Eden, fresh from Linkeham, on account of a terrible attack of fever
ravaging the school to such an extent that it was considered wise to
close it for a time, was enjoying the pleasant change, and wondering how
long it would be before the school would reopen, and whether his father,
Sir Edward Eden of Black Tor, would send him back.
"I ought to be old enough now to give up a schoolboy's life," he said to
himself, "and begin thinking of what I shall be as a man."
He said this to himself as he descended the stone steps which led to the
platform at the side of the precipice, where a natural Gothic arch hung
over the entrance to the mine, which began with a steep slope running
down through the limestone for fifty yards, and then opened out into an
extensive cavity, whose roof was a hundred feet overhead, and in whose
floor the square hole had been cut to follow the great vein of lead,
which spread like the roots of some gigantic tree in various directions.
The great hole represented the trunk of the tree, and this had once
been solid lead ore, but all had been laboriously cut away, as well as
many of the branches, which represented the roots, though plenty were
left to excavate, and fresh ones and new cavities were constantly being
formed, so that the Eden mine at Black Tor was looked upon as the
richest in the county.
Mark Eden stopped to have a chat with some of his father's men, who were
going and coming from the square trunk-hole, and he watched them
ascending and descending the greasy ladders fixed against the side, each
man bearing a candle, stuck in his leather cap.
"I shan't want to be a miner," he said, as he gazed down at the tiny
sparks of light below. "Faugh! how dark and dismal it looks. A dirty
hole. But father says dirty work brings clean money, and it's just as
well to be rich, I suppose. But what a life! Might just as well be a
mole."
He began to hum over an old English ditty, and his voice echoed
strangely from above.
"Let's see: Mary wants some of that blue spar, and I promised to get a
lot. Must go down one of these days with Dummy Rugg: he says he knows
of some fine bits. Not to-day, though."
He hurried out into the bright sunshine again, went up the steps to the
castle, which stood perched at the top of a huge mass of rock,
surrounded on all sides by the deep gorge, and then crossed the natural
bridge to the main cliff, of which the foundation of the castle was the
vast slice, split away, most probably by some volcanic disturbance.
Masses of lava and scoria uncovered by the miners, from time to time,
showed that volcanic action had been rife there at one period;
additional suggestion that the said action had not yet died out, being
afforded by the springs of beautifully clear warm water, which bubbled
out in several places in the district.
As the lad crossed the bridge, thinking nothing of the giddy, profound
depths on either side, there being not the slightest protection in the
way of rail to the six-foot wide path, he shook back his brown hair,
thrust his hands in his pockets, and with the sheath of his sword
banging against his legs, started off along the first level place for a
run.
A looker-on would have wondered why he did this, and would have gazed
ahead to see what there was to induce him to make so wild a rush in a
dangerous place. But he would have seen nothing but rugged path,
tree-top, and the face of the cliff, and would not have grasped the fact
that the reason for the boy's wild dash was, that he was overcharged
with vitality, and that energy which makes a lad exert himself in that
natural spontaneous effort to get rid of some of the vital gas, flashing
along his nerves and bubbling through his veins.
"What a day!" he cried aloud. "How blue the sky is. Hallo! there they
go."
He stopped suddenly to watch a cavernous hole in the cliff, from which
half-a-dozen blue rock-pigeons had darted out, and as he watched, others
swooped by, and darted in.
The next minute he went on, followed the path, and turned a
buttress-like corner, which took him to the other side of the great
chine of limestone, which was here quite as precipitous, but clothed
with trees, which softened the asperities of nature, and hung from
shelf, crack, and chasm, to cast shadows down and down, right to where
the river flashed and sparkled in its rapid flow, or formed deep dark
pools, which reflected the face of the cliff in picture after picture.
"One never gets tired of this place," muttered the lad, as he began to
descend a zigzag path, worn in the face of the cliff, starting the
powdered-headed jackdaws from their breeding shelves and holes, and
sending the blackbirds chinking from out of the bushes which clung to
the grey precipice.
"That's where the brown owl's nest was," muttered the lad. "Bound to
say there's one this year. S'pose I'm getting too old for
birds'-nesting and climbing. Don't see why I should be, though."
He reached the river's bank at last, and after walking for a few yards,
trampling down the white blossoms of the broad-leaved garlic, which here
grew in profusion, and suggested salad, he reached a rippling shallow,
stepped down into the river, and waded across, the water only reaching
to his ankles.
As he stepped out on the other side, and kicked and stamped to get rid
of the water, he gazed along the winding dale at as glorious a bit of
English scenery as England can produce; and on that bright May morning,
as he breathed in the sweet almond-like odour of the fully-blown
hawthorn blossom, he muttered: "Linkeham's nice enough, but the lads
would never believe how beautiful it is here. Hallo! there he goes. I
wonder where they are building this year."
He shaded his eyes as he looked up at a great blackbird, winging its way
high up above the top of the great cliff which hung over the river, and
watched till it disappeared, when, in a low melodious voice, he began
singing softly another snatch of an old English song, something about
three ravens that sat upon a tree, with a chorus of: "Down, a-down,
a-down," which he repeated again and again, as if it helped him to
reflect.
