the poaching line against whom he had pitted himself. These lines must have been laid almost under his nose on that very day, as the freshness of the baits proved. The one which he had selected to watch by was under the bank, within a few yards of the clump of alders where he was now sitting. There was no satisfactory cover near the others; so he had chosen this one, where he would be perfectly concealed behind the nearest trunk from any person who might come in due time to take up the line. With this view, then, he got up, and, stepping carefully on the thickest grass where his foot would leave no mark, went to the bank, and felt with the hook of his stick after the line. It was all right, and he returned to his old seat. And then the summer twilight came on, and the birds disappeared, and the hush of night settled down on river, and copse, and meadow-cool and gentle summer twilight after the hot bright day. He welcomed it too, as it folded up the landscape, and the trees lost their outline, and settled into soft black masses rising here and there out of the white mist, which seemed to have crept up to within a few yards all round him unawares. There was no sound now but the gentle murmur of the water, and an occasional rustle of reeds, or of the leaves over his head, as a stray wandering puff of air passed through them on its way home to bed. Nothing to listen to, and nothing to look at; for the moon had not risen, and the light mist hid everything except a star or two right up above him. So, the outside world having left him for the present, he was turned inwards on himself. This was all very well at first; and he wrapped the plaid round his shoulders and leant against his tree, and indulged in a little self-gratulation. There was something of strangeness and adventure in his solitary night watch, which had its charm for a youngster of twenty-one; and the consciousness of not running from his word, of doing what he had said he would do, while others shirked and broke down, was decidedly pleasant. But this satisfaction did not last very long, and the night began to get a little wearisome, and too cool to be quite comfortable. By degrees doubts as to the wisdom of his self-imposed task crept into his head. He dismissed them for a time by turning his thoughts to other matters. The neighbourhood of Englebourn, some two miles up above him, reminded him of the previous summer; and he wondered how he should get on with his cousin when they met. He should probably see her the next day, for he would lose no time in calling. Would she receive him well? Would she have much to tell him about Mary? He had been more hopeful on this subject of late, but the loneliness, the utter solitude and silence of his position, as he sat there in the misty night, away from all human habitations, was not favourable somehow to hopefulness. He found himself getting dreary and sombre in heart-more and more so as the minutes rolled on, and the silence and loneliness pressed on him more and more heavily. He was surprised at his own down-heartedness, and tried to remember how he had spent former nights so pleasantly out of doors. Ah, he had always had a companion within call, and something to do-cray fishing, bat fowling, or something of the kind! Sitting there doing nothing, he fancied, must make it so heavy to-night. By a strong effort of will he shook off the oppression. He moved, and hummed a tune to break the silence; he got up and walked up and down, lest it should again master him. If wind, storm, pouring rain, anything to make sound or movement, would but come! But neither of them came, and there was little help in sound or movement made by himself. Besides, it occurred to him that much walking up and down might defeat the object of his watch. No one would come near while he was on the move; and he was probably making marks already which might catch the eye of the setter of the nightlines at some distance, if that cunning party waited for the morning light, and might keep him away from the place altogether. So he sat down again on his old seat, and leant hard against the alder trunk, as though to steady himself, and keep all troublesome thoughts well In this attitude of in front of him. defence, he reasoned with himself on the absurdity of allowing himself to be depressed by the mere accidents of place, and darkness, and silence; but all the reasoning at his command didn't alter the fact. He felt the enemy advancing again, and, casting about for help, fell back on the thought that he was going through a task, holding to his word, doing what he had said he would do; and this brought him some He fixed his relief for the moment. mind steadily on this task of his; but alas, here again, in his very last stronghold the enemy began to turn his flank, and the position every minute became more and more untenable. He had of late fallen into a pestilent habit of cross-questioning himself on anything which he was about-setting up himself like a cock at Shrove-tide, and pelting himself with inexorable "whys?" and "wherefores?" A pestilent habit truly he had found it, and one which left a man no peace of his lifea relentless, sleepless habit, always ready to take advantage of him, but never so viciously alert, that he remembered, as on this night. And so this questioning self, which would never be denied for long, began to examine him as to his proposed night's work. This precious task, which he was so proud of going through with, on the score of which he had been in his heart crowing over others, because they had not taken it on them, or had let it drop, what then was the meaning of it? "What was he out there for? What They were had he come out to do?" awkward questions. He tried several answers, and was driven from one to another till he was bound to admit that he was out