Gunpowder Treason and Plot, and Other Stories for Boys. Whishaw Frederick

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СКАЧАТЬ art of bear-hunting, wolf-ringing, and even of calling the lynx and other animals from an ambush – one of the most difficult and exciting of all forms of sport.

      Scarcely a week passed even in winter time without some sporting enterprise planned and undertaken by the four men (to dignify Paul and Peter by that title, scarcely yet due them by the operation of time); and when there was a battue or ambush-shooting, Vera nearly always formed one of the party as a spectator. When the sport included long runs upon the snowshoes in pursuit of lynx or elk, the girl, though no mean performer on snowshoes, preferred to leave the hunt to the sterner sex.

      One evening the young counts, with Frank Thirlstone, drove over to the general's to dinner, as they frequently did, in order to plan a campaign for the following day. To their astonishment the old servant in the hall informed them that "his excellence" was in bed ill, but that his young mistress was up and ready to receive them.

      Hurrying upstairs to learn what ailed their old friend, the three young men found Vera greatly excited, and anxious to tell them the whole story, which was sufficiently exciting, and may be told in her own words.

      "Father and I were wandering in the woods," she began. "He carried a gun with small shot, for I had asked him to shoot a brace of tree partridges or so for the house. We heard one whistle in the distance – you know how sharp father's ears are for that kind of sound – and stood to listen. We stood in the midst of a tangle of fallen pinetrees – what the peasants call a lom. Suddenly, within five yards of us, there was a startling upheaval of snow and pine twigs, and with a deafening roar a big she-bear rushed straight out at us. We had been standing unconsciously within a few paces of her winter lair, where father says she probably has a family of cubs, or she would have been asleep.

      "Father cried out to me to run for my life, which I did, skating away on my snowshoes at my very best speed. I heard my father fire a shot, but did not turn round for fear of running into a tree stump and tripping up.

      "Then my father shouted again, and to my horror I found that the bear was in full pursuit of me, apparently none the worse for the charge of small shot.

      "I could scarcely think for horror. I was some thirty yards ahead; but, since the snow was fairly hard, I knew the beast would soon catch me, and if she did I had nothing but a small Circassian dagger with a silver handle – the one that Mr. Thirlstone gave me," Vera added with a glance at the Oxonian and a slight blush, "on my birthday. Then I thought I would try to reach a patch of soft snow which I remembered to have passed over a few minutes before, and in that direction I now turned my shoes. I could hear poor father shouting frantically after me, but it was impossible to distinguish what he said. I know now that he wished me to lead the bear round in a curve, so that he might shoot her. But I succeeded in reaching the soft snow, and there my pursuer floundered, while I sped quickly on and gained some yards upon her. This also enabled my father to come up closer to the bear, and as he was now nearer to her than I was, and all the noise came from him, she turned round and charged back at father.

      "Father fired when she was close, but his charge flew like a bullet, and he missed her. Apparently, however, the shot passed near enough to the brute to frighten her into discretion; for, having knocked poor father backwards, and run right over him, she took no further notice of him, and retired to her berloga [lair]. Father was much shaken, but not seriously hurt; he will be quite well after a day or two of resting in bed."

      When Paul had an opportunity of speaking privately to Vera, he was very eloquent in his expressions of gratitude for her deliverance from danger. "Ah-rr!" he ended, "the brute; she shall die to-morrow, Vera, I swear it, for frightening you."

      "Still more for hurting poor father, I hope," she laughed; "but be careful, Paul, for she is savage."

      "I am sorry that the general was hurt," said Paul, "but she shall die for the other fault."

      Presently Peter took Vera aside, and said almost the same words.

      "If that brute had hurt a hair of your head, Vera," he said, "I should have spent the rest of my life exterminating bears; as it is, this one shall die to-morrow for frightening you."

      "It is very kind of you, dear Peter, to be my champion; but, please, be careful, for this is a very savage bear, and I would not have you hurt."

      "Bah!" said Peter; "I am not afraid of a bear."

      Vera was an extremely pretty girl, and as she sat at the head of her father's dinner table dispensing hospitality to her three guests, each one of the young men evidently recognized this fact, for many admiring glances were bestowed upon her. Both Paul and Peter afterwards made private inquiries as to the exact locality of the day's adventure, neither, however, mentioning his intention to his brother. Presently, while Vera sat at the piano and sang for their delight, Thirlstone standing by, she asked the Englishman with a laugh whether he did not intend, like the boys, to avenge her upon the bear. Thirlstone laughed also. He would leave the matter in the hands of her champions, he said; they were quite safe with the beast, and would certainly resent any interference. Thirlstone seemed very fond of music, and remained at the piano with Vera for a long while.

      When Peter went upon his snowshoes early next morning to the place where, as described by Vera, the bear had unexpectedly made its appearance, he was surprised, and somewhat disgusted, to find his brother Paul already on the spot.

      "I didn't know you were coming, Paul," he said. "I understood from Vera that I was to have the privilege of punishing the brute that offended her."

      "I thought the same thing for myself," said Paul. "I suppose she concluded we meant to come together. It doesn't much matter, though, so long as the bear is chastised for her sin."

      "If it is all the same to you, brother, I think I should like to be the one to kill it," said Peter. "I am the elder, you see, and – and, well, I've an idea she would like me to do it."

      "Why?" asked Paul in genuine surprise.

      "I'll tell you one day," said Peter; "but perhaps we'd better kill the bear first. If you don't mind, I'll be first spear."

      Good-natured Paul agreed, though sadly against his will, for he too was very anxious to serve Vera.

      The brothers had come forth armed with bear spears only – that is, each carried a knife in his belt, but no firearms. They would have thought it but a shabby enterprise to carry rifles. Bear-shooting from the berloga was too easy to be sportsmanlike.

      But a fall of snow during the night had obliterated all the tracks of the preceding day, and though they knew that they must certainly be within a hundred yards, more or less, of the exact spot from out of which the creature had charged only yesterday, they could not be sure which of many clumps of fallen pine trees and forest débris was the one referred to by Vera in her description of the occurrence.

      "One of us had better run home and fetch Milka," said Peter. He expected that Paul would immediately volunteer to fetch Milka, and he was not disappointed.

      "If you are to have first spear," said Paul, "then I'd better go for the dog, as the bear may come out while I'm away."

      So away ran young Paul, skating beautifully upon his long snowshoes, anxious to reach home, fetch the dog, and bring him back before his brother should find the bear and finish operations without him.

      Milka was a wonderful little dog, half terrier, half nondescript, whose nose and instinct for localizing a sleeping bear were most surprising, a talent as useful to her masters as remarkable in itself.

      When Paul had disappeared, Peter, not with any mean desire to steal a march upon his brother, but simply because he was tired of doing nothing, СКАЧАТЬ