The Eagle Cliff, R. M. Ballantyne [best fiction books to read .txt] 📗

lowered his voice at this point and looked solemn—“he very nearly killed his mother once, when he was drunk, you know, an’ when he came sober he cried—oh, just as our Flo cries when she’s bin whipped.”

At this point the breakfast-bell pealed forth with, so to speak, a species of clamorous enthusiasm by no means unusual in Scottish country mansions, as if it knew that there was spread out a breakfast worth ringing for. At the first sound of it, Junkie burst from the room, left the door wide open, clattered along the passage, singing, yelling vociferously as he went—and trundled downstairs like a retiring thunderstorm.

The arrangements for the day at Kinlossie were usually fixed at the breakfast hour, if they had not been settled the night before. There was, therefore, a good deal to consult about during the progress of the meal.

“You see, gentlemen,” said the host, when the demands of nature were partially satisfied, “friends who come to stay with me are expected to select their occupations or amusements for the day as fancy or taste may lead them. My house is ‘liberty hall.’ Sometimes we go together on the hills after grouse, at other times after red-deer. When the rivers are in order, we take our rods and break up into parties. When weather and wind are suitable, some go boating and sea-fishing. Others go sketching or botanising. If the weather should become wet, you will find a library next to this room, a billiard-table in the west wing, and a smoking-room—which is also a rod and gun-room—in the back premises. We cannot take the men from their work to-day, so that a deer-drive is not possible, but that can be done any day. So, gentlemen, think over it, and make your choice.”

“How is Milly this morning?” asked MacRummle, who came down late to breakfast, as he always did, and consequently missed morning prayers.

“Better, much better than we could have expected. Of course the arm is inflamed and very painful, but not broken, which is almost a miracle, considering the height from which she fell. But for you, Mr Barret, she might have lain there for hours before we found her, and the consequences might have been very serious. As it is, the doctor says she will probably be able to leave her room in a few days.”

“Come, now, Mac,” continued the host, “we have been talking over plans for the day. What do you intend to do?”

“Try the river,” said the old gentleman, with quiet decision, as he slowly helped himself to the ham and egg that chanced to be in front of him. “There’s a three-pounder, if not a four, which rose in the middle pool yesterday, and I feel sure of him to-day.”

“Why, Mr MacRummle,” said Mrs Gordon smilingly, “you have seen that three-pounder or four-pounder every day for a month past.”

“I have, Mrs Gordon; and I hope to see him every day for a month to come, if I don’t catch him to-day!”

“Whatever you do, Mac, don’t dive for him,” said the laird; “else we will some day have to fish yourself out of the middle pool. Have another cut of salmon, Mr Mabberly. In what direction do your tastes point?”

“I feel inclined to make a lazy day of it and go out with your son Archie,” said Mabberly, “to look at the best views for photographing. I had intended to photograph a good deal among the Western Isles, this summer; but my apparatus now lies, with the yacht, at the bottom of the sea.”

“Yes, in company with my sixteen-shooter rifle,” said Giles Jackman, with a rueful countenance.

“Well, gentlemen, I cannot indeed offer you much comfort as regards your losses, for the sea keeps a powerful hold of its possessions; but you will find my boy’s camera a fairly good one, and there are plenty of dry plates. It so happens, also, that I have a new repeating rifle in the house, which has not yet been used; so, in the meantime, at all events, neither of you will suffer much from your misfortunes.”

It was finally arranged, before breakfast was over, that MacRummle was to go off alone to his usual and favourite burn; that Jackman and Quin, under the guidance of Junkie, should try the river for salmon and sea-trout; that Barret, with ex-Skipper McPherson, Shames McGregor, Robin Tips, Eddie Gordon, the laird’s second son—a boy of twelve—and Ivor, the keeper—whose recoveries were as rapid as his relapses were sudden—should all go off in the boat to try the sea-fishing; and that Bob Mabberly, with Archie, should go photographing up one of the most picturesque of the glens, conducted by the laird himself.

As it stands to reason that we cannot accompany all of these parties, we elect to follow Giles Jackman, Quin, and Junkie up the river.

This expedition involved a preliminary walk of four miles, which they all preferred to being driven to the scene of action in a dog-cart.

Junkie was a little fellow for his age, but remarkably intelligent, active, bright and strong. From remarks made by various members of the Gordon family and their domestics, both Jackman and his servant had been led to the conclusion that the boy was the very impersonation of mischief, and were more or less on the look out for displays of his propensity; but Junkie walked demurely by their side, asking and replying to questions with the sobriety of an elderly man, and without the slightest indication of the latent internal fires with which he was credited.

The truth is, that Junkie possessed a nature that was tightly strung and vibrated like an Aeolian harp to the lightest breath of influence. He resembled, somewhat, a pot of milk on a very hot fire, rather apt to boil over with a rush; nevertheless, he possessed the power to restrain himself in a simmering condition for a considerable length of time. The fact that he was fairly out for the day with two strangers, to whom he was to show the pools where salmon and sea-trout lay, was a prospect so charming that he was quite content to simmer.

“D’ee know how to fish for salmon?” he asked, looking gravely up in Jackman’s face, after they had proceeded a considerable distance.

