sank to zero; but my spirits rose that day, because down went the glass, and the wind veered round to about a south and by west. The sunset was a gorgeous one, and long after the god of day had sunk behind the hills, crimson clouds lying along in a sky of palest, purest yellow, shading off into the blue dome above, where bright stars shone, gave token of a beautiful to-morrow. I was up betimes, you may be certain, and found to my joy that a little rain had fallen. I ate a huntsman’s breakfast, and then dressed. I donned a new coat of scarlet – in fact, it was so new that I felt ashamed of it, and had half a mind to make Bob splash it a bit with mud. It was well splashed before night, I can tell you.
“The meet wasn’t a large one, but men and hounds and horses all looked as if they had plenty of go in them, and they required it too. The country is a rough, rolling one, and there is no want of stone fences; so you need pith and pluck if you’d keep the hounds in view.
“Not knowing any one, I kept aloof for a time until they drew a cover or two, until the mellow music of the hounds, mingling with the cheering notes of the huntsman’s horn, told me they had found, and that the run had commenced. Across country, straight almost as the crow could fly, for ten miles, that old fox led us. Then he changed course near a plantation, and took us five miles in another direction. Then, doubling round, he took us almost straight away back, so that the stragglers once more had a chance of joining the hunt. But the terribly rough state of the country told on all but the best of us, and if we were few in number to start, we were still less numerous when the fox finally took to earth and refused to show again. A fine old gentlemanly fox, I can assure you, who had apparently enjoyed the run as much as any of us, and having done so, bade us good-morning and retired.
“I had made acquaintance with the general, and we were laughing and talking together when he suddenly started and turned pale.
“‘Great heavens!’ he cried, ‘it is Eenie, my daughter. Black Bess, her mare, has bolted with her, and is heading straight for the Furies’ Leap. She is lost! she is lost!’
“I hardly heard the last word. I had struck the spurs into my own good mare, and was off like a meteor. I could see the lady’s terrible danger. She was heading for an awful precipice. I saw I might intercept her if I crossed her bows, as a sailor would say. It was a ride for life – we near each other, riding swift as arrows. Onward she comes – onwards I dash, and we are barely fifty yards from the Furies’ Leap, when our horses come into collision with fearful force.
“I remember nothing more until I open my eyes and find myself in bed, powerless to move. But a beautiful young girl rose from a seat near the window, and, approaching the bed, gave me to drink, but enjoined me to be still. This was Miss Lyell; she nursed me back to life, and the next few weeks seemed all one happy dream.”
“She loves you?”
“She does, and has promised never to be another’s.”
“And she’ll be yours, Frank, my boy. Come, I’ve news to give you. Neither your father nor her father object, except on the score of your youth and hers, and your inexperience of the world. Now, depend upon it, Frank, what your father advises is best. He wants you to spend your next few years in travelling.”
“And I will,” cried Frank; “I’ll seek adventures and dangers in every part of the globe – among the snows of the north, amidst the jungles of India, in Afric’s bush, and the wild plain-lands of far distant Australia. I care not if I am killed; life without my Eenie is not worth having.”
“Bravo! Frank,” cried Chisholm, jumping up and shaking him by the hand. “I’ll go with you; and my friend, Fred Freeman, will go too. There’s luck in odd numbers. But don’t talk about being killed; it is time that we want to kill, and all the wild beasts we can draw a bead upon.”
Frank left the gloomy forest a happier man than he had entered it. He was laughing right merrily too.
“Bless that dear old fox, though,” he was saying; “may he always be jolly and fat and frolicsome ’mid summer’s sunshine or winter’s snow. That fox was my fate.”
Chapter Two
Frank undergoes the Process of “Hardening Off” – Camp-life on the Banks of the Thames – A Week among Rabbits – “’Ware Hare.”
There was something about Fred Freeman which is difficult to describe, but which caused everybody to like him. He had the manners of a high-bred English gentleman, but that did not, of course, constitute the something that made him a favourite, because bon ton, manners are happily not rare. However, there’s no harm in my trying to describe him to you, because he is one of our three heroes. Fred wasn’t much, if any, above the middle height; he had a short dark beard and moustache – they were not black, however. He was very regular in features – handsome, in fact, handsome when he was in his quiet moods, which he very frequently was, and even more so when merry, for then he was simply all sunshine, and it made you laugh to look at him. He was very unobtrusive. He was a capital shot, and a daring hunter and sportsman, but never boasted about his own doings. His constitution was as tough as india-rubber, and as hard as nails. If there be anything wanting in this description, the reader must supply it himself. Anyhow, Fred was a genuine good fellow. He had hitherto travelled a good deal, sport-intent, chiefly on the Continent; but he jumped at the proposal to go round the world on “a big shoot,” as he called it.
Freeman was a bachelor, and said he would always remain so; Chisholm O’Grahame was also a bachelor. Perhaps he was seen to the best advantage when his foot was on his native heath, and a covey of grouse ahead of him. He was one of the so-called “lucky dogs” of this world. On the death of an uncle, he would come into a fine old Highland estate. Meanwhile he had nothing to do, and plenty of time to do it in. After his visit to Frank, he went back to see Frank’s father, who was delighted at the success of his mission.
“Ah,” said he, “I’m so pleased! And so you must take the young dog off, and show him the world. But look here, he’s in your charge, mind you; and if you take my advice, you’ll show him some shooting in England before you go abroad. He’s only a hot-house plant as yet; he wants hardening off.”
Chisholm laughed. “I’ll harden him off,” he said.
And so the hardening-off process commenced at once. Frank was not sorry, after all, to leave the gloom of Epping Forest, and commence a sportsman’s life in earnest. The plan adopted by Chisholm and his friend, Fred, to “break young Frank in, and to harden him off,” was, I think, a good one. They were to travel a good deal in England, be here to-day and away to-morrow, and visit any of the fens or moors or shores where there was the chance of a week or two of good shooting.
That was one part of the plan. The other was that they were, as Fred called it, “to forswear civilisation, and to live in tents;” in other words, to do a deal of camping out, instead of living in hotels or houses of any kind.
“How do you think you will like that kind of thing?” asked Chisholm.
“Oh, I think it will be perfectly delightful,” said Frank, enthusiastically.
“But Frank is a bit of a shot, isn’t he?” asked Fred.
“Always during vacation times,” said Frank, speaking for himself. “I used to potter around my father’s property. I have done so ever since I was a boy.”
“Ha! ha!” laughed Chisholm. “Why, you’re only a boy yet.”
“All stuff,” said Frank stoutly. “I’ll be twenty next birthday.”
“Well, well,” said Chisholm; “but tell Fred what you used
