Freaks on the Fells - Robert Michael Ballantyne (best books to read in your 20s txt) 📗

include a heap of straw and rags in a corner, which served for a bed.

Seated on the stool, and bending over the fire,--was an old woman, so wild and shrivelled in her appearance that a much less superstitious urchin than Jacky might have believed her to be a witch. Her clothing may be described as a bundle of rags, with the exception of a shepherd's-plaid on her shoulders, the spotless purity of which contrasted strangely with the dirtiness of every thing else around. The old creature was moaning and moping over the fire, and drawing the plaid close round her as if she were cold, although the weather was extremely warm. At first she took no notice whatever of the entrance of her visitors, but kept muttering to herself in the Gaelic tongue.

"A fine evening, my good woman," said Fred, laying his hand gently on her shoulder.

"How do ye know I'm good?" she cried, turning her gleaming eyes sharply on her questioner.

"Don't be angry, granny," put in Mr Sudberry, in a conciliatory tone.

The effect of this remark on the old woman, was the reverse of what had been expected.

"Granny! granny!" she shrieked fiercely, holding up her skinny right arm and shaking her fist at Mr Sudberry, "who dares to ca' me granny?"

"My dear woman, I meant no offence," said the latter, much distressed at having unwittingly roused the anger of this strange creature, who continued to glare furiously at the trio.

Jacky kept well in the background, and contented himself with peeping round the door-post.

"No offence! no offence! an' you dare to ca' me granny! Go! go! _go_!"

As she uttered these three words with increasing vehemence, the last syllable was delivered in a piercing scream. Rising suddenly from her stool, she pointed to the door with an air of command that would have well become the queen of the witches.

Not wishing to agitate the poor woman, whom he now regarded as a lunatic, Mr Sudberry turned to go, but a wonderful change in the expression of her face arrested him. Her eye had fallen on the round visage of Jacky, and a beaming smile now lighted up and beautified the countenance which had so recently been distorted with passion. Uttering some unintelligible phrase in Gaelic, she held out her skinny arms towards the child, as if entreating him to come to her. Strange to say, Jacky did not run away or scream with fright as she approached him and took him in her arms. Whether it was that he was too much petrified with horror to offer any resistance, or that he understood the smile of affection and reciprocated it, we cannot tell; but certain it is that Jacky suffered her to place him on her knee, stroke his hair, and press him to her old breast, as unresistingly and silently as if she had been his own mother, instead of a mad old woman.

Fred availed himself of this improved state of things to attempt again to open an amicable conversation; but the old woman appeared to have turned stone deaf; for she would neither look at nor reply to him. Her whole attention was devoted to Jacky, into whose wondering ears she poured a stream of Gaelic, without either waiting for, or apparently expecting, a reply.

Suddenly, without a word of warning, she pushed Jacky away from her, and began to wring her hands and moan as she bent over the fire. Mr Sudberry seized the opportunity to decamp. He led Jacky quietly out of the hut, and made for the White House at as rapid a pace as the darkness of the night would allow. As they walked home, father and sons felt as if they had recently held familiar converse with a ghost or an evil spirit.

But that feeling passed away when they were all seated at tea in the snug parlour, relating and listening to the adventure; and Jacky swelled to double his size, figuratively, on finding himself invested with sudden and singular importance as the darling of an "old witch." Soon, however, matters of greater interest claimed the attention of Mr Sudberry and his sons; for their bosoms were inflamed with a desire to emulate the dexterous Hector Macdonald.

Rods and tackle were overhauled, and every preparation made for a serious expedition on the morrow. That night Mr Sudberry dreamed of fishing.


STORY ONE, CHAPTER 5.


SOME ACCOUNT OF A GREAT FISHING EXPEDITION.

There was an old barometer of the banjo type in the parlour of the White House, which, whatever might have been its character for veracity in former days, had now become such an inveterate story-teller, that it was pretty safe to accept as true, exactly the reverse of what it indicated. One evening Mr Sudberry kept tapping that antique and musical-looking instrument, with a view to get it to speak out its mind freely. The worthy man's efforts were not in vain, for the instrument, whether out of spite or not, we cannot say, indicated plainly "much rain."

Now, it must be known that Mr Sudberry knew as much about trout and salmon-fishing as that celebrated though solitary individual, "the man in the moon." Believing that bright, dry, sunny weather was favourable to this sport, his heart failed him when the barometer became so prophetically depressed, and he moved about the parlour with quick, uneasy steps, to the distress of his good wife, whose work-box he twice swept off the table with his coat-tails, and to the dismay of George, whose tackle, being spread out for examination, was, to a large extent, caught up and hopelessly affixed to the same unruly tails.