there that night, partly out of pique, and partly out of pride and that his object (next to earning the pleasure of thinking himself a better man than his neighbours) was, if so be, to catch a poacher. "To catch a poacher? What business had he to be catching And so he went on, tossing the matter backwards and forwards in his mind, and getting more and more uncomfortable, and unable to answer to his own satisfaction the simple question, “What right have you to be out here on this errand?" He got up a second time and walked a new set of thoughts came up to back it. had no arms; what could he do against them? Nothing; but he might be maimed for life in a night row which he had no business to be in-murdered, perhaps. He stood still and listened, long and painfully. Every moment, as he listened, the silence mastered him more and more, and his reason became more and more powerless. It was such a silence-a great, illimitable, vague silence ! The silence of a deserted house, where he could at least have felt that he was bounded somewhere, by wall, and floor, and roof-where men must have lived and worked once, though they might be there no longer-would have been nothing; but this silence of the huge, wide out-of-doors world, where there was nothing but air and space around and above him, and the ground beneath, it was getting irksome, intolerable, awful! The great silence seemed to be saying to him, "You are alone, alone, alone!" and he had never known before what horror lurked in that thought. Every moment that he stood, still the spell grew on him, and yet he dared not move; and a strange, wild feeling of fear unmistakeable physical fear, which made his heart beat and his limbs tremble-seized on him. He was ready to cry out, to fall down, to run, and yet there he stood listening, still and motionless. The critical moment in all panics must come at last. A wild and grewsome hissing and snoring, which seemed to come from the air just over his head, made him start and spring forward, and gave him the use of his limbs again at any rate, though they would not have been worth much to him had the ghost or hobgoblin appeared whom he half expected to see the next moment. Then came a screech, which seemed to flit along the rough meadow opposite, and come towards him. He drew a long breath, for he knew that sound well enough; it was nothing after all but the owls. The mere realized consciousness of the presence of some living creatures, were they only owls, brought him to his senses. And now the moon was well up, and the wayward mist had cleared away, and he could catch glimpses of the solemn birds every now and then, beating over the rough meadow backwards and forwards and over the shallow water, as regularly as trained pointers. He threw himself down again under his tree, and now bethought himself of his pipe. Here was a companion which, wonderful to say, he had not thought of before since the night set in. He pulled it out, but paused before lighting. Nothing was so likely to betray his whereabouts as tobacco. True, but anything was better than such another fright as he had had, "so here goes," he thought, "if I keep off all the poachers in Berkshire ;" and he accordingly lighted up, and, with the help of his pipe, once more debated with himself the question of beating a retreat. After a sharp inward struggle, he concluded to stay and see it out. He should despise himself, more than he cared to face, if he gave in now. If he left that spot before morning, the motive would be sheer cowardice. There might be fifty other good reasons for going; but, if he went, his reason would be fear and nothing else. It might have been wrong and foolish to come out; it must be to go in now. "Fear never made a man do a right action," he summed up to himself; 66 so here I stop, come what may of it. I think I've seen the worst of it now. I was in a real blue funk, and no mistake. Let's see, wasn't I laughing this morning at the watcher who didn't like passing a night by the river? Well, he has got the laugh of me now, if he only knew it. I've learnt one lesson to-night at any rate; I don't think I shall ever be very hard on cowards again." By the time he had finished his pipe, he was a man again, and, moreover, notwithstanding the damp, began to feel sleepy, now that his mind was thoroughly made up, and his nerves were quiet. So he made the best of his plaid, and picked a softish place, and went off soon into a sort of dog sleep, which lasted at intervals through the rest of the short summer night. A poor thin sort of sleep it was, in which he never altogether lost his consciousness, and broken by short intervals of actual wakefulness, but a blessed release from the self-questionings and panics of the early night. It He woke at last with a shiver. was colder than he had yet felt it, and it seemed lighter. He stretched his half-torpid limbs, and sat up. Yes, it was certainly getting light, for he could just make out the figures on the face of his watch which he pulled out. The dawn was almost upon him, and his night watch was over. Nothing had come of it as yet, except his fright, at which he could now laugh comfortably enough; probably nothing more might come of it after all, but he had done the task he had set himself without flinching, and that was a satisfaction. He wound up his watch, which he had forgotten to do the night before, and then stood up, and threw his damp plaid aside, and swung his arms across his chest to restore circulation. The crescent moon was high up in the sky, faint and white, and he could scarcely now make out the stars, which were fading out as the glow in the northeast got stronger and broader. Forgetting for a moment the purpose of his vigil, he was thinking of a long morning's fishing, and had turned to pick up his plaid and go off to the house for