One Of Them

by Charles James Lever

“Don't let him get spoiled, Layton, because he's a Lord,” said the other guardian, who was an old Admiral. “There's good stuff in the lad, and it would be a thousand pities it should be corrupted.”

Layton did his best to obey each; but the task had its difficulties. As to the boy himself, the past and the present, the good and the evil, the frank young middy and the rich lordling, warred and contended in his nature; nor was it very certain at any moment which would ultimately gain the mastery. Such, without dwelling more minutely, was he who now strolled along through shrubbery and parterre, half listless as to the way, but very happy withal, and very light-hearted.

There was something in the scene that recalled England to his mind. There were more trees and turf than usually are found in Italian landscape, and there was, half hidden between hazel and alder, a clear, bright river, that brawled and fretted over rocks, or deepened into dark pools, alternately. How the circling eddies of a fast-flowing stream do appeal to young hearts! what music do they hear in the gushing waters! what a story is there in that silvery current as it courses along through waving meadows, or beneath tall mountains, and along some dark and narrow gorge, emblem of life itself in its light and shade, its peaceful intervals and its hours of struggle and conflict.

Forcing his way through the brushwood that guarded the banks, the boy gained a little ledge of rock, against which the current swept with violence, and then careered onward over a shallow, gravelly bed till lost in another bend of the stream. Just as Agincourt reached the rock, he spied a fishing-rod deeply and securely fastened in one of its fissures, but whose taper point was now bending like a whip, and springing violently under the struggling effort of a strong fish. He was nothing of an angler. Of honest “Izaak” and his gentle craft he absolutely knew nought, and of all the mysteries of hackles and green drakes he was utterly ignorant; but his sailor instinct could tell him when a spar was about to break, and this he now saw to be the case. The strain was great, and every jerk now threatened to snap either line or rod. He looked hurriedly around him for the fisherman, whose interests were in such grave peril; but seeing no one near, he endeavored to withdraw the rod. While he thus struggled, for it was fastened with care, the efforts of the fish to escape became more and more violent, and at last, just as the boy had succeeded in his task, a strong spring from the fish snapped the rod near the tip, and at the same instant snatched it from the youth's hand into the stream. Without a second's hesitation, Agincourt dashed into the river, which rose nearly to his shoulders, and, after a vigorous pursuit, reached the rod, but only as the fish had broken the strong gut in two, and made his escape up the rapid current.

The boy was toilfully clambering up the bank, with the broken rod in his hand, when a somewhat angry summons in Italian met his ears. It was time enough, he thought, to look for the speaker when he had gained dry land; so he patiently fought his way upwards, and at last, out of breath and exhausted, threw himself full length in the deep grass of the bank.

“I believe I am indebted to you, sir, for my smashed tackle and the loss of a heavy fish besides?” said Charles Heathcote, as he came up to where the youth was lying, his voice and manner indicating the anger that moved him.

“I thought to have saved the rod and caught the fish too,” said the other, half indolently; “but I only got a wet jacket for my pains.”

“I rather suspect, young gentleman, you are more conversant with a measuring-yard than a salmon-rod,” said Heathcote, insolently, as he surveyed the damaged fragments of his tackle.

“What do you mean by that, sir?” cried the boy, springing with a bound to his feet, and advancing boldly towards his adversary.

“Simply that it 's not exactly the sort of sport you follow in Bond Street,” retorted Heathcote, whose head was full of “Mosely and Trip,” and felt certain that a scion of that great house was before him.