Gunpowder Treason and Plot, and Other Stories for Boys

TWO HEROES

The two young counts, Peter and Paul Selsky, were as sturdy a pair of boys as you'd find in all Russia, and as fond of outdoor life and outdoor sports as though they were very Britons. For this circumstance they were largely indebted to their tutor, a young graduate of Oxford, Frank Thirlstone, who had lived with them since the death of their father, three years ago, and had taught them, besides the English language and a smattering of classical lore, something more than the elements of cricket and of golf and other games dear to the heart of every British youth. Peter and Paul were now respectively seventeen and sixteen years old, and the period of their tutelage by Thirlstone was drawing to a close; for both must shortly enter the Lyceum at St. Petersburg, in preparation for the usual career of young aristocrats in their country, and Thirlstone would return to England.

It was winter, and most aristocratic land-owners had long since left their country seats for their warmer mansions in town; but it was not the custom of the Selskys to leave their beloved outdoor avocations for the cooped-up amusements of the metropolis for any long period at a time, and they would spend their Christmastide and the New Year at the manor house as usual.

They were the more inclined to do so because their nearest neighbours, old General Ootin and his daughter Vera, intended to do the same. Since the death of his wife, the general had never cared to live in St. Petersburg, preferring to pass his time in the seclusion of country life with his adored and certainly most charming daughter. Old Ootin was a fine sportsman, devoted to every form of hunting and shooting, and nothing pleased the old man so much as to wander, gun in hand, among his ancestral pine trees, accompanied by pretty Vera. He was an adept in all matters of tracking, and had taught young Peter and Paul and their English tutor many a "wrinkle" in the art of bear-hunting, wolf-ringing, and even of calling the lynx and other animals from an ambush – one of the most difficult and exciting of all forms of sport.

Scarcely a week passed even in winter time without some sporting enterprise planned and undertaken by the four men (to dignify Paul and Peter by that title, scarcely yet due them by the operation of time); and when there was a battue or ambush-shooting, Vera nearly always formed one of the party as a spectator. When the sport included long runs upon the snowshoes in pursuit of lynx or elk, the girl, though no mean performer on snowshoes, preferred to leave the hunt to the sterner sex.

One evening the young counts, with Frank Thirlstone, drove over to the general's to dinner, as they frequently did, in order to plan a campaign for the following day. To their astonishment the old servant in the hall informed them that "his excellence" was in bed ill, but that his young mistress was up and ready to receive them.

Hurrying upstairs to learn what ailed their old friend, the three young men found Vera greatly excited, and anxious to tell them the whole story, which was sufficiently exciting, and may be told in her own words.

"Father and I were wandering in the woods," she began. "He carried a gun with small shot, for I had asked him to shoot a brace of tree partridges or so for the house. We heard one whistle in the distance – you know how sharp father's ears are for that kind of sound – and stood to listen. We stood in the midst of a tangle of fallen pinetrees – what the peasants call a lom. Suddenly, within five yards of us, there was a startling upheaval of snow and pine twigs, and with a deafening roar a big she-bear rushed straight out at us. We had been standing unconsciously within a few paces of her winter lair, where father says she probably has a family of cubs, or she would have been asleep.

"Father cried out to me to run for my life, which I did, skating away on my snowshoes at my very best speed. I heard my father fire a shot, but did not turn round for fear of running into a tree stump and tripping up.

"Then my father shouted again, and to my horror I found that the bear was in full pursuit of me, apparently none the worse for the charge of small shot.

"I could scarcely think for horror. I was some thirty yards ahead; but, since the snow was fairly hard, I knew the beast would soon catch me, and if she did I had nothing but a small Circassian dagger with a silver handle – the one that Mr. Thirlstone gave me," Vera added with a glance at the Oxonian and a slight blush, "on my birthday. Then I thought I would try to reach a patch of soft snow which I remembered to have passed over a few minutes before, and in that direction I now turned my shoes. I could hear poor father shouting frantically after me, but it was impossible to distinguish what he said. I know now that he wished me to lead the bear round in a curve, so that he might shoot her. But I succeeded in reaching the soft snow, and there my pursuer floundered, while I sped quickly on and gained some yards upon her. This also enabled my father to come up closer to the bear, and as he was now nearer to her than I was, and all the noise came from him, she turned round and charged back at father.

