The Ocean Cat's Paw.

by George Manville Fenn.

CHAPTER ONE.

RODD THE PICKLE.

"Here's another, uncle."

This was shouted cheerily, and the reply thereto was a low muttering, ending with a grunt.

It was a glorious day on Dartmoor, high up in the wildest part amongst the rugged tors, where a bright little river came flashing and sparkling along, and sending the bright beams of the sun in every direction from the disturbed water, as an eager-looking boy busily played the trout he had hooked, one which darted here and there in its wild rush for freedom, but all in vain, for after its little mad career it was safely brought to bank, and landed. There was no need to use the light net which hung diagonally and unnecessarily across its owner's back, for the glittering little speckled trout was only about the size of a small dace, though it fought and kicked as hardily as if it had weighed a pound, and indulged in a series of active leaps as it was slipped through the hole in the lid of a creel, to drop into companionship with half-a-score of its fellows, which welcomed the new prisoner with a number of leaps almost as wild as its own.

The utterer of the grunt, a stoutly-built man who might have been of any age, though he could not have been very young, judging from his bristly greyish whiskers, was also busily occupied, but in a calmer, more deliberate way.

He had no creel slung from his shoulder, but a coa.r.s.e clean wallet that was rather bulgy, its appearance suggesting that it was carried because it contained something to eat, while its owner held in one hand, slung by a stoutish lanyard, a big, wide-mouthed gla.s.s bottle half full of water, and in the other hand a little yellow canvas net attached to a bra.s.s ring at the end of a stick, the sort of implement that little boys use when bound upon the chase and capture of the mighty "t.i.ttlebat."

And as his younger companion shouted and landed his little mountain trout, the net was being carefully pa.s.sed under water, drawn out and emptied upon the fine lawn-like gra.s.s, and what looked like a little sc.r.a.p of opalescent jelly was popped into the wide-mouthed bottle.

"You got one too, uncle?" shouted the boy, who was higher up the stream.

"Yes; some very nice specimens down here. Are you getting plenty of sport, Rodd?"

"Yes, uncle," replied the boy, who was carefully examining his tiny artificial gnat before beginning to whip the stream again. "They are rising famously; but they are awfully small. I shall get a dish, though, for supper."

"Uncle," as he was called, grunted again, and went on searching amongst the water-weeds with his net, his tendency being with the stream, while the boy, who did not scruple about stepping into the shallows from time to time, went on whipping away upward towards where one of the tors rose in a chaotic ma.s.s of broken, lichen-covered, fragmentary granite, apparently hiding in the distance the source of the little bubbling and sparkling stream.

Sometimes, as the boy struck in unison with the rise, he missed his fish, at others he hooked and held it till it broke away, and then again he transferred another to his creel, as intent upon his sport as his uncle was upon his pursuit, but still adding and adding to the contents of the creel for quite an hour. Then, in an interval when the fish had ceased to rise, the boy began to look downward, finding to his surprise that he was quite alone and close up to the towering ma.s.s of time-worn granite, many of whose blocks sparkled in the summer sun with crystals of quartz, and specks of hornblende, and were rendered creamy by the abundant felspar which held the grains together in a ma.s.s.

"I wonder what's become of Uncle Paul," muttered the boy. "Have I lost him, or has he lost me? What stuff! One's only got to go down the stream, and he's sure to be there somewhere, dipping for his what-do-you-call-'ems--hydras and germs and buds, and the rest of them.

But oh, what a jolly morning it is, and what a jolly place Dartmoor is now the sun shines! Not very jolly yesterday, though, when the wind was sweeping the rain across in clouds and you couldn't see the tops of the tors for the mist. Oh, but it is beautiful to-day. I do feel jolly!"

The boy let his light tapering rod fall into the hollow of his arm, swung round his creel to the front, and, raising the lid, peered down at his speckled prizes lying upon a bed of newly-picked bracken fronds.

"Why, there must be fifty," he cried. "There, I won't stop to count.

I'll catch a few more, and guess at fifty. That'll be enough for a nice lot for tea and some more for to-morrow morning's breakfast. Uncle Paul does enjoy a dish of trout. Humph! So do I. I suppose it's this beautiful fresh air up among the tors, and the tramping. It was a good long way up here from the cottage. I suppose it's that makes me feel so jolly hungry. Oh, look at that now! Uncle would carry the wallet, and he's got all the sandwiches. Never mind; I'll catch a few more of the little beauties, and then toddle back to meet him."

But the boy did not begin to fish directly, but stood gazing round at the glorious prospect of hill and dale and miniature mountain, here grey and sparkling, there flushed as if with the golden sheen of blossoming furze, while the lower slopes were of the magnificent purple of the abundant heath.

"Beautiful!" cried the boy ecstatically. "I am glad that we came up here to stay. So is dear old uncle. He's revelling in the specimens he gets, and we shall have another jolly night with the microscope. He'll give me a lecture upon all the little Latin beggars he pops into his bottle, and another for being so stupid in not recollecting all their cranky names. Never mind; it is jolly. Pity it isn't later, for then there'd be plenty of blackberries and whorts. I dare say there'd be lots of the little tiny b.u.t.ton mushrooms, too, in the lower parts among the soft gra.s.s. But what's the use of grumbling? Uncle says that I am never satisfied, and that I am always restless, and I suppose it's because I am a boy. Well, I can't help being a boy," he mused thoughtfully. "I might have been a girl. Well, girls are restless too.

