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

fish, was proceeding further up stream. When he was sufficiently far in advance, the boys rose to their feet, and again followed him.

Thus the trio occupied themselves all the forenoon—MacRummle gradually filling his basket with fine sea-trout, Junkie storing his inquisitive mind with piscatorial knowledge and “dodges,” and Donald enjoying himself in the mere act of wallowing about in heather and sunshine.

About noon MacRummle suddenly ceased to gaze intently on the water, and placed his hand upon his waistcoat.

“Time, Dick?” he murmured, pulling out his watch. “I knew it. Commend me to nature. It’s the best time-keeper, after all—needs no regulating.”

He was wrong, as was frequently the case, but it mattered little, for there was no one to contradict him.

“Let me see,” he muttered, taking off his basket, and drawing a newspaper parcel from the pocket of his coat—in which operation he was induced by memory to make a last futile attempt to see himself behind—“what have they put up for me?”

The parcel, when opened, disclosed a tempting pile of meat sandwiches. The old gentleman spread them out on a flattish boulder, which served as an admirable table.

Having leaned his rod against a tree, he emptied the basket on a grassy spot, and arranged the silver bars in a row. Then he sat down on his basket beside the table, and gave himself up to food and contemplation.

“A goodly row,” he muttered, as well as the ham sandwich would let him. “Not a bad beginning; and such a splendid dish. There’s comfort in that, for I hate useless work of any kind. A sort of an illustration, this, of the fitness of things!”

Apparently the peculiar unfitness of simultaneous mastication and speech struck him, for he paused a few moments, then continued,—“Yes, fitness. Supplies for the table absolutely needed. Healthy exercise a consequence. Result, felicity!”

The supplies checking speech again, MacRummle looked around him, with benignant good-will to man and beast expressed on his countenance.

Craning their necks over a bank, and seeing the old gentleman thus pleasantly engaged, the two boys sank into the heather, and disappeared from view as completely as did “Clan Alpine’s warriors true,” after they had been shown to Fitz James by Roderick Dhu. Like two sparrows in a purple nest they proceeded to enjoy themselves.

“Now, Tonal’, we will grub,” said Junkie. “Why, what’s the matter with you?” he asked, on observing a sudden fall in his companion’s countenance.

“The matter?” repeated the boy. “It iss the crub that’s the matter, for I hev not a crumb with me.”

“Now, isn’t that awful?” said Junkie, with a hypocritically woeful look. “We will just have to starve. But there’s plenty of water,” he added, in a consoling tone. “Here, Tonal’, take this leather cup an’ fill it. Ye can git down to the river by the back o’ the bluff without bein’ noticed. See that ye make no noise, now. Mind what I said to ye.”

While Donald went at a slow, sad pace to fetch water, Junkie spread his handkerchief on the ground, and on this tablecloth laid out the following articles, which he took from a small bag that he had carried, slung on his shoulder,—a very large piece of loaf bread, a thick slice of cheese, two hard biscuits, an apple, a bit of liquorice, a mass of home-made toffee, inseparably attached to a dirty bit of newspaper, three peppermint lozenges, and a gully knife with a broken blade.

When Donald returned and beheld this feast, he opened his eyes wide. Then, opening his mouth, he was on the point of giving vent to a cheer, when Junkie stopped him with a glance and an ominous shake of the fist.

It is to this day an undecided question which of those feasters enjoyed himself most.

“I always bring with me more than I can eat, Tonal’, so you’re welcome to the half. ‘Fair play,’ as daddy says, although he sometimes keeps the fairest play to himself;” with which dutiful remark the urchin proceeded to divide the viands very justly.

It did not take long to consume the whole. But MacRummle was quicker even than they, possibly because he had enticing work still before him. The consequence was, that he had resumed his rod unnoticed by the boys, and in the process of his amusement, had reached that part of the bank on the top of which they lay concealed. Their devotion to lunch had prevented his approach being perceived, and the first intimation they had of his near presence was the clatter of pebbles as he made a false step, and the swish of his flies above their heads as he made a cast.

The boys gazed at each other for one moment in silence, then hastily stuffed the remnant of their feast into their pockets.

Suddenly the glengarry bonnet of Junkie leaped mysteriously off his head, and dropped on the heather behind him.

“Hanked again!” growled MacRummle from the river-bed below.

Every fisher knows the difficulty of casting a long line with a steep bank behind him. Once already the old gentleman had hanked on the bank a little lower down, but so slightly that a twitch brought the flies away. Now, however, the hank was too complicated to give way to a twitch, for the glengarry held hard on to the heather. In desperate haste, Junkie, bending low, tried to extract the hook. It need scarcely be said that a hook refuses to be extracted in haste. Before he could free it, the voice of MacRummle was heard in sighs and gasps of mild exasperation as he scrambled up the bank to disentangle his line. There was no time for consideration. Junkie dropped his cap, and, rolling behind a mass of rock, squeezed himself into a crevice which was pretty well covered with pendent bracken. Donald vanished in a somewhat similar fashion, and both, remaining perfectly still, listened with palpitating hearts to MacRummle’s approach.

