boat escaping its pursuers. Still the latter continued to chase along the banks.
“You must take the consequences, then,” exclaimed a voice, and directly afterwards a shot whistled over their heads.
The lads crouched down in the boat, with the exception of Jack, who followed Pearson’s example in sitting still.
“A miss is as good as a mile,” observed the latter coolly. “They must be good marksmen to hit us at the rate we are going in this uncertain light. Now, if I was minded, I might return the compliment with one of my long pistols, and maybe they would wish I was farther off.”
“What do you carry pistols for?” asked Jack in a tone of surprise.
“Never you mind, young man,” replied Pearson, in a different style of voice to that which he had hitherto spoken. “If I spoke of pistols, maybe I was joking: you understand me?”
All this time he was vigorously rowing away, edging the boat off to the other side of the bank to that on which the keepers were following. In a short time they reached the shade of some tall trees which overhung the stream, and here the boat was completely hid from sight.
“A few more strokes, and there is little danger of their finding us,” observed the stranger; and now once more they entered the mouth of the little river Leen, up which he turned the boat’s head. “We have now to pull against the current,” he observed, “and my advice is to land and leave the boat to look after herself.”
“The best thing we can do,” answered Jack, and a few strokes brought the boat to a spot where they could easily leap on shore.
“Don’t leave your fish behind you, lads, or your tackle either. If you leave one, you will lose your suppers; and if you leave the other, you will be very likely to be discovered. Now, lads, you take your way, and I’ll take mine, only just remember your promise. I consider it as good as an oath, and any man who breaks his oath to me will have cause to repent it. Now, good night to you all.”
Having bid the stranger farewell, Smedley and the other two lads took their way along the banks of the river, in the direction of some dilapidated sheds, where they had arranged to meet and enjoy, according to their own fashion, their hard-won supper. The stranger lounged away across the bridge at some little distance from the sheds, while Jack, anxious to get home, hurried off in the direction of the market-place.
“I was wrong to go,” said Jack to himself. “Suppose one of us had been shot, it would have been paying very dear for our night’s sport. Such doings might be easily overlooked in a boy, but I am one no longer. I feel that. I claim to be a man, and as a man I must act. I hope there is work for me to do in the world of some sort, and the sooner I begin it the better, and put aside all my boyish pranks.”
“A good resolution,” said a voice behind him.
Jack was not aware he had been speaking aloud.
“I followed you, because I want to have a word more with you,” said the speaker, in whom Jack at once recognised his late companion, Master Pearson. “There’s mettle in you of the right sort,” continued the stranger. “What say you? Would you like to join a band of brave fellows who have a right good cause to fight for?” he whispered in a low voice. “There’s honour and distinction to be gained, and a name, maybe, and wealth in the end. It is what most men fight for, and I take it that you would not be less ready than others to use your sword for such an object.”
“I am much obliged to you for the compliment you pay me,” answered Jack, “and for the good opinion you have formed of my courage; but I have no great fancy for undertaking what I know nothing about. Men do not always agree as to the goodness of a cause, and what you may consider a good cause, you will pardon me for saying it, I may consider a bad one.”
“A very discreet answer,” observed Master Pearson, “and I think all the better of you for making it. Well, I will not press you just now. I have no doubt we shall meet again before long, and though I cannot tell you where to find me, I have a fancy that I shall have no great difficulty in putting my finger upon you at any time. So farewell, Master John Deane: you see I know you, and moreover I wish you well.”
Saying this, the stranger wrung Jack’s hand cordially. Still he lingered, rather unwilling perhaps to let the young man go without making a more favourable impression.
“It is a good cause and a right cause which I invite you to join. I must not explain it more to you just now, but just think the matter over; and stay, it’s just possible I shall remain in Nottingham all to-morrow. Will you meet me in the evening as soon as it is dusk, down by the bank of the river, where you fell in with me just now? I will explain matters more fully to you then.”
Jack did not answer for a minute or more. “I must think of it,” he said at last. “You may be a very honest man, Mr. Pearson, and your intentions towards me perhaps are fair, but I tell you again, I have no fancy to take a leap in the dark. I have a plan in view myself, and I would rather carry that out than try any other. You have wished me farewell to-night already, and now I will wish you the same, and leave you.”
Saying this, Jack took the stranger’s proffered hand, and shaking it, hurried off in the direction in which he was previously going. Master Pearson looked after him for an instant, and nodding his head, said to himself, “He is an honest lad as well as a brave one, and may be made of use if I can get a bridle into his mouth.”
Chapter Four.
Fire near Mr. Strelley’s Warehouse—Jack Deane shows that he is a lad of Courage.
Jack soon again scaled the garden wall, and stood under his bedroom window. He had left it wide open; it was now almost closed. The old pear-tree nailed against the wall enabled him to climb up a considerable distance, so as to reach the window-sill, by which he could haul himself up, and get into his room.
“Probably the wind has blown it to,” he said to himself. “I hope no one has found out my absence.”
Climbing up, he gently pushed back the window. On looking in, what was his dismay to see his father seated in the chair by the table, with a candle now almost burned out, and a book, from which he had evidently been reading, before him! His eyes were however closed, and he was nodding, fast asleep. Jack was a man of action, and always more ready to face a danger than to avoid it. He crawled in, therefore, as noiselessly as he could, and sat himself down on a chest at the farther end of the room, waiting for his father to awake. Jack did not trouble himself much as to what he should say, planning, and inventing, and twisting, and turning the truth in all sorts of ways, or inventing all sorts of falsehoods, but, like an honest man, he determined to tell the whole truth openly and frankly at once, and so brave the worst, and take the consequences of what he had done, whatever they might be. In fact, so little agitated was he at the thoughts of what he had to go through, and being moreover excessively tired, for he had been up and actively engaged all day, that he soon became drowsy, and imitating his respected father, began to nod much in the fashion he was doing. In a short time Jack was fast asleep. He was not very comfortable though, for he had an unpleasant sort of feeling, which was carried into his dreams, that all was not right, and that something very disagreeable was about to occur. How long he had slept he could not tell, but suddenly he was awoke by a bright glare which passed across his face, and starting up he saw flames issuing from the sheds by the side of the river, in which his late companions had proposed to enjoy their supper. He started to his feet, and remembering that Mr. Strelley’s great wool warehouse was near the sheds, as well as a number of cottages thatched with straw, belonging to the people employed on the river, he dreaded that a very considerable conflagration might be the consequence. Jack sprang to the window.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he exclaimed in a voice loud enough to awake his father; “I am sorry to rouse you up, but there’s a fire near Mr. Strelley’s warehouse,