“Oh, yes, Junkie; I know how to do it. I used to fish for salmon before I went to India.”

“Isn’t that the place where they shoot lions and tigers and—and g’rillas?”

“Well, not exactly lions and gorillas, my boy; but there are plenty of baboons and monkeys there, and lots of tigers.”

“Have you shot them?” asked Junkie, with a look of keen interest.

“Yes; many of them.”

“Did you ever turn a tiger outside in?”

Jackman replied, with a laugh, that he had never performed that curious operation on anything but socks—that, indeed, he had never heard of such a thing being done.

“I knew it was a cracker,” said Junkie.

“What d’you mean by a cracker, my boy?” inquired Jackman.

“A lie,” said Junkie, promptly.

“And who told the cracker?”

“Ivor. He tells me a great, great many stories.”

“D’you mean Ivor Donaldson, the keeper?”

“Yes; he tells me plenty of stories, but some of them are crackers. He said that once upon a time a man was walkin’ through the jungle—that’s what they call the bushes, you know, in India—an’ he met a great big tiger, which glared at him with its great eyes, and gave a tremendous roar, and sprang upon him. The man was brave and strong. He held out his right arm straight, so that when the tiger came upon him his arm went into its open mouth and right down its throat, and his hand caught hold of something. It was the inside end of the tiger’s tail! The man gave an awful pull, and the tiger came inside out at once with a tremendous crack!”

“Sure, and that was a cracker!” remarked Quin, who had been listening to the boy’s prattle with an amused expression, as they trudged along.

“Nevertheless, it may not be fair to call it a lie, Junkie,” said Jackman. “Did Ivor say it was true?”

“No. When I asked if it was, he only laughed, and said he had once read of the same thing being done to a walrus, but he didn’t believe it.”

“Just so, Junkie. He meant you to understand the story of the tiger as he did the story of the walrus—as a sort of fairy tale, you know.”

“How could he mean that,” demanded Junkie, “when he said it was a tiger’s tail—not a fairy’s at all?”

Jackman glanced at Quin, and suppressed a laugh. Quin returned the glance, and expressed a smile.

“Better luck next time,” murmured the servant.

“Did you ever see walruses?” asked Junkie, whose active mind was prone to jump from one subject to another.

“No, never; but I have seen elephants, which are a great deal bigger than walruses,” returned Jackman; “and I have shot them, too. I will tell you some stories about them one of these days—not ‘crackers’, but true ones.”

“That’ll be nice! Now, we’re close to the sea-pool; but the tide’s too far in to fish that just now, so we’ll go up to the next one, if you like.”

“By all means, my boy. You know the river, and we don’t, so we put ourselves entirely under your guidance and orders,” replied Jackman.

By this time they had reached the river at the upper end of the loch. It ran in a winding course through a level plain which extended to the base of the encircling hills. The pool next the sea being unfishable, as we have said, owing to the state of the tide, Junkie conducted his companions high up the stream by a footpath. And a proud urchin he was, in his grey kilt and hose, with his glengarry cocked a little on one side of his curly head, as he strode before them with all the self-reliance of a Highland chieftain.

In a few minutes they came to the first practicable pool—a wide, rippling, oily, deep hole, caused by a bend in the stream, the appearance of which—suggestive of silvery scales—was well calculated to arouse sanguine hopes in a salmon fisher.

Here Quin proceeded to put together the pieces of his master’s rod, while Jackman, opening a portly fishing-book, selected a casting line and fly.

“Have you been in India, too?” asked Junkie of Quin, as he watched their proceedings with keen interest.

“Sure, an’ I have—leastways if it wasn’t dhreamin’ I’ve bin there.”

“An’ have you killed lions, and tigers, and elephants?”

“Well, not exactly, me boy, but it’s meself as used to stand by an’ howld the spare guns whin the masther was killin’ them.”

“Wasn’t you frightened?”

“Niver a taste. Och! thriflin’ craters like them niver cost me a night’s rest, which is more than I can say of the rats in Kinlossie, anyhow.”

A little shriek of laughter burst from Junkie on hearing this.

“What are ye laughin’ at, honey?” asked Quin.

“At you not bein’ able to sleep for the rats!” returned the boy. “It’s the way with everybody who comes to stay with us, at first, but they get used to it at last.”

“Are the rats then so numerous?” asked Jackman.

“Swarmin’, all over! Haven’t you heard them yet?”

“Well, yes, I heard them scampering soon after I went to bed, but I thought it was kittens at play in the room overhead, and soon went to sleep. But they don’t come into the rooms, do they?”

“Oh, no—I only wish they would! Wouldn’t we have a jolly hunt if they did? But they scuttle about the walls inside, and between the ceilings and the floors. And you can’t frighten them. The only thing that scared them once was the bag-pipes. An old piper came to the house one day and played a great deal, and we heard nothing more of the rats for two or three weeks after that.”

“Sensible bastes,” remarked Quin, handing the rod to his master; “an’ a sign, too, that they’ve got some notion o’ music.”

“Why, Quin, I thought you had bag-pipes in Ireland,” said Jackman,