 | DAY THE THIRD. The Warwick woodlands, or, Things as they were there, ten years ago |  |
3. DAY THE THIRD.
So thoroughly was I tired out by the effects of the first day's fagging
I had undergone in many months, and so sound was the
slumber into which I sank the moment my head touched the pillow,
that it scarcely seemed as if five minutes had elapsed between my
falling into sweet forgetfulness, and my starting bolt upright in
bed, aroused by the vociferous shout, and ponderous trampling—
equal to nothing less than that of a full-grown rhinoceros—with
which Tom Draw rushed, long before the sun was up, into my
chamber.
“What's this—what's this now?” he exclaimed; why the d—l
arn't you up and ready?—why here's the bitters mixed, and
Archer in the stable this half hour past, and Jem's here with the
hounds—and you, you lazy snorting Injun, wasting the morning
here in bed!”
My only reply to this most characteristic salutation, was to hurl
my pillow slap in his face, and—threatening to follow up the missile
with the contents of the water pitcher, which stood temptingly
within my reach, if he did not get out incontinently—to jump up and
array myself with all due speed; for, when I had collected my
bewildered thoughts, I well remembered that we had settled on a
fox-hunt before breakfast, as a preliminary to a fresh skirmish with
the quail.
In a few minutes I was on foot and in the parlor, where I found a
bright crackling fire, a mighty pitcher of milk punch, and a plate of
biscuit, an apt substitute for breakfast before starting; while, however,
I was discussing these, Archer arrived, dressed just as I have
described him on the preceding day, with the addition of a pair of
heavy hunting spurs, buckled on over his half-boots, and a large
iron-hammered whip in his right hand.
“That's right, Frank,” he exclaimed, after the ordinary salutations
of the morning.
“Why that old porpoise told me you would not be ready
these two hours; he's grumbling out yonder by the stable door,
like a hog stuck in a farm-yard gate. But come, we may as well
be moving, for the hounds are all uncoupled, and the nags saddled,
—put on a pair of straps to your fustain trowsers and take these
racing spurs, though Peacock does not want them—and now,
hurrah!”
This was soon done, and going out upon the stoop, a scene—it is
true, widely different from the kennel door at Melton, or the covert
side at Billesdon Coplow, yet not by any means devoid of interest or
animation—presented itself to my eyes. About six couple of large
heavy hounds, with deep and pendant ears, heavy well-feathered
sterns, broad chests, and muscular strong limbs, were gathered
round their feeder, the renowned Jem Lyn; on whom it may not
mountain, which, as I learned, to my no little wonder, was destined
to be our hunting ground.
Picture to yourself, then, gentle reader, a small but actively
formed man, with a face of most unusual and portentous ugliness,
an uncouth grin doing the part of a smile; a pair of eyes so small
that they would have been invisible, but for the serpent-like vivacity
and brightness with which they sparkled from their deep sockets,
and a profusion of long hair, coal-black, but lank and uncurled
as an Indian's, combed smoothly down with a degree of care entirely
out of keeping with the other details, whether of dress or
countenance, on either cheek. Above these sleek and cherished
tresses he wore a thing which might have passed for either cap or
castor, at the wearer's pleasure; for it was wholly destitute of brim
except for a space some three or four inches wide over the eye-brows;
and the crown had been so pertinaciously and completely
beaten in, that the sides sloped inward at the top, as if to personate
a bishop's mitre; a fishing line was wound about this graceful and,
if its appearance belied it not most foully, odoriferous head-dress;
and into the fishing line was stuck the bowl and some two inches
of the shank of a well-sooted pipe. An old red handkerchief was
twisted ropewise about his lean and scraggy neck, but it by no means
sufficed to hide the scar of what had evidently been a most appalling
gash, extending right across his throat, almost from ear to ear,
the great cicatrix clearly visible like a white line through the
thick stubble of some ten days' standing that graced his chin and
neck.
An old green coat, the skirts of which had long since been
docked by the encroachment of thorn-bushes and cat-briers, with the
mouth-piece of a powder-horn peeping from its breast pocket, and a
full shot-belt crossing his right shoulder; a pair of fustian trowsers,
patched at the knees with corduroy, and heavy cowhide boots completed
his attire. This, as it seemed, was to be our huntsman; and
sooth to say, although he did not look the character, he played the
part, when he got to work, right handsomely. At a more fitting
season, Harry in a few words let me into this worthy's history and
disposition. “He is,” he said, “the most incorrigible rascal I ever
met with—an unredeemed and utter vagabond; he started life as a
stallion-leader, a business which he understands—as in fact he does
almost every thing else within his scope—thoroughly well. He got
on prodigiously!—was employed by the first breeders in the country!
