890 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[June io, 1911. 
stop with me, or would they like to go back to 
town after supper. 
“ ‘I’m afraid we’ve been away too long al¬ 
ready,’ says the older boy. ‘There'll be the 
deuce to pay when we get back; but we’ll see 
that you come to no harm. Now, we might as 
well settle up at the present time. What do we 
owe you for this day's most delightful outing' 
We’ve enjoyed it more than we can tell you 
and we shall remember it as long as we live.’ 
“ ‘You owe me nothing but good-will,’ says 
I. ‘Admiral Davis was a friend of yours and 
told you to ask for me. I wish he was back 
on the station again. I hope when you see 
him, or write to him next, you’ll give him my 
respects, and my wife’s as well. You might tell 
him I used you white, and that you got a 
salmon each. As a rule, the fish don’t take as 
well as they’ve been doing to-day.’ 
“We went home and had supper. The wife 
made no special fuss over them. They just 
had the same we had ourselves, and they seemed 
to enjoy it all right. Rob went off to borrow 
a double-seated express wagon, and I packed 
the salmon the young fellows had caught in 
wet moss, birch bark and sacking. I wound 
them tight round with withes. ‘Those fish will 
keep for two days at least. Maybe you boys 
have some friends in Halifax you’d like to give 
them to,’ says I. 
“It’s six miles from my place to town. The 
roads are just clear sand, as you know, and we 
couldn't make any going. The boys kept very 
quiet, only every now and then one would 
speak to the other in Dutch. [German is al¬ 
ways called Dutch in the Provinces.] I didn't 
like this much, because when I used a man white 
I want him to speak out if he’s any fault to find. 
I thought maybe they were dissatisfied with 
something. As we were coming close to the 
town, Albert says to me, ‘There’s something 
we ought to explain to you before we leave you. 
We had no right to go fishing the way we did. 
The fact is, our party was going to drive out 
to your place this morning and engage you 
as guide. We thought we’d take a walk through 
the town before breakfast, so we got out of 
our bedroom window, climbed down the 
veranda posts and went into the shop you 
found us in. We thought it would be fun to 
give the other members of our party the slip; 
so we took your offer up and left without tell¬ 
ing any one. I’m afraid that when we get to 
the hotel they will have something to say to 
you, but we’ll make it all right if they do.’ 
“ ‘How many of your party did you leave be¬ 
hind?’ I asked him. He said there were four, 
and a servant. ‘Then you did a very wrong 
thing,’ I told him. ‘The getting down the 
veranda posts, and cutting off to the woods 
was all right. That’s just playing truant, and 
nothing more. The letting four of your party 
spend the whole day looking for you and losing 
their fishing while they were doing it, is quite 
another matter. I took you two boys out, and 
did the best I could for you, but it’s awful hard 
lines on the rest of your party. I call it right 
down selfish on your part. Maybe you didn’t 
look at it that way.’ 
“‘We didn’t,’ says he, ‘and I am glad to say 
that we happen to be the principal people in the 
party. The others didn’t come here to fi'sh. 
They just came with us. The only thing is 
that I’m afraid we’ve caused them a lot of 
worry. All the same we’ve had a far better day 
than if we’d gone up the river with our friends 
and servant.’ 
“By this time we were in the town. As we 
went past a lamp I saw some people I knew, 
and one of them hailed me. ‘Are those the two 
lost boys, Uncle Jake?’ Victor gave me a 
nudge. ‘They haven’t been lost as far as I’m 
aware,’ I said. ‘They’ve been out in the woods 
with me, and as long as I wasn’t lost, they 
weren’t lost.’ We hadn’t gone a hundred yards 
when a gentleman on horseback came up with 
11s. I could see that his horse had been ridden 
pretty hard. He was just about passing us 
when he caught sight of the boys and pulled 
his horse up. Albert said something about ‘Oh, 
my prophetic soul, my uncle!’ and Victor spoke 
up and said, ‘Colonel, if you will be kind enough 
to ride on to the hotel and say we shall be there 
very shortly, I shall be very much obliged to 
you. We have dined, and there is no need for 
the people at the hotel to keep the dinner wait¬ 
ing for us.’ 
“ ‘And who may this exceedingly disreputable 
person be?’ says he, pointing to me. I spoke 
right up. ‘That question might have been asked 
a little differently, sir,’ says I. ‘You might have 
asked who the person in the disreputable coat 
was. As it is, I’m not ashamed to answer you. 