I say, what's that?"

He shaded his eyes again and gazed at a speck of something that looked bright scarlet in the distance, and then not very far away he made out another, and again another speck or blotch of bright red. "Now, I wonder what's growing there," muttered the boy. "I don't remember anything scarlet growing and blowing. Poppies? No, I don't think they are poppies. They are at the edges of the cornfields, and there are no cornfields up here."

He fixed his eyes more intently upon the scarlet specks, and then burst out laughing.

"Well, they are not poppies," he said aloud. "Poppies don't move, and those are moving, sure enough. There, one of them has gone behind that block of stone. Pooh, how stupid! Why, of course!"

He jerked himself round to look in another direction, so sharply that his creel swung out for a moment from the strap, and came back against his hip with a bang, as he stood with his back to the sun, gazing at a distant grey, gloomy-looking pile of stone building, and then nodded his head with satisfaction.

"Poppies, indeed! My grandmother! That's what they are. Soldiers from over yonder. Part of the guard from the great prison, I suppose. Oh, poor beggars! How miserable, when you come to think of it--shut up yonder in that great gloomy place, for I don't suppose they let them come out much without soldiers to watch them--and all for doing nothing.

Doing nothing! Mustn't say that, though, before Uncle Paul, or he'll go into a rage and begin preaching about Bony and the war, and going on about the French. Hullo!"

The boy started, for there was a dull thud, apparently from the prison, miles away, followed by a loud echo which seemed to come from close at hand, making him turn again as if to look for the spot from which it came, and seeing it too, for the report of the gun had as it were struck against the face of the tor above him, and then glanced off to strike elsewhere.

"How queer echoes are!" he muttered. "Yes, and how queer I feel--all hollow. That's made me think about it. I suppose that means twelve or one o'clock dinner-time. Oh, how stupid to go right away from uncle like this! I wish he'd come. But I won't go till I have made my fifty trout."

Turning his attention now to the stream, he began whipping away again, and finding that the little trout were rising as well as ever, with the result that Rodney Harding once more forgot everything else in his pursuit and went on up-stream nearer and nearer to the great tor, till at last he found himself in a little hollow amongst the rocks where the river had widened into a pool, hollowed out as it were at the base of a great cliff.

"Why, this is the end of it," he said, pausing to look round and upward at the towering pile of rocks. "No, it isn't. It must be the beginning--the source, I suppose they call it. Yes, the stream begins here, comes right from under that cliff. Why, it's like a little cave out of which the water streams."

He stopped short and threw his fly once or twice without effect, and then, moved by curiosity, waded into the shallow rippling water, which rose a little way above his boots, but as it began to invade his trousers he rolled them up to his knees, before wading onward till he was stopped by the piled-up cliff face where the water came gliding out and rippled about his legs.

"Why, it ought to be quite cold," he muttered, "instead of which it is warm."

Then, standing up his rod so that the top rested among the stones, he stooped down, bending nearly double before he could pa.s.s in beneath a rough stony natural arch and slowly force his way along a narrow pa.s.sage for a few feet, before stopping short where the water nearly reached his knees.

"Oh, I say! I am not going to break my back short off at the hips by squeezing in here," he grumbled. "Besides, it's all dark; and what's the good? Here, I know! This isn't the source. This tor is only a piled-up heap of stones, and I dare say if I go round I shall find the little river coming in on the other side, and this is where it comes out. Well, let it. Here, I want my lunch."

He made his way back into the sunshine where all was bright and clear again, and, taking his rod, stepped out to the edge of the pool, where the dry sand felt pleasant and comfortable to his feet, and there he went on fishing again with more or less success, till he pa.s.sed out of the little amphitheatre to where the rocks fell away on either side, half hidden by the heath and furze.

"Must have got fifty by this time," muttered the boy. "Now just one more to make sure, and then I'll be off, and--Ugh! Who are you? How you made me jump!"

The Ocean Cat's Paw--by George Manville Fenn

CHAPTER TWO.

AFTER FRENCH PRISONERS.

There was some reason in Rodney Harding's words, for as he turned from the little river he had come suddenly face to face with a thin gaunt-looking lad of about his own age, very shabbily dressed and almost ragged, who was gazing at him fiercely, and stood with one hand as if about to strike. Recovering himself on the instant, Rodney, obeying his first impulse, began to loosen the bottom joint of his rod ready to use it as a weapon--a defence against the expected attack--but in an instant the strange new-comer dropped his hand to his side, turned quickly away to look outward across the moor, and then cried wildly, his voice sounding strange of accent, and husky as if from exhaustion--

"No, no, don't hit! I am so weak and so helpless. Help me. Tell me, which way can I go? They are close after me, and I can run no farther.

Help!"

The poor wild-looking creature ended by sinking upon his knees amongst the heath, and raising his hands with a piteous gesture, while his imploring looks were quite sufficient to move the young fisherman's heart.

"Why, who are you?" he cried. "You are not a beggar."

"No, no! I confess. Oh, _mon ami_--I beg your pardon--sir! I forgot.

I confess everything. It was for liberty; we were escaping, but the guard--the soldiers! They have been hunting us down like dogs."

"A French prisoner?" cried the boy.

"Ah, _oui_--yes, monsieur. It is my misfortune. But the soldiers. We have been separated."

"Who's 'we'?" said Rodney sharply.