Chapter One.

Down in the Country.

“Here, I say, Josh, such a game!”

“What is it?”

The first speaker pointed down the gorge, tried to utter words, but began to choke with laughter, pointed again, and then stood stamping his feet, and wiping his eyes.

“Well,” cried the other, addressed as Josh, “what is it? Don’t stand pointing there like an old finger-post! I can’t see anything.”

“It’s—it’s—it’s—he—he—he!—Oh my!—Oh dear!”

“Gahn! What an old silly you are! What’s the game? Let’s have a bit of the fun.”

“The sun—sun—sun—”

“Don’t stand stuttering there in that stupid way.”

“I couldn’t help it—there, I’m better now. I was coming along the top walk, and there he was right down below, sitting under his old white mushroom.”

“Well, I can’t see anything to laugh at in that. He always is sitting under his old white umbrella, painting, when he isn’t throwing flies.”

“But he isn’t painting. He’s fast asleep; and I could almost hear him snore.”

“Well, if you could hear him snore, you needn’t make a hyena of yourself. I don’t see anything to laugh at in that.”

“No; you never see any fun in anything. Don’t you see the sun’s gone right round, and he’s quite in the shade?”

“Well, suppose he is; where’s the fun?”

Will Willows wiped his eyes, and then, with a mirthful look, continued—

“Oh, the idea struck me as being comic—keeping a great umbrella up when it wasn’t wanted.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Josh, solemnly; “a shower might come down.”

“But, I say, Josh, that won’t do. I’ve got such a rum idea.”

“Let’s have it.”

“Come along, then.”

A few words were whispered, though there was not the slightest need, for no one was in sight, and the rattle and whirr of machinery set in motion by a huge water-wheel, whose splashings echoed from the vast, wall-like sides of the lovely fern-hung glen in which it was placed, would have drowned anything lower than a shout.

Willows’ silk-mill had ages ago ceased to be a blot in one of the fairest valleys in beautiful Derbyshire, for it was time-stained with a rich store of colours from Nature’s palette; great cushions of green velvet moss clung to the ancient stone-work, rich orange rosettes of lichen dotted the ruddy tiles, huge ferns shot their glistening green spears from every crack and chasm of the mighty walls of the deep glen; and here and there, high overhead, silver birches hung their pensile tassels, and scrub oaks thrust out their gnarled boughs from either side, as if in friendly vegetable feeling to grasp hands over the rushing, babbling stream; for Beldale—Belle Dale, before the dwellers there cut it short—formed one long series of pictures such as painters loved, so that they came regularly from the metropolis to settle down at one of the picturesque cottages handy to their work, and at times dotted the dale with their white umbrellas and so-called “traps.”

Nature was always the grandest of landscape gardeners, and here she may be said to have excelled. Her work had been very simply done: some time or other when the world was young the Great Gray Tor must have split in two, forming one vast jagged gash hundreds of feet deep, whose walls so nearly matched, that, if by some earthquake pressure force had been applied, they would have fitted together, crushing in the verdant growth, and the vast Tor would have been itself again.

But, needless to say, this had never happened, and the lovely place, so well named, became Belle Dale.

High up in the Pennine Range the waters gathered in the great reservoirs of bog and moss to form a stream, an infant river, which ran clear as crystal, of a golden hue, right down the bottom of the gorge; here trickling and singing musically, there spreading into a rocky pool, plunging down into fall after fall, to gather again into black, dark hollows as if to gain force for its next spring; and nowhere in England did moss, fern, and water-plant grow to greater perfection than here, watered as they were by the soft, fall-made mists.

All through the summer the place was full of soft, dark nooks, and golden hollows shaded by birch, through whose pensile twigs the sunshine seemed to fall in showers of golden rain—cascades of light that plunged into the transparent waters, and flashed from the scales of the ruddy-spotted trout.

No two boys ever had brighter homes, for their dwellings were here—Josh Carlile’s at the Vicarage, planted on a shelf where the arrow-spired church looked down from near the head of the dale, where the first fall plunged wildly full thirty feet beside the little, mossy, stone-walled burial-ground. It was the home of mosses of every tint, from the high-up, metallic green in the cracks among the stones, down to the soft pink and cream patches of sphagnum, sometimes of their own vivid green when charged with water ready to spurt out at the touch of a traveller’s foot.