My name is Jacob Henshaw. I am a black¬ 
smith and farrier by trade, and I do consider¬ 
able guiding as well. I leave the matter of my 
guiding to these boys and the scores and hun¬ 
dreds of people I’ve taken shooting and fishing 
in the past thirty years. If you want to know 
my character, I can get you fifty references in 
an hour.’ The gentleman rode on, and the boys 
laughed fit to kill themselves. They didn’t 
laugh out loud, though. ‘What a scolding we’ll 
get when we arrive at the hotel. I don’t expect 
another day’s shore leave as long as we’re in 
Halifax,’ says Victor. I was wondering who 
these boys might be, when they asked colonels 
to ride ahead and say they were coming. I took 
stock of the colonel while he was speaking, and 
I could see that he had ‘officer and gentleman’ 
written all over him in capital letters. I drove 
up to the hotel piazza and carried the fish in 
for the boys. The colonel was there, and there 
were two other men with him, one an officer, 
by the looks of him, and the other a parson. 
‘Mr. Henshaw, will you kindly wait until I send 
for you? I will tell the hotel people to look 
after your horse,’ says Albert. This was spoken 
in the most civil, friendly way, but somehow 
or other I noticed a complete change in the 
voice and manner. The party went upstairs 
and I sat in the front room for five or ten 
minutes. One or two loafers tried hard to find 
out who the boys were. They said the party 
had been nearly crazy ever since they woke up 
and found the boys gone in the morning. 1 
gave them no satisfaction, nor did I tell them 
the luck we had with the salmon. 
“After a while, the servant came in, and said 
Colonel Andrews would like to speak to Mr. 
Henshaw. He showed me into a private room, 
and there I found the gentleman who’d ridden 
past us and the parson. ‘I must apologize for 
the way in which I spoke to you a little while 
ago,’ says the Colonel. ‘If you only knew the 
worry and anxiety this escapade of their Royal 
Highnesses has caused us you would understand 
why I was somewhat brusque with you. The 
Fenians have been unusually active of late and 
we were afraid that an attempt had been made 
to kidnap the princes. I assure you that I have 
never been more uncomfortable under fire than 
I have been to-day. The whole responsibility 
for their safety rests on this gentleman—point¬ 
ing to the parson—and myself. I am only too 
pleased to hear that they fell into your hands, 
and bj their account they seem to have had a 
most pleasant time. They are here under a 
most strict incognito, and I must ask you not 
to tell any one who they are. They wish to say 
good-night to you, and I will take you up to 
see them. Bye the bye, what names did they 
give you when they met you in the shop?’ 
“ ‘They told me that their names were 
Victor and Albert Prince,’ I said. ‘I knew they 
were gentlemen but I thought they were boys 
who were learning farming, or had got a day 
or two’s leave off of the ships. I did all I 
could for them, and I used them just the same 
as I would use any other boys of their age who 
went to the woods with me.’ 
“ ‘The names they gave you are perfectly cor¬ 
rect, but under ordinary circumstances they are 
known as Prince Edward and Prince George. 
In future you will address them as “Your Royal 
Highness,” in speaking to them, unless they 
tell you to do otherwise.’ 
“We went upstairs to the hotel parlor. The 
two princes were there, and two other gentle¬ 
men with them. Prince Edward came forward 
and held out his hand. ‘My brother and I wish 
to thank you again for your kindness,’ said he. 
‘It was all the more acceptable because you 
were not at all aware of our rank. Possibly, 
now that you know who we are, you will allow 
us to make you some return for your time and 
trouble.’ 
“I felt ready to go through the floor, but I 
remembered that I’d nothing to be ashamed of, 
so I replied, ‘I should like a remembrance of 
your trip with me, Your Royal Highnesses, and 
if you will allow me to say so, the smallest piece 
of silver you and your brother have in your 
pockets will be all I want.’ They gave me those 
two little silver pieces, shook hands with me 
and wished me good-night. Colonel Andrews 
and I went downstairs and we talked about fish 
and game for an hour or so; then I went home. 
“About a week later on my wife got a present 
of a dozen solid silver teaspoons from Halifax. 
They were in a nice leather case, with a card in¬ 
side it ‘From E. and G. in return for your 
hospitality.’ When my wife died I sent them 
to my daughter in New York. She’s married 
to a Presbyterian minister, and when I die 
she’ll get my medals and the little threppeny 
pieces.” 
H. Cooper, the honorary secretary of the 
Matlock and Cromford Angling Association, is 
frequently accompanied on his piscatorial ex¬ 
peditions by a most intelligent and interesting 
wire-haired terrier named “Jack.” The dog not 
only delights to ramble with his master along 
the banks of the sport-yielding Derwent, but 
when Mr. Cooper hooks a trout on his fly, Jack 
quietly swims below the trout, and at the proper 
moment catches it in his mouth and brings it 
ashore without hurting the fish or disturbing a 
scale. Jack is known and admired by many 
anglers, and in fishing circles is often referred 
to as “Cooper’s landing-net.”—Angler’s News. 
