It was at least three months after his young lodger's arrival that Walter burst into his sitting-room one afternoon, without his usual knock at the door, with the great news that he had just had word, by a safe hand, that a gang of poachers would be in the Home Park that very night, and that all the staff of keepers would be out in waiting for them.
"You know," said he, quite indignant that the young man did not show his enthusiasm, "you told me I was to be sure and let you know, Mr. Yorke; but, of course, you needn't make one of us unless you like."
"Oh yes, I'll come," laughed the young fellow—"that is, provided it is fine. I can't fight in the rain, even for the game laws."
"It'll be a lovely night, Sir, with just enough of moonlight to know friends from foes," went on the keeper, rubbing his hands, and unconsciously moistening them in his excitement. "I knew you'd come. I said to myself: 'Mr. Yorke'll never turn tail;' and we shall be really glad of your help, for the fact is we are short-handed. Napes is down with the rheumatics, and two of our men are away from home, and there ain't time to send to the out-beaters. So we shall be only nine—including yourself—in all. Let's see," continued the old man, counting on his fingers: "there'll be Bill Nokes, and Robert Sloane, and—"
"Spare me the roll-call, Grange," interrupted the painter; "and tell me where I am to be, and when, and I'll be there."
"Very good, Sir," said the keeper, musing. "I'll put you at the Squire's oak—the one as you drawed so nicely—that'll be at the Decoy down yonder, and close to home. You have only to use this whistle, and you'll get help enough if you chance to be set upon; there will be a fight, no doubt. They must be a daring lot to poach the near park, within sound of the house: they ain't a done that these ten year; for the last time they brought Squire and his bull-dogs out, which was a lesson to one or two of 'em. However, he's for town, they say, to-day."
"All right, Grange; we must do without him, then," returned the young man, cheerfully. "What time am I to be on guard?"
"You should be there at ten at latest, Sir. There'll be plenty of us within whistle-call, you understand. But nobody will come aneist you as has any business there; so whoever you see you must go in at."
Yorke nodded, smiling, and doubling his white fists, hit out scientifically with his right.
"You're one after the Squire's own heart," exclaimed the keeper, admiringly; "and I do wish you could foregather with him. What a reach of arm you've got, and what a play of muscle! The fist is the weapon for a poacher—that is, I mean agin him—if you only know how to use it. I can depend on the Decoy being guarded by ten, Sir, can I? for I must be off to the head-keeper's with the rest."
"Yes, you can."
"Then, good-by, Sir, for the present."
"Now what a poor fool is that!" soliloquized the young painter, contemptuously, as the door closed upon his late companion. "To think that I should risk my life against a poacher's on even terms! Of course, if they suffice, I shall only treat him to my knuckles; but if not—if he be a giant, or there be more than one of them—then here is a better ally than mere bone and sinew." Yorke took out of a drawer a life-preserver, made of lead and whalebone, struck with it once, to test its weight and elasticity, then slipped it into his shooting-jacket pocket. "That will enlarge their organs of locality," said he, grimly; "they will not forget the Decoy Pond in a hurry whose heads knock against this."
He made a better supper than was usual with him that night; filled his pocket-flask with brandy, and his pouch with tobacco; and then making sure that the whistle Grange had given him, and which he had hung round his neck, was within easy reach of his fingers, sallied out, well wrapped up as to his throat, and with his hands in his pockets. If Richard Yorke was doomed not to have life made easy for him, he made it as easy as he could. He never omitted a precaution, unless it gave him trouble to take it out of proportion to the advantage it conferred; he was never imprudent, unless the passion of the moment was too strong for him; but sometimes, unfortunately, his mere whims were in their intensity passions, and his passions, while they lasted, fits of madness. He was a landscape-painter, partly because he had some taste that way, but chiefly because he hated regular work of any sort. He had no real love for his art, and not the least touch of poetic feeling. He knew an oak from a beech-tree, and the sort of touch that should be used in delineating the foliage of each; a yellow primrose was to him a yellow primrose, and he could mix the colors deftly enough which made up its hue. His education had been by no means neglected, but it had been of a strange sort; every thing he had learned was, as it were, for immediate use, and of a superficial but attractive character. The advocates of a classical curriculum would have shaken their heads at what Richard Yorke did know, almost as severely as at his lack of knowledge. He had read a good deal of all kinds of literature, including much garbage; he could play a little on the piano, and speak French with an excellent accent. In a word, he had learned every thing that had pleased him, as well as a little Latin and some mathematics, which had not. He knew English history far better than most young Englishmen; but the sight of tomb or ruin had never made his heart pulse faster with an evoked idea by a single beat. Historical associations had no charm for him. This mighty oak, for example, under the shadow of which he now stands sentry, and which he had transferred so deftly to his portfolio, has no longer any interest for him. He has "done it," and its use and pleasure are therefore departed in his eyes. He knows quite well that though it is called the Squire's, in token, probably, of some wholesale slaughter of wild-ducks effected by Carew from its convenient cover, that this tree is hundreds of years old—the oldest in all the chase. He has read the "Talking Oak," for indeed he can quote Tennyson by the yard, and in dulcet voice; and it would have been natural enough, one would think, in such a time and place, that some thoughts of what this venerable monarch of the forest must have witnessed would perforce come into his mind. The same moonlight that now shines down between its knotted naked branches must have doubtless lit on many a pair of lovers, for it was ever a favorite place for tryst in by-gone years. The young monk, perhaps, may here (when Crompton was an abbey) have given double absolution, to himself and to the girl who confessed to him her love. Roundhead maiden and Cavalier gallant must many a time have forgotten their political differences beneath this oak, as yet a tree not sacred to royalty; nay, perhaps even those of. York and Lancaster may here have been compounded for, in one red rose of a blush. Bluff Harry had haply hunted beneath its once wide-spreading arms, and certainly the martyr king had done so, with a score of generations of men of all sorts, dead and gone, God alone knows whither. Though no more the bugle sounded, nor the twanging bow was heard, there was surely an echo of their far-away music in the young painter's ear! No, there was none.
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter,
was a line Richard Yorke had read, perhaps, but certainly had not understood. He heard the bare branch creak and sway above his head as the wind slowly took it; he heard the night-jar croak, as it flew by on silent wing; and now and then he heard, or thought he heard, the sound of the voices of his fellow-watchers a great way off, which was his only touch of fancy. They were all silent, and in close hiding.
It is not to be supposed, however, that his mind was fixed upon the matter in which he was engaged, so that other subjects were thereby excluded from it. The repression of night-poaching was not a matter that interested him either in principle or practice. He would just as soon that the keeper had