"Father fired when she was close, but his charge flew like a bullet, and he missed her. Apparently, however, the shot passed near enough to the brute to frighten her into discretion; for, having knocked poor father backwards, and run right over him, she took no further notice of him, and retired to her berloga [lair]. Father was much shaken, but not seriously hurt; he will be quite well after a day or two of resting in bed."

When Paul had an opportunity of speaking privately to Vera, he was very eloquent in his expressions of gratitude for her deliverance from danger. "Ah-rr!" he ended, "the brute; she shall die to-morrow, Vera, I swear it, for frightening you."

"Still more for hurting poor father, I hope," she laughed; "but be careful, Paul, for she is savage."

"I am sorry that the general was hurt," said Paul, "but she shall die for the other fault."

Presently Peter took Vera aside, and said almost the same words.

"If that brute had hurt a hair of your head, Vera," he said, "I should have spent the rest of my life exterminating bears; as it is, this one shall die to-morrow for frightening you."

"It is very kind of you, dear Peter, to be my champion; but, please, be careful, for this is a very savage bear, and I would not have you hurt."

"Bah!" said Peter; "I am not afraid of a bear."

Vera was an extremely pretty girl, and as she sat at the head of her father's dinner table dispensing hospitality to her three guests, each one of the young men evidently recognized this fact, for many admiring glances were bestowed upon her. Both Paul and Peter afterwards made private inquiries as to the exact locality of the day's adventure, neither, however, mentioning his intention to his brother. Presently, while Vera sat at the piano and sang for their delight, Thirlstone standing by, she asked the Englishman with a laugh whether he did not intend, like the boys, to avenge her upon the bear. Thirlstone laughed also. He would leave the matter in the hands of her champions, he said; they were quite safe with the beast, and would certainly resent any interference. Thirlstone seemed very fond of music, and remained at the piano with Vera for a long while.

When Peter went upon his snowshoes early next morning to the place where, as described by Vera, the bear had unexpectedly made its appearance, he was surprised, and somewhat disgusted, to find his brother Paul already on the spot.

"I didn't know you were coming, Paul," he said. "I understood from Vera that I was to have the privilege of punishing the brute that offended her."

"I thought the same thing for myself," said Paul. "I suppose she concluded we meant to come together. It doesn't much matter, though, so long as the bear is chastised for her sin."

"If it is all the same to you, brother, I think I should like to be the one to kill it," said Peter. "I am the elder, you see, and – and, well, I've an idea she would like me to do it."

"Why?" asked Paul in genuine surprise.

"I'll tell you one day," said Peter; "but perhaps we'd better kill the bear first. If you don't mind, I'll be first spear."

Good-natured Paul agreed, though sadly against his will, for he too was very anxious to serve Vera.

The brothers had come forth armed with bear spears only – that is, each carried a knife in his belt, but no firearms. They would have thought it but a shabby enterprise to carry rifles. Bear-shooting from the berloga was too easy to be sportsmanlike.

But a fall of snow during the night had obliterated all the tracks of the preceding day, and though they knew that they must certainly be within a hundred yards, more or less, of the exact spot from out of which the creature had charged only yesterday, they could not be sure which of many clumps of fallen pine trees and forest débris was the one referred to by Vera in her description of the occurrence.

"One of us had better run home and fetch Milka," said Peter. He expected that Paul would immediately volunteer to fetch Milka, and he was not disappointed.

"If you are to have first spear," said Paul, "then I'd better go for the dog, as the bear may come out while I'm away."

So away ran young Paul, skating beautifully upon his long snowshoes, anxious to reach home, fetch the dog, and bring him back before his brother should find the bear and finish operations without him.

