The New Forest Spy

The New Forest Spy, by George
Manville Fenn

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Title: The New Forest Spy
Author: George Manville Fenn
Illustrator: W.D.E. Evans
Release Date: November 15, 2007 [EBook #23502]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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FOREST SPY ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

The New Forest Spy
by George Manville Fenn.

CHAPTER ONE.
AN ENCOUNTER IN THE WOOD.
"Hullo! What's that?"
The lad who uttered those words dropped a short, stiff fishing-rod in
amongst the bracken and furze, and made a dash in the direction of a
sharp rustling sound to his right, ran as hard as he could, full-pelt, for
about five-and-twenty yards, and then, catching his toe in a tough stem
of heather, went headlong down into a tuft of closely-cropped
furze--the delicate finer kind--which had been nibbled off year after
year till it had assumed the form of a great green-and-gold cushion,
beautiful to look at, but too pointed in its attentions to make a pleasant
resting-place.
"Bother!" shouted the boy, as he scrambled up. "Oh, what an ass I am!
Anyone would think I was old enough to know that I couldn't catch a
rabbit on the run, even if he had no hole among the hazel-stubbs. Hole?
Hundreds, where he could dive down. Horrid, prickly things furzes are.
That was a sharp one; but there, it hasn't hurt much, only it makes one
so jolly hot."
He walked backward along the edge of the forest much more
deliberately to stoop and pick up his rod.
"Yes, of course," he grumbled, and he screwed up a rather
good-looking young manly face into a grin of annoyance which shewed
all his closely set white teeth; "I might have known--all in a tangle. The
hook broken, of course!"
He let the butt of the rod which bore a very old-fashioned brass winch,
rest in the hollow of his arm, while he carefully extricated the hook at
the end of his line from where it had fallen and caught hold of a stem of
dwarf bracken, while to free it and the hair, feather, and dubbing which
had transformed the said hook into what was supposed to be a big
artificial fly, although it was not in the slightest degree like any insect
that ever flew, required no little care.

"Humph!" he grunted; "might have been worse. But what a stupid a
trout must be to go at a thing like that! Well, so much the better for me.
Now then: once more, to begin."
But the boy seemed in no hurry to start. His exertions, though slight,
had made him very hot, and he took off his cap to wipe away the
shining drops that covered his sun-tanned forehead and stood thickly
where, higher up, the skin was white amongst the thickly set curls of
his brown hair.
He looked round at a common-like portion of the New Forest over a
slightly undulating stretch of velvety grass, bracken, heather and
stunted oak-trees, which gave the place a park-like aspect, running right
up to where the oaks were clustered thickly, with an occasional silvery
or ruddy barked birch, and made dense with hazel-stubbs and alder.
"Oh, what a jolly day!" he said; "but isn't it hot!"
It was, for the autumn sun shone down out of a vivid blue sky upon the
gloriously green growth which was beginning here and there to look
mellow and ripe as if shot with ruddy gold.
"I might just as well lie down and read under the shade of one of the
trees," mused the boy, "for the trout will be all in the most cranky
places right under the stones and roots. But one can't read without a
book, and I came out on purpose to catch something, and I mean to do
it; so here goes."
He made for the nearest portion of the forest, and plunged in at once,
holding his fly carefully between finger and thumb, and shouldering his
rod so that, as he walked on with the trees clustering thicker and thicker,
he drew the top after him, and got on fairly well without entangling his
line.
Deeper and deeper into the forest, which grew more and more dense,
till, breaking away from its level, it suddenly began to descend in a stiff
slope, which rose as steeply fifty yards farther on, forming in all a
wandering, tangled little valley, at