Supper and repose finally quieted Mr Sudberry's anxious temperament; and when he awoke on the following morning, the sun was shining in unclouded splendour through his window. Awaking with a start, he bounced out of bed, and, opening his window, shouted with delight that it was a glorious fishing-day.

The shout was addressed to the world at large, but it was responded to only by Hobbs.

"Yes, sir, it _is_ a hexquisite day," said that worthy; "what a day for the Thames, sir! It does my 'art good, sir, to think of that there river."

Hobbs, who was standing below his master's window, with his coat off, and his hands in his waistcoat-pockets, meant this as a happy and delicate allusion to things and times of the past.

"Ah! Hobbs," said Mr Sudberry, "you don't know what fishing in the Highlands is, yet; but you shall see. Are the rods ready?"

"Yes, sir."

"And the baskets and books?"

"Yes, sir."

"And, ah! I forgot--the flasks and sandwiches--are they ready, and the worms?"

"Yes, sir; Miss Lucy's a makin' of the san'wiches in the kitchen at this moment, and Maclister's a diggin' of the worms."

Mr Sudberry shut his window, and George, hearing the noise, leaped out of bed with the violence that is peculiar to vigorous youth. Fred yawned.

"What a magnificent day!" said George, rubbing his hands, and slapping himself preparatory to ablutions; "I will shoot."

"Will you--a-ow?" yawned Fred: "I shall sketch. I mean to begin with the old woman's hut."

"What! do you mean to have your nose plucked off and your eyes torn out at the beginning of our holiday?"

"Not if I can help it, George; but I mean to run the risk--I mean to cultivate that old woman."

"Hallo! hi!" shouted their father from below, while he tapped at the window with the end of a fishing-rod. "Look alive there, boys, else we'll have breakfast without you."

"Ay, ay, father!" Fred was up in a moment.

About two hours later, father and sons sallied out for a day's sport, George with a fowling-piece, Fred with a sketch-book, and Mr Sudberry with a fishing-rod, the varnish and brass-work on which, being perfectly new, glistened in the sun.

"We part here, father," said George, as they reached a rude bridge that spanned the river about half a mile distant from the White House. "I mean to clamber up the sides of the Ben, and explore the gorges. They say that ptarmigan and mountain hares are to be found there."

The youth's eye sparkled with enthusiasm; for, having been born and bred in the heart of London, the idea of roaming alone among wild rocky glens up among the hills, far from the abodes of men, made him fancy himself little short of a second Crusoe. He was also elated at the thought of firing at _real_ wild birds and animals--his experiences with the gun having hitherto been confined to the unromantic practice of a shooting-gallery in Regent Street.

"Success to you, George," cried Mr Sudberry, waving his hand to his son, as the latter was about to enter a ravine.

"The same to you, father," cried George, as he waved his cap in return, and disappeared.

Five minutes' walk brought them to the hut of the poor old woman, whose name they had learned was Moggy.

"This, then, is my goal," said Fred, smiling. "I hope to scratch in the outline of the interior before you catch your first trout."

"Take care the old woman doesn't scratch out your eyes, Fred," said the father, laughing. "Dinner at five--_sharp_, remember."

Fred entered the hovel, and Mr Sudberry, walking briskly along the road for a quarter of a mile, diverged into a foot-path which conducted him to the banks of the river, and to the margin of a magnificent pool where he hoped to catch his first trout.

And now, at last, had arrived that hour to which Mr Sudberry had long looked forward with the most ardent anticipation. To stand alone on a lovely summer's day, rod in hand, on the banks of a Highland stream, had been the ambition of the worthy merchant ever since he was a boy. Fate had decreed that this ambition should not be gratified until his head was bald; but he did not rejoice the less on this account. His limbs were stout and still active, and his enthusiasm was as strong as it was in boyhood. No one knew the powerful spirit of angling which dwelt in Mr Sudberry's breast. His wife did not, his sons did not. He was not fully aware of it himself, until opportunity revealed it in the most surprising manner. He had, indeed, known a little of the angler's feelings in the days of his youth, but he had a soul above punts, and chairs, and floats, and such trifles; although, like all great men, he did not despise little things. Many a day had he sat on old Father Thames, staring, with eager expectation, at a gaudy float, as if all his earthly hopes were dependent on its motions; and many a struggling fish had he whipped out of the muddy waters with a shout of joy. But he thought of those days, now, with the feelings of an old soldier who, returning from the wars to his parents' abode, beholds the drum and pop-gun of his childhood. He recalled the pleasures of the punt with patronising kindliness, and gazed majestically on crag, and glen, and bright, glancing stream, while he pressed his foot upon the purple heath, and put up his fishing-rod!

Mr Sudberry was in his element now. The deep flush on his gladsome countenance indicated the turmoil