"Wonder where they are building this year," he said to himself again.
"I should like a couple of little ones to bring up. Get them young, and
they'd be as tame as tame."
He went on wondering where the ravens, which frequented the
neighbourhood of the river and its mountainous cliffs, built their
nests; but wondering did not help him, and he gave up the riddle, and
began, in his pleasant holiday idleness, to look about at other things
in the unfrequented wilderness through which the river ran. To trace
the raven by following it home seemed too difficult, but it was easy to
follow a great bumble-bee, which went blundering by, alighting upon a
block of stone, took flight again, and landed upon a slope covered with
moss, entering at last a hole which went sloping down beneath the
stones.
A little farther on, where a hawthorn whitened the bank with its
fragrant wreaths, there was a quick, fluttering rush, a glimpse of a
speckle-breasted thrush, and a little examination showed the neat nest,
plastered inside smoothly with clay, like a cup, to hold four beautiful
blue eggs, finely-spotted at the ends.
"Sitting, and nearly hatched," said the lad. "Might wait for them, and
bring them up. I dunno, though. Sing best in the trees. Wouldn't hop
about the courtyard and cliffs like the young ravens. Wonder where they
build?"
He went on, to stop and watch the trout and grayling, which kept darting
away, as he approached the riverside, gleaming through the sunlit water,
and hiding in the depths, or beneath some mass of rock or tree-root on
the other side.
"Rather stupid for me, getting to be a man, to think so much about
birds' nests; but I don't know: perhaps it isn't childish. Old Rayburn
is always watching for them, and picking flowers, and chipping bits of
stone. Why, he has books full of pressed grasses and plants; and boxes
full of bits of ore and spar, and stony shells out of the caves and
mines.--Well now, isn't that strange?"
He stopped short, laughing to himself, as he suddenly caught sight of a
droll-looking figure, standing knee-deep in the river, busy with rod and
line, gently throwing a worm-baited hook into the deep black water,
under the projecting rocks at the foot of the cliff.
The figure, cut off, as it were, at the knees, looked particularly short
and stout, humped like a camel, by the creel swung behind to be out of
the way. His dress was a rusty brown doublet, with puffed-out breeches
beneath, descending half-way down the thigh, and then all was bare. A
steeple-crowned, broad-brimmed hat, from beneath which hung an abundance
of slightly-curling silvery hair, completed the figure at which Mark
Eden gazed, unseen; for the old man was intent upon his fishing, and
just then he struck, and after a little playing, drew in and unhooked a
finely-spotted trout, which he was about to transfer to his basket, when
he was checked by a greeting from the back.
"Morning, Master Rayburn. That's a fine one."
"Ah, Mark, boy, how are you?" said the old man, smiling. "Yes: I've got
his brother in the basket, and I want two more. Better come and help me
to eat them."
"Can't to-day.--Quite well?"
"Yes, thank God, boy. Well for an old man. I heard you were back from
school. How's that?"
"Bad fever there. All sent home."
"That's sad. Ought to be at work, boy. Better come and read with me."
"Well, I will sometimes, sir."
"Come often, my boy; keep you out of mischief."
"Oh, I shan't get into mischief, sir."
"Of course not; idle boys never do. Not likely to get fighting, either.
I see young Ralph Darley's at home. Fine chance for you," said the old
man, with a sarcastic ring in his voice, as he slipped his trout into
the basket.
"Is he?" cried the lad excitedly.
"Oh yes; he's up at the Cliff. Now then, why don't you fill your
pockets with big stones to throw at him, or cut a big club? Oh, I see,
though. You've mounted a skewer. Pull it out, and try if the point's
sharp. I suppose you're going down the river to lay wait for him and
kill him."
"There, you're as bad as ever, Master Rayburn," cried the lad, flushing,
and looking mortified. "Last time I saw you it was just the same:
laughing at, and bantering, and sneering at me. No wonder my father
gets angry with you, and doesn't ask you to the Tor."
"Yes, no wonder. Quarrels with me, boy, instead of with himself for
keeping up such a mad quarrel."
"It isn't father's fault, sir," cried the lad quickly. "It's the old
feud that has been going on for generations."
"Old feud! Old disgrace!" cried the fisherman, throwing away the worm
he was about to impale on his hook, to see it snapped up at once by a
good fish; and standing his rod in the water, like a staff to lean on,
as he went on talking, with the cold water swirling about over his
knees, and threatening to wet his feather-stuffed breeches. "I'm
ashamed of your father and Ralph's father. Call themselves Christian
gentlemen, and because a pair of old idiots of ancestors in the dark
ages quarrelled, and tried to cut one another's throats, they go on as
their fathers did before them, trying to seize each other's properties,
and to make an end of one another, and encouraging their sons to grow up
in the same vile way."
"My father is a gentleman and a knight, sir," cried Mark Eden hotly;
"and I'm sure that he would never turn cut-throat or robber if he was
left alone."
"Of course; and that's what Sir Morton Darley would say, or his son
either; and still the old feud is kept up. Look here, boy; suppose you
were to run against young Ralph now, what would happen?"