—took to drinking, and then, in due rotation, to gambling, pilfering,
lying, every vice, in short, which is compatible with utter want
of any thing like moral sense, deep shrewdness, and uncommon
cowardice.
“He cut his throat once—you may see the scar now —in a fit of
delirium tremens, and Tom Draw—who, though he is perpetually
cursing him for the most lying critter under heaven, has, I believe,
a sort of fellow feeling for him—nursed him and got him well; and
ever since he has hung about here, getting at times a country stallion
about the stable, for which Tom gives him plenty of abuse, plenty
to eat, and as little rum as possible, for if he gets a second glass it
is all up with Jem Lyn for a week at least.
“He came to see me once in New York, when I was down upon
my back with a broken leg—I was lying in the parlor, about three
weeks after the accident had happened. Tim Matlock had gone
out for something, and the cook let him in; and, after he had sat
there about half an hour, telling me all the news of the races, and
making me laugh more than was good for my broken leg, he gave
me such a hint, that I was compelled to direct him to the cupboard,
wherein I keep the liquor-stand; and unluckily enough, as I had
not for some time been in drinking tune, all three of the bottles
were brimful; and, as I am a Christian man, he drank in spite of
all that I could say—I could not leave the couch to get at him—
two of them to the dregs; and, after frightening me almost to
death, fell flat upon the floor, and lay there fast asleep when Tim
came in again. He dragged him instantly, by my directions, under
the pump in the garden, and soused him for about two hours, but
without producing the least effect, except eliciting a grunt or two
from this most seasoned cask.
“Such is Jem Lyn, and yet, absurd to say, I have tried the fellow,
and believe him perfectly trustworthy—at least to me!
“He is a coward, yet I have seen him fight like a hero more than
once, and against heavy odds, to save me from a threshing, which I
got after all, though not without some damage to our foes, whose
name might have been legion.
“He is the greatest liar I ever met with; and yet I never
caught him in a falsehood, for he believes it is no use to tell me
one.
“He is most utterly dishonest, yet I have trusted him with sums
that would, in his opinion, have made him a rich man for life, and
he accounted to the utmost shilling; but I advise you not to try the
same, for if you do he most assuredly will cheat you!”
Among the heavy looking hounds, which clustered round this
hopeful gentleman, I quickly singled out two couple of widely different
breed and character from the rest; your thorough high-bred
racing fox-hounds, with ears rounded, thin shining coats, clean
limbs, and all the marks of the best class of English hounds.
“Aye! Frank,” said Archer, as he caught my eye fixed on them,
“you have found out my favorites. Why, Bonny Belle, good lass,
why Bonny Belle!—here Blossom, Blossom, come up and show your
pretty figures to your countryman! Poor Hanbury—do you remember,
Frank, how many a merry day we've had with him by
Thorley Church, and Takely forest?—poor Hanbury sent them to
me with such a letter, only the year before he died; and those,
Dauntless and Dangerous, I had from Will, Lord Harewood's huntsman,
the same season!”
“There never was sich dogs—there never was afore in Orange,”
said Tom. “I will say that, though they be English; and though
deer”—
“But how the deuce,” I interrupted, “can hounds be too fast, if
they have bone and stanchness!”
“Stanchness be d—d; they holes them!”
“No earthstoppers in these parts, Frank,” cried Harry; “and as
the object of these gentlemen is not to hunt solely for the fun of
the thing, but to destroy a noxious varmint, they prefer a slow, sure,
deep-mouthed dog, that does not press too closely on Pug, but lets
him take his time about the coverts, till he comes into fair gunshot
of these hunters, who are lying perdu as he runs to get a crack at
him.”
“And pray, said I, “is this your method of proceeding?”
“You shall see, you shall see; come get to horse, or it will be
late before we get our breakfasts, and I assure you I don't wish to
lose either that, or my day's quail-shooting. This hunt is merely
for a change, and to get something of an appetite for breakfast,
Now, Tim, be sure that every thing is ready by eight o'clock at the
latest—we shall be in by that time with a furious appetite.”
Thus saying he mounted, without more delay, his favorite, the
gray; while I backed, nothing loth, the chestnut horse; and at the
same time to my vast astonishment, from under the long shed out
rode the mighty Tom, bestriding a tall powerful brown mare, showing
a monstrous deal of blood combined with no slight bone—
equipped with a cavalry bridle, and strange to say, without the
universal martingal; he was rigged just as usual, with the exception
of a broad-brimmed hat in place of his fur cap, and grasped in
his right hand a heavy smooth-bored rifle, while with the left he
wheeled his mare, with a degree of active skill, which I should certainly
have looked for any where rather than in so vast a mass of
flesh as that which was exhibited by our worthy host.