his fishing-rod, when he thought he heard the sound of dry wood snapping. He listened intently; and the next moment it came again, some way off, but plainly to be heard in the intense stillness of the morning. Some living thing was moving down the stream. Another moment's listening, and he was convinced that the sound came from a hedge some hundred yards below. He had noticed the hedge before: the keeper had stopped up a gap in it the day before, at the place where it came down to the water, with some old hurdles and dry thorns. He drew himself up behind his alder, looking out from behind it cautiously towards the point from make out the hedge through the mist, but saw nothing. But now the crackling began again, and he was sure that a man was forcing his way over the keeper's barricade. A moment afterwards he saw a figure drop from the hedge into the slip in which he stood. He drew back his head hastily, and his heart beat like a hammer as he waited the approach of the stranger. In a few seconds the suspense was too much for him, for again there was perfect silence. He peered out a second time cautiously round the tree, and now he could make out the figure of a man stooping by the water-side just above the hedge, and drawing in a line. This was enough, and he drew back again, and made himself small behind the tree; now he was sure that the keeper's enemy, the man he had come out to take, was here. His next halt would be at the line which was set within a few yards of the place where he stood. So the struggle which he had courted was come! All his doubts of the night wrestled in his mind for a minute; but, forcing them down, he strung himself up for the encounter, his whole frame trembling with the excitement, and his blood tingling through his veins as though it would burst them. The next minute was as severe a trial of nerve as he had ever been put to, and the sound of a stealthy tread on the grass just below came to him as a relief. It stopped, and he heard the man stoop, then came a stir in the water, and the flapping as of a fish being landed. Now was his time! He sprang from behind the tree, and, the next moment, was over the stooping figure of the poacher. Before he could seize him the man sprang up, and grappled with him. They had come to a tight lock at once, for the poacher had risen so close under him that he could not catch his collar and hold him off. Too close to strike, it was a desperate trial of strength and bottom. Tom knew in a moment that he had his work cut out for him. He felt the nervous power of the frame he had got poacher's shoulder, and arched his back, and strained every muscle in his body to force him backwards, but in vain. It was all he could do to hold his own; but he felt that he might hold it yet, as they staggered on the brink of the back ditch, stamping the grass and marsh marigolds into the ground, and drawing deep breath through their set teeth. A slip, a false foot-hold, a failing muscle, and it would be over; down they must go-who would be uppermost? The poacher trod on a soft place and Tom felt it, and, throwing himself forward, was reckoning on victory, but reckoning without his host. For, recovering himself with a twist of the body which brought them still closer together, the poacher locked his leg behind Tom's, in a crook which brought the wrestlings of his boyhood into his head with a flash, as they tottered for another moment, and then losing balance went headlong over with a heavy plunge and splash into the deep back ditch, locked tight in each other's arms. The cold water closed over them, and for a moment Tom held as tight as ever. Under or above the surface it was all the same, he couldn't give in first. But a gulp of water, and the singing in his ears, and a feeling of choking, brought him to his senses, helped too by the thought of his mother, and Mary, and love of the pleasant world up above. The folly and uselessness of being drowned in a ditch on a point of honour stood out before him as clearly as if he had been thinking of nothing else all his life; and he let go his hold-much relieved to find that his companion of the bath seemed equally willing to be quit of him and struggled to the surface, and seized the bank, gasping and exhausted. His first thought was to turn round and look for his adversary. The poacher was by the bank too, a few feet from him. His cap had fallen off in the struggle, and, all chance of concealment being over, he too had turned to face the matter out, and their eyes met. "Good God! Harry! is it you?" Harry Winburn answered nothing; and the two dragged their feet out of the soft muddy bottom, and scrambled on to the bank, and then with a sort of common instinct sat down, dripping and foolish, each on the place he had reached, and looked at one another. Probably two more thoroughly bewildered lieges of her Majesty were not at that moment facing one another in any corner of the United Kingdom. To be continued. GAELIC AND NORSE POPULAR TALES: AN APOLOGY FOR THE CELT. BY THE EDITOR. THERE are few greater pleasures, in these days, than to get hold of a really good book-a book not only thoroughly and conscientiously well done from beginning to end, but distinguished also by some peculiarity of subject, opening a fresh field of interest, and breaking a door for the reader into a realm of outlying knowledge. Such a pleasure was afforded to English readers some time ago by the Tales from the Norse;1 in which work one hardly knew whether to admire most the raciness and vigour with which the Tales were translated, or the mingled learning and eloquence of the Introductory Essay on Popular Tales in gen 1 Popular Tales from the Norse. By George Webbe Dasent, D.C.L. With an Introductory Essay on the Origin and Diffusion of Popular Tales. Second Edition, enlarged. Edinburgh: |