"There'd be a fight," cried the lad, flushing up; and he drew in his
breath with a hiss.
"Of course!" sneered the old man.
"Well, he never sees me without insulting me."
"And you never see him without doing the same."
"But--"
"But! Bah! I haven't patience with you all. Six of one; half a dozen
of the other. Both your families well off in this world's goods, and
yet miserable, Fathers, two Ahabs, longing for the other's land to make
a garden of herbs; and if they got it, a nice garden of herbs it would
be! Why, Mark Eden, as I'm a scholar and a gentleman, my income is
fifty pounds a year. My cottage is my own, and I'm a happier man than
either of your fathers. Look about you, boy--here, at the great God's
handiwork; wherever your eyes rest, you see beauty. Look at this
silvery flashing river, the lovely great trees, the beautiful cliffs,
and up yonder in the distance at the soft blues of the mountains,
melting into the bluer skies. Did you ever see anything more glorious
than this dale?"
"Never," cried the lad enthusiastically.
"Good, boy! That came from the heart. That heart's young and soft, and
true, as I know. Don't let it get crusted over with the hard shell of a
feud. Life's too great and grand to be wasted over a miserable quarrel,
and in efforts to make others wretched. And it's so idiotic, Mark, for
you can't hurt other people without hurting yourself more. Look here,
next time you, spring boy, meet the other spring boy, act at once; don't
wait till you are summer men, or autumn men. When you get to be a
winter man as I am, it will be too late. Begin now, while it is early
with you. Hold out your hand and shake his, and become fast friends.
Teach your fathers what they ought to have done when they were young.
Come, promise me that."
"I can't, sir," said the boy, frowning. "And if I could, Ralph Darley
would laugh in my face."
"Bah!" ejaculated the old man, stamping the butt of his rod in the
water. "There, I've done with you both. You are a pair of young
ravens, sons of the old ravens, who have their nests up on the stony
cliffs, and you'll both grow up to be as bad and bitter as your fathers,
and take to punching out the young lambs' eyes with your beaks. I've
done with you both."
"No, you haven't, Master Rayburn," said the lad softly. "I was coming
to see you this evening, to ask you to go with me for a day, hunting for
minerals and those stones you showed me in the old cavern, where the hot
spring is."
"Done with you, quite," said the old man fiercely, as he began to bait
his hook with another worm.
"And I say, Master Rayburn, I want to come and read with you."
"An untoward generation," said the old man. "There, be off! I'm
wasting time, and I want my trout, and _thymallus_, my grayling, for man
must eat, and it's very nice to eat trout and grayling, boy. Be off!
I've quite done with you." And the old man turned his back, and waded a
few steps upstream.
"I say, Master Rayburn," continued the lad, "when you said `Bah!' in
that sharp way, it was just like the bark of one of the great black
birds."
"What, sir!" snapped the old man; "compare me to a raven?"
"You compared me and my father, and the Darleys, all to ravens, sir."
"Humph! Yes, so I did," muttered the old fisherman.
"I didn't mean to be rude. But you reminded me: I saw one of them fly
over just before I met you, sir. Do you know where they are nesting
this year?"
"Eh?" cried the fisherman, turning sharply, with a look of interest in
his handsome old face. "Well, not for certain, Mark, but I've seen them
several times lately--mischievous, murderous wretches. They kill a
great many lambs. They're somewhere below, near the High Cliffs. I
shouldn't at all wonder, if you got below there and hid among the
bushes, you'd see where they came. It's sure to be in the rock face."
"I should like to get the young ones," said the lad.
"Yes, do, my boy; and if you find an addled egg or two, save them for
me. Bring then on, and we'll blow them."
"I will," said the lad, smiling.--"Don't be hard on me, Master Rayburn."
"Eh? No, no, my boy; but I can't help being a bit put out sometimes.
Coming down this evening, were you? Do. I'll save you a couple of
grayling for supper--if I catch any," he added, with a smile.
"May I come?"
"Of course. Come early, my boy. I've a lot of things to show you that
I've found since you were at home, and we'll plan out some reading, eh?
Mustn't go back and get rusty, because you are at home. We'll read a
great deal, and then you won't have time to think about knocking Ralph
Darley's brains out--if he has any. You haven't much, or you wouldn't
help to keep up this feud."
"Oh, please don't say any more about that, Master Rayburn."
"Not a word, boy. Must go on--a beautiful worm morning."
The old man turned his back again.
"Don't be late," he cried; and he waded onward, stooping, and looking
more humped and comical than ever, as he bent forward to throw his bait
into likely places, while Mark Eden went onward down-stream.
"I like old Master Rayburn," he said to himself; "but I wish he wouldn't
be so bitter about the old trouble. It isn't our fault. Father would
be only too glad to shake hands and be friends, if the Darleys were only
nice, instead of being such savage beasts."
He went on, forcing his way among the bushes, and clambering over the
great blocks of stone which strewed the sides of the river, and then
stopped suddenly, as he sent up a moor-hen, which flew across the river,
dribbling its long thin toes in the water as it went.
"I wonder," he said thoughtfully, "whether the Darleys think we are
beasts too?"