chance," whispered Jack.

The two men crossed the burn, and brought the dog to the other bank, to see if it could pick up the trail. Fortunately, the boys had paddled a little way up-stream, when they crossed, and this caused some further delay in recovering the scent. Still the keeper persevered, and in another quarter of an hour, the hound uttered a joyful little bark, and with tail erect and nose to the ground, it started away in the direction of the fir. Suddenly it stopped at the foot of the tree, where the culprits were perched, and began clawing and scratching at the bark.