Two other sportsmen, grave, sober-looking farmers, whom Harry
greeted cheerily by name, and to whom in all due form I was next
introduced, well-mounted, and armed with long single-barrelled
guns, completed our party; and away we went at a rattling trot,
the hounds following at Archer's heels, as steadily as though he
hunted them three times a week.
“Now arn't it a strange thing,” said Tom,” “arn't it a strange
thing, Mr. Forester, that every critter under Heaven takes somehow
nat'rally to that are Archer—the very hounds—old Whino
there! that I have had these eight years, and fed with my own
hands, and hunted steady every winter, quits me the very moment
he claps sight on him; by the etarnal, I believe he is half dog
himself.”
“You hunted them indeed,” interrupted Harry, “you old rhinoceros,
why hang your hide, you never so much as heard a good
view-holloa till I came up here—you hunted them—a man talk of
hunting, that carries a cannon about with him on horseback; but
come, where are we to try first, on Rocky Hill, or in the Spring
Swamps?”
“Why now I reckon, Archer, we'd best stop down to Sam Blain's
—by the blacksmith's—he was telling t' other morning of an
etarnal sight of them he'd seen down hereaway—and we'll be there
to rights!—Jem, curse you, out of my way, you dumb nigger—out
of my way, or I'll ride over you”—for, travelling along at a strange
shambling run, that worthy had contrived to keep up with us,
though we were going fully at the rate of eight or nine miles in an
hour.
“Hurrah!” cried Tom, suddenly pulling up at the door of a neat
farm-house on the brow of a hill, with a clear streamlet sweeping
round its base, and a fine piece of woodland at the farther side.
“Hurrah! Sam Blain, we've come to make them foxes, you were
telling of a Sunday, smell h—ll right straight away. Here's
Archer, and another Yorker with him—leastwise an Englisher I
should say—and Squire Conklin, and Bill Speers, and that white
nigger Jem! Look sharp, I say! Look sharp, d—n you, else
we'll pull off the ruff of the old humstead.”
In a few minutes Sam made his appearance, armed, like the rest,
with a Queen Ann's tower-musket.
“Well! well!” he said, “I'm ready. Quit making such a
clatter! Lend me a load of powder, one of you; my horn's leaked
dry, I reckon!”
Tom forthwith handed him his own, and the next thing I heard
was Blain exclaiming that it was “desperate pretty powder,” and
wondering if it shot strong.
“Shoot strong? I guess you'll find it strong enough to sew you
up, if you go charging your old musket that ways!” answered Tom.
“By the Lord, Archer, he's put in three full charges!”
“Well, it will kill him, that's all!” answered Harry, very
coolly; “and there'll be one less of you. But come! come! let's
be bustling; the sun's going to get up already. You'll leave your
horses here, I suppose, gentlemen, and get to the old stands. Tom
Draw, put Mr. Forester at my old post down by the big pin-oak at
the creek side; and you stand there, Frank, still as a church-mouse.
It's ten to one, if some of these fellows don't shoot him
first, that he'll break covert close by you, and run the meadows for
a mile or two, up to the turnpike road, and over it to Rocky hill—
that black knob yonder, covered with pine and hemlock. There are
some queer snake fences in the flat, and a big brook or two, but
Peacock has been over over every inch of it before, and you may
trust in him implicitly. Good bye! I'm going up the road with
Jem to drive it from the upper end.”
And off he went at a merry trot, with the hounds gamboling
about his stirrups, and Jem Lyn running at his best pace to keep up
with him. In a few minutes they were lost behind a swell of
woodland, round which the road wheeled suddenly. At the same
moment Tom and his companions re-appeared from the stables,
where they had been securing their four-footed friends; and, after
a few seconds, spent in running ramrods down the barrels to see
that all was right, inspecting primings, knapping flints, or putting
passing through the farm-yard, we entered, through a set of bars,
a broad bright buckwheat stubble. Scarcely an hundred yards
had we proceeded, before up sprang the finest bevy of the largest
quail I had yet seen, and flying high and wild crossed half-a-dozen
fields in the direction of the village, whence we had started, and
pitched at length into an alder brake beside the stream.