Milka was a wonderful little dog, half terrier, half nondescript, whose nose and instinct for localizing a sleeping bear were most surprising, a talent as useful to her masters as remarkable in itself.

When Paul had disappeared, Peter, not with any mean desire to steal a march upon his brother, but simply because he was tired of doing nothing, strode hither and thither upon his snowshoes examining the likely places, half hoping the bear would come rushing out upon him, yet half sorry for Paul if it should. As for any feeling of fear or even nervousness about having to withstand all by himself the rush of a furious bear, the mother of a family, and therefore very dangerous, such an idea never for an instant occurred to him.

For half an hour Peter strolled from thicket to thicket without starting the fury of yesterday. He began to grow weary of waiting. Would Paul never return with the dog? Poor old Paul, it was rather hard on him to have claimed the elder brother's privilege; but then Paul didn't know – well, something he (Peter) suspected as to Vera's feelings. For Peter had not claimed the privilege of first spear, he assured himself over and over again, with any mere selfish motive, but because he knew Vera would rather he killed this bear than Paul; and it couldn't really matter to Paul, because —

Peter's reflections had just reached this stage when, with a sudden and most startling rush, and a roar such as is never heard from the mouth of a sleepy and semi-comatose creature just awakened and sallying unwillingly from its winter lair, the big bear set flying the snow and ice which had formed a covering to the hole in which, with her cubs, she lay snugly beneath the upturned root of a pine tree, and made straight for the aggravating person whose presence close to her den had roused her into the state of insensate fury so easily developed by her quick-tempered tribe.

Peter barely had time to kick off his snowshoes and push them out of his way, to plant his heels securely, and present his formidable spear at the proper angle, when the great brute was upon him, or, to be more accurate, upon his spear.

This was a weapon of tough, seasoned, most carefully tested wood, provided with a murderous steel head and point, and a projecting notch two feet from the sharp end, designed to prevent the shaft from passing right through the animal attacked. Down upon the slightly-raised point came the heavy bear, with an impetus which nearly carried Peter over backwards. That is the first crisis of bear-spearing, and a dangerous one it is, for should the hunter fall upon his back, the bear would fall over him, to tear and maul at his discretion, or until his own terrible wound put an end to his power to do mischief.

Peter withstood the shock with difficulty. He had never had to deal with a bear, up to this time, either so large or so savage. The way it now bit and tore at the hickory shaft, which had entered into its flesh to the depth of at least nine inches, was truly terrible by reason of the relentless savagery displayed in the onslaught. But the shaft was strengthened with iron side-supports, and was, moreover, a magnificent piece of wood, and Peter felt little fear that the wounded beast would rip or break it; she might tear off a few splinters – she was busily doing so already – but the good shaft would stand the strain. As for the power she would presently exert in pushing back at her assailant, that would be a different matter. She was hugely heavy, and Peter greatly feared that he would have trouble.

Only for a few moments she bit and tore at the spear handle; then she suddenly abandoned these tactics, and, looking full at her aggressor, she roared loudly, and began to push forward in order to get at him.

Peter was prepared to exert his strength, and exerted it. For a minute – two minutes – he checked the bear's advance. Then she seemed to gather strength, and, pulling herself together, made a supreme effort. It was as though the heavier forwards in a scrimmage at football forced back the weaker side inch by inch and foot by foot. Peter felt himself giving ground. He, too, made his effort, stemming the advance for five seconds, no more. Then again the bear pushed him steadily back, and Peter now began to realize that unless Paul came quickly to his assistance this bear-hunt might end after a fashion which would be unpleasant for himself as well as for the bear.

He shouted aloud, repeating Paul's name half a dozen times. The bear replied with a couple of loud roars and many quaint moans and complaining noises; but there was no reply from Paul. Peter's strength was failing rapidly, but the bear was still strong. How long could her strength hold out? Back went Peter step by step; he would continue to grip the spear at any rate.