Will’s home—nest, he called it—was far below, at the mill, that pleasant home built first by one of his exiled ancestors, an old Huguenot who fled from France full of fervour, for his religion’s sake, seeking refuge in old England, where, like many others, he found a safe asylum to live in peace, and think.

Old Guillaume Villars had “Monsieur” written before his name; but he was one of France’s fine old working gentlemen, a great silk-weaver, and his first thought was to find a place where he and his following, a little clan, could earn their bread as sturdy workers living by the work of their hands; no beggars nor parasites they, but earnest toilers, the men who introduced their industry every here and there.

Some two hundred years ago, old Guillaume found Belle Dale ready with its motive power to his hand. He wanted water for his silk-mill: there it was, and, in a small way, he and his began their toil.

Their nearest neighbours, few indeed, soon found them quiet, earnest, religious men, and the welcome they had was warm. In their gratitude they said, “France to us is dead; this in future is our home;” and, though clinging to their language, they cast aside their fine patrician names, making them English and homely like those of the dwellers near. There was something almost grotesque at times in the changes that they made, but they were not noticed here. The D’aubignes became Daubeneys, or homely Dobbs; Chapuis, Shoppee; Jean Boileau, the great silk-weaver’s right hand, laughingly translated his name to Drinkwater; and, as the time went on and generations passed, a descendant, “disagreeable old Boil O!” as the two boys called him, was the odd man, Jack-of-all-trades, and general mechanician at Beldale Mill, the servant of old Guillaume Villars’ son, many generations down—John Willows now, father of Will of the Mill.

A long piece of pedigree this, but we must say who’s who, and what’s what, and, by the same rule, where’s where; so here we have Beldale Mill and the boys—just the place they loved and looked forward to reaching again from the great school at Worksop, when the holidays came round.

There was no such place for beauty, they felt sure; no such fishing anywhere, they believed; in fact, everything the country boy could wish for was to their hand. Collect?—I should think they did: eggs, from those of the birds of prey to the tiny dot of the golden-crested wren; butterflies and moths, from the Purple Emperors that were netted as they hovered over the tops of the scrub oaks, and hawk-moths that darted through the garden, the only level place about the bottom of the glen. Fishing too—the artist who came down was only too glad to make them friends, seeing how they knew the homes of the wily trout in the rocky nooks below the great fall down by the sluice, where the waters rushed from beneath the splashing wheel; and in the deep, deep depths of the great dam where the waters were gathered as they came down from the hills above, forming a vast reserve that never failed, but kept up the rattle and clatter of looms from year to year, and formed a place where the boys early learned to dive and swim, making their plunges from one of the ferny shelves above. They were pretty high, some of these shelves, and required a cool head and steady nerve to mount to them in safety; but they had been improved in time. By a little coaxing, James Drinkwater had been induced by the boys to climb with them on the one side or the other of the gorge, armed with hammer and cold chisel, to cut a step here, and knock out a stone there, so that most of the shelves formed by the strata of limestone had been made accessible, and glorious places to ascend to for those who loved to scramble.

One of these shelves—the best of all, so Will said—was quite three hundred feet above the dam. It was filled with bristling, gnarled oak, and the walls beneath were draped with Nature’s curtains, formed of the long strands of small-leaved ivy; and there, if you liked, you could look down, to the left, upon a lovely garden, the mossy roofs of mill and house, all to the left; while to the right you looked up the zig-zag gorge with its closed-in, often perpendicular walls, to see the glancing waters of the stream, and far up, the great plunging fall, flashing with light when the sun was overhead, deep in shadow as it passed onward towards the west.

Best of all, Will said, was lying on your breast looking right into the dam, pitching down collected pebbles, which fell with a splashless “chuck!” making “ducks’ eggs,” as they called it, and sending the white Aylesburys scuttling out of the way.

So much for the home of Will of the Mill.

Chapter Two.

Fishing for Fun.

It was up one of the shelves at the side of the great ravine that Will silently hurried his comrade, the Vicar’s son, to where they could look down at the shelf below, a fairly open, verdant space, which offered before it on the other side of the stream just such a rocky landscape full of colour, light and shade, as artists love.