“Well, well!” exclaimed the fisher in surprise; “it’s not every day I hook a fish like this. A glengarry! And Junkie’s glengarry! The small rascal! Crumbs, too! ha! that accounts for it. He must have been having his lunch here yesterday, and was so taken up with victuals that he forgot his cap when he went away. Foolish boy! It is like his carelessness; but he’s not a bad little fellow, for all that.”

He chuckled audibly at this point. Junkie did the same inaudibly as he watched his old friend carefully disengage the hook; but the expression of his face changed a little when he saw his cap consigned to the fisher’s pocket, as he turned and descended to the stream. Having given the fisher sufficient time to get away from the spot, Junkie emerged from his hiding-place.

“Tonal’,” he said, in a low voice, looking round, “ye may come oot noo, man. He’s safe away.”

The ragged head, in a broad grin, emerged from a clump of bracken.

“It wass awful amusin’, Junkie, wass it not?”

“Yes, Tonal’, it was; but it won’t be very amusin’ for me to go all the rest of the day bareheaded.”

Donald sympathised with his friend on this point, and assured him that he would have divided his cap with him, as Junkie had divided his lunch, but for the fact that he never wore a cap at all, and the ragged hair would neither divide nor come off. After this they resumed their work of dogging the fisher’s steps.

It would require a volume to relate all that was said and done on that lovely afternoon, if all were faithfully detailed; but our space and the reader’s patience render it advisable to touch only on two points of interest.

As the day advanced the heat became overpowering, and, to escape from the glare of the sun for a little, the fisher took shelter under some very tall bracken on the bank near a deep pool. In order to secure a slight feeling of pleasurable expectation while resting, he put on a bait-cast, dropped the worm into the deepest part of the pool, propped up his rod with several stones, and then lay down to watch. The turf happened to be soft and level. As a natural consequence the tired man fell sound asleep.

“What’s to be done noo, Junkie?”

“I don’t know, Tonal’.”

To make matters more exasperating, at that moment the rod began to bend and the reel to spin jerkily.

“A fush!” exclaimed Donald.

“Looks like it,” returned his friend drily.

“I better gee a yell an’ wauken him,” suggested Donald.

“Ye’d better no’,” said Junkie, shaking his fist.

“Yonder iss the end o’ yer bonnet stickin’ oot o’ his pooch, what-ë-ver,” said Donald.

“You’d better lie low an’ keep still,” said Junkie; and, without further explanation of his intentions, he went softly down the bank and crept towards the sleeper, taking advantage of every stone and root and bush as he went along. Really, for a first attempt, it was worthy of the child of a Pawnee brave.

MacRummle was a heavy sleeper, so Junkie had no difficulty in recovering his cap. Putting it on, he returned the way he had come.

“That wass cliver, man,” said the admiring Donald, when his friend rejoined him.

Junkie accepted the compliment with a dignified smile, and then sat down to wait; but it was a severe trial of patience to both of them, for the old man slept steadily on, and even snored. He seemed, in short, to have fairly gone to bed for the night.

“What say ye to bomb stanes at ’um?” suggested Donald.

“An’ kill ’im, maybe,” returned Junkie, with sarcasm in his eye.

“Heave divits at ’um, then.”

“Ay; that’s better.”

Accordingly, the two urchins tore up a mass of turf which was much too heavy to heave.

“Let’s row’d,” suggested the active-minded Donald.

As this also met the approval of Junkie, they carried the “divit,” or mass of turf, to the bank just above the sleeper, and, taking a careful aim, let it go. The bank was not regular. A lump diverted the divit from its course, and it plunged into the pool, to the obvious discomposure of the fish, which was still at intervals tugging at the line. Another divit was tried, but with similar result. A third clod went still further astray. The bombardment then became exciting, as every kind of effort does when one begins to realise the beneficial effect of practice.

“I can see how it is,” whispered Junkie, as he carefully “laid” the next gun. “If we keep more to the right, it’ll hit that lump o’ grass, glance into the hollow, and—”

He stopped abruptly, and both boys stood in crab-like attitudes of expectation, ready to fly, for the divit took the exact course thus indicated, and bounding down the bank, hit MacRummle fair on his broad back.

The guilty ones dived like rabbits into the bracken.

“Bless me!” exclaimed the old gentleman, jumping up and shaking the dry earth off. “This is most remarkable. I do believe I’ve been asleep. But why the bank should take to crumbling down upon me is more than I can understand. Hallo! A fish! You don’t deserve such luck, Dick, my boy.”

Winding in the line in a way which proved that the divit had done him no harm, he gave utterance to an exclamation of huge disgust as he drew an eel to the bank, with the line entangled hopelessly about its shiny body. This was too much for MacRummle. Unable to face the misery of disentanglement, he cut the line, despatched the eel, attached a new hook, and continued his occupation.

At the head of the pool in question the bank was so precipitous and high that the boys could see only the top of the rod swinging gracefully to and fro as the patient man pursued his sport. Suddenly the top of the rod described a wild figure in the air and disappeared. At the same moment a heavy plunge was heard.

“Hech! he’s tum’led in the pool,” gasped Donald.

They rushed to the overhanging edge of the cliff and looked down. Sure enough MacRummle was in the water. They expected to see him swim, for