"You're booked anyway, my friend," he panted aloud. "You're punished for frightening Vera; and if you kill me she'll cry till her eyes are red, but no one will cry for you. As for your cubs, Paul will come along and kill every one of them."

Back went Peter, a step or half a step at every word. Suddenly the butt of his spear came full against a pine trunk.

"Thank God!" said Peter; "that will give me breathing time."

Strong as she was, and full of indomitable courage and of fight, the furious bear could not now push her assailant an inch farther. This enraged, maddened her, and with a curious moaning roar she pressed herself forward an inch or two farther upon the shaft. Peter laughed aloud, and mocked her. "I have you now," he said; "push as hard as you please, you can't uproot a pine tree."

She did her best, however, and for several minutes she strove madly to break down Peter's guard, but vainly. Then suddenly he heard the yelping of Milka, and knew that help was at hand.

Peter was terribly tired, and his strength was nearly spent, nevertheless he determined to make one great effort to finish the fight unaided. Pulling himself together, he drew in his breath; then, with a great backwardpush against the tree, he put all his remaining strength into one great rush forward.

For a moment his success was complete and signal. Just as he had given ground but a few moments before, the bear now yielded to his renewed attack. For a second or two she slipped and scrambled backwards, and was within an ace of toppling over, which toppling is the end and object of the bear-spearer, for once down, he has the creature at his mercy; but this bear was a grand specimen of endurance and of splendid savage courage and fortitude. She made yet another effort.

Back a second time went Peter. He was far too young and weak to pit himself against so doughty a champion as this. Back he went, step by step. He shouted for Paul, and Paul replied. Would he never arrive?

"Come quickly; I am worsted," cried Peter. He looked half round for his friendly tree trunk, and saw it. If he could walk backwards straight for it, he might still do without his brother. The spear butt touched the trunk. "Ah!" panted Peter, "now I may breathe!"

But, alas! the shaft met the tree trunk at an angle and slipped. Peter had slightly slackened his hold, and as the expected support from behind failed him, he slipped and fell backwards. In an instant his hands let go the spear; the great brute, impaled upon it, fell forward upon him.

"Paul, Paul!" screamed poor Peter. "God help me!"

Had Paul arrived one moment later, he might have remained at Selsky for all the good he could have done his brother. The bear would have won the victory, which, to speak the strict truth, she thoroughly deserved. But Paul arrived just in time to snatch the victory from Madam Bruin's grasp; the fates were dead against her.

Young Paul knew very well indeed where to plant his knife-blow, so that even so large and powerful an animal as this would not require a second. He was upon her, and had delivered his attack, striking hard and straight from over her shoulder, in a moment of time. Down went the brave, fearless beast – all her courage and all her strength had not availed her – falling right over Peter, and in her last gasp of life still consciously striving to involve her enemy in her own ruin. She opened her mouth and actually took Peter's arm between her teeth, but had no strength to use her jaw in order to rend it, dying with open mouth, showing immense, formidable teeth, which were harmless to wound the prey that lay at her mercy just one instant too late. Paul with difficulty dragged her away, and allowed his brother to rise to his feet.

"Whew!" he said, "she's heavy – thirty-five stones at least. She pushed thee over, Petka, I guess, like a ninepin."

"I was like a wheelbarrow in her hands," laughed Peter. "She pushed me where she would. Thy coming was well timed."

"Well, you've killed the bear that offended our Vera," said Paul, "and that is the chief thing."

"It is thanks to you that there is not more to avenge than Vera's feelings," said Peter, with some emphasis. "I am grateful for your help, Paul; but do not say too much of the danger I stood in when we report the adventure to Vera. She might, you will understand, be somewhat upset to hear of the narrow escape I have had."

"What I understand, and I suppose you mean me to understand, is that Vera's heart is yours," said Paul softly; "and if that be so, it is a possession which you must value highly, and which many would envy you."

"But not you, I trust, brother? Though I am but a year older, I have looked upon you as too young to think of such things, and have assumed that you would have observed for yourself that Vera and I are not indifferent to each other."