Will held up his hand to ensure silence, and then, taking hold of a projecting oak bough, peered down and signed to Josh to come and look. There was not much to see; there was an easel and a small canvas thereon, an open black japanned paint-box, a large wooden palette blotched with many colours lying on a bed of fern, and whose thumb-hole seemed to comically leer up at the boys like some great eye. Then there was a pair of big, sturdy legs, upon which rested a great felt hat, everything else being covered in by a great opened-out white umbrella, perfectly useless then, for, as Will had said, all was now in the shade.

Both boys had a good look down, drew back and gazed at each other with questioning eyes, before Josh, whose white teeth were all on view, stooped down and made a slight suggestion, a kind of pantomime, that he should drag up a great buckler fern by the roots, and drop it plump on the umbrella spike.

Will’s eyes flashed, and he puckered up his mouth and pouted his lips as if in the act of emitting a great round No.

Josh’s eyes began to question, Will’s teeth to glisten, as he thrust one hand into his pocket and drew out a ring of tough water-cord. This he pitched to his companion, with a sign that he should open it out, while from another pocket he took out a small tin box, opened the lid, and drew forth a little cork, into whose soft substance the barbs of a large, bright blue, double eel-hook had been thrust.

Busy-fingered Josh watched every movement, and it was his turn now to shake his sides and indulge in a hearty, silent laugh, as he handed one end of the unwound cord.

This was deftly fitted on, and then, with every movement carefully watched and enjoyed, Will silently crept into the gnarled oak, till he was seated astride one of the horizontal projecting boughs, which began to play elastically up and down, but made no sign of loosening the parent stem, firmly anchored in the crevices of the limestone rock.

It was only a few feet out, and then the boy was exactly over the umbrella, some forty feet below. Then he began to fish, glancing from time to time through the leaves, as he sat watching and rubbing his hands.

The first gentle cast was a failure; so was the second; but the third time never fails. Will twisted the cord on his fingers, with the result that the double hook turned right over, and the barbed points, in answer to a gentle twitch, took hold of the white fabric, after passing right through.

Had there been earth below, in which the umbrella staff could have been stuck, the manoeuvre must have failed; but the shelf was nearly all rock, against some fragments of which the stick was propped. There was no failure then. There came up a faint rasping sound as of wood over stone, as the cord tightened, and then very slowly the umbrella began, parachute-like, to rise in the air, higher and higher, as it was hauled up hand over hand till the spike touched the lower twigs of the horizontal oak bough.

The next moment it was being retained in its novel place by Will making fast the line, winding it in and out between two dead branches; and then the boy quietly urged himself back to where Josh was chuckling softly as he peered down. For he was having a good view of that which had been hidden from Will, but which it was his turn now to share; and, judging from his features, he did enjoy it much.

But it was only the face and upper portion of a big, muscular, tweed-clothed man, lying back with his hands under his head, eyes closed fast, and mouth wide open, fast asleep.

He was a sturdy-looking fellow, with a big brown beard and moustache; but the boys did not stop to look, only began to retrace their steps so as to get down upon a level with the shelf upon which the sleeper lay.

“Capital!” whispered Josh. “What will he say?”

“Don’t know; don’t care!” was the reply.

“We’d better get away, hadn’t we?”

“No-o-oo! We must stop. I wouldn’t be away on any account.”

“But then he’ll know we did it, and get in a rage.”

“Pst! Be quiet.”

Will hurriedly led the way till they reached a clump of bushes where they could squat down with a good view of the sleeper, who remained perfectly still.

Josh looked up at the umbrella, which looked as if the oak tree had bloomed out into one huge white flower. Pointing up with one hand, he covered his face with the other to stifle a laugh, and Will uttered a warning.

“Hist!”

Just at that moment, heard above the murmur of the machinery in the mill, and the wash and splash of the water, there arose the peculiar strident buzz of a large bluebottle, busily on the lookout for a suitable spot on which to lay eggs.

Evidently it scented the artist, and began darting to and fro over his open mouth.

In an instant there was an angry ejaculation, one hand was set at liberty, and several blows were struck at the obnoxious fly, which, finding the place dangerous, darted off, and the artist went loudly to sleep again. The boys exchanged glances, and Josh stole out one hand, pulled a hart’s-tongue fern up by the roots, and, with admirable aim, pitched it so that it fell right on the sleeper’s chest.

The artist sat up suddenly, staring about him, while the boys crouched perfectly motionless in their hiding-place.

“What’s that?” reached their ears, and they saw the sleeper feeling about till his hand came in contact with the dry fern root.

“Why, it must have been that,” he muttered aloud, and he turned it over and over.

Josh uttered a faint sound as if he were about to burst out laughing.

“It must have come from above, somewhere. If it was those boys—” The artist looked up suspiciously as he spoke, and then, with a start, he turned himself over on his hands and knees, to begin gazing wonderingly up at the cotton blossom hanging from the tree.

“Well,” he said, “I never felt it; it must have been one of those gusts which come down from the mountain.”

Will pressed his hands tightly over Josh’s mouth, for he could feel him heaving and swaying about as if he were about to explode.

“Blows up this valley sometimes,” continued the artist, “just like a hurricane.”

“Pouf!” went Josh, for Will’s efforts were all in vain.

“Ah–h–ah! I knew it!” cried the artist, springing to his feet in a rage. “You dogs! I see you!”

It was the truth the next moment, for Josh rushed off to get into safety, closely followed by Will, whilst their victim gave chase.

Hunted creatures somehow in their hurry to escape pursuit, have a natural inclination for taking the wrong route, the one which leads them into danger when they are seeking to be safe.

It was so here. Josh led, and Will naturally followed; but his comrade might have gone round by the mill, run for the stepping-stones, where he could have crossed and made for the rough hiding-places known to him on the other side of the stream; or he might have dodged for the garden-gate, darted through, and made for the zig-zag path leading to the open moorland; but instead of this, he dashed down to the waterside, ran along by it, and then took the ascending path right up the glen, getting more and more out of breath, and with Will panting heavily close behind.

“Oh, you chucklehead!” cried the latter, huskily. “Why did you come along here? You knew we couldn’t go far.”

“It’s all right. He won’t follow. He’ll be tired directly; he’s so fat.”

“I don’t care,” cried Will, stealing a look over his shoulder; “fat or thin, he’s coming along as hard as he can pelt.”

“Yes, but he’s about done.”

“He isn’t, I tell you; he’s coming faster than you can go. Go along: look sharp!”

The boys ran on, Josh getting more and more breathless every moment, while he began to lose heart as he heard the artist shouting to him to stop.

“Here, Will,” he cried, “which way had I better go? Up the long crack, or make for the fox’s path?”

“One’s as bad as the other,” cried Will. “Fox’s path. Here, go on faster. Let me lead; I know the way best. I never saw such an old chucklehead. Why did you come this way?”

He brushed by his companion as he spoke, his legs making a whishing sound as he tore through clumps of fern and brake, running on and on over the rapidly-rising ground till the path was at an end, and they drew closer to a spot where the rocks closed in, forming a cul de sac, unless they were willing to take a leap of some twenty feet into a deep pool, or climb up the rocky wall just in front.

“We can’t jump,” panted Will.

“No,” half whispered Josh. “Oh, what a mess we are in! You will have to beg his pardon, Will.”

“You’ll have to hold your tongue, or else we shall be caught. It’s all right; come on. I can get up here.”

The boy proved it by springing at the rocky face, catching a projecting block and the tufts of heath and heather, kicking down earth and stone as he rose, and scrambling up some fifteen feet before gaining a resting-place, to pause for a moment to look down and see how his companion was getting on.

To his horror, Josh was almost at the bottom of the wall, and, scarlet with fury and exertion, the artist panting heavily about two score yards behind.

“I’ve got you, you dogs! It’s no use, I’ve got you!”

“Oh!” groaned Will, ready to give up, wondering the while whether the artist would thrash him with his elastic maul-stick.

“No, he hasn’t,” cried Josh. “Run, run! Never mind me.”

“Shan’t run,” snarled Will, between his teeth. “Here, catch hold of my hands.”

He lay down on his chest, hooking his feet in amongst the tough roots of the heather.

“Come on, I tell you! Catch hold.”