“Them chaps has gone the right way,” Tom exclaimed, with a
deep sigh, who had with wondrous difficulty refrained from firing
into them, though he was loaded with buckshot; “right in the
course we count to take this forenoon. Now, Squire, keep to the
left here, take your station by the old earths there away, under the
tall dead pine; and you, Bill, make tracks there, straight through
the middle cart-way, down to the other meadow, and sit you down
right where the two streams fork; there'll be an old red snooping
down that side afore long, I reckon. We'll go on, Mr. Forester;
here's a big rail fence now; I'll throw off the top rail, for I'll be
darned if I climb any day when I can creep—there, that'll do, I
reckon; leastwise if you can ride like Archer—he d—ns me always
if I so much as shakes a fence afore he jumps it—you've got the
best horse, too, for lepping. Now let's see! Well done! well
done!” he continued, with a most boisterous burst of laughter—
“well done, horse, any how!”—as Peacock, who had been chafing
ever since he parted from his comrade Bob, went at the fence as
though he were about to take it in his stroke—stopped short when
within a yard of it, and then bucked over it, without touching a
splinter, although it was at least five feet, and shaking me so
much, that, greatly to Tom's joy, I showed no little glimpse of
daylight.
“I reckon if they run the meadows, you'll hardly ride them,
Forester,” he grinned; “but now away with you. You see the
tall dark pin oak, it has n't lost one leaf yet; right in the nook there
of the bars you'll find a quiet shady spot, where you can see clear
up the rail fence to this knob, where I'll be. Off with you, boy—
and mind you now, you keep as dumb as the old woman when her
husband cut her tongue out, 'cause she had too much jaw.”
Finishing his discourse, he squatted himself down on the stool of
a large hemlock, which, being recently cut down, cumbered the
woodside with its giant stem, and secured him, with its evergreen
top now lowly laid and withering, from the most narrow scrutiny;
while I, giving the gallant horse his head, went at a brisk hand-gallop
across the firm short turf of the fair sloping hill-side, taking a
moderate fence in my stroke, which Peacock cleared in a style that
satisfied me Harry had by no means exaggerated his capacity to act
as hunter, in lieu of the less glorious occupation, to which in general
he was doomed.
In half a minute more I reached my post, and though an hour
passed before I heard the slightest sound betokening the chase,
never did I more thoroughly enjoy an hour.
The loveliness of the whole scene before me—the broad rich
light of an autumnal morning, with groups of cattle couched still
beneath the trees where they had passed the night; the distant
hills, veiled partially in mist, partially rearing their round leafy
heads toward the brightening sky; and then the various changes of
the landscape, as slowly the day broke behind the eastern hill; and
all the various sounds of bird, and beast, and insect, which each
succeeding variation of the morning served to call into life as if by
magic. First a faint rosy flush stole up the eastern sky, and nearly
at the self-same moment, two or three vagrant crows came flapping
heavily along, at a height so immeasurable that their harsh voices
were by distance modified into a pleasing murmur And now a little
fish jumped in the streamlet; and the splash, rifling as it was,
with which he fell back on the quiet surface, half startled me.
A moment afterward an acron plumped down on my head, and,
as I looked up, there sat, on a limb not ten feet above me, an impudent
rogue of a gray squirrel, half as big as a rabbit, erect upon his
haunches, working away at the twin brother of the acorn he had
dropped upon my hat to break my revery, rasping it audibly with
his chisel-shaped teeth, and grinning at me just as coolly as though
I were a harmless scare-crow.
When I grew tired of observing him, and looked toward the sky
again, behold the western ridge, which is far higher than the eastern
hills, had caught upon its summits the first bright rays of the yet
unseen day-god; while the rosy flush of the east had brightened
into a blaze of living gold, exceeded only by the glorious hues
with which a few slight specks of misty cloud glowed out against
the azure firmament, like coals of actual fire.
Again a louder splash aroused me; and, as I turned, there floated
on a glassy basin, into which the ripples of a tiny fall subsided,
three wood-ducks with a noble drake, that loveliest in plumage of
all aquatic fowl, perfectly undisturbed and fearless, although within
ten yards of their most dreaded enemy.
How beautiful are all their motions! There! one has reared
herself half way out of the water; another stretches forth a delicate
web foot to scratch her ear, as handily as a dog on dry land; and
now the drake reflects his purple neck to preen his ruffled wing,
and now—bad luck to you, Peacock, why did you snort and stamp?
—they are off like a bullet, and out of sight in an instant.
And now out comes the sun himself, and with him the accursed
hum of a musquitoe—and hark! hush!—what was that?—was it?
By Heavens! it was the deep note of a fox-hound! Aye! there
comes Harry's cheer, faintly heard, swelling up the breeze.
“Have at him, there! Ha-a-ve at him, good lads!”
Again! again! those are the musical deep voices of the slow
hounds! They have a dash in them of the old Southern breed!
And now! there goes the yell! the quick sharp yelping rally of
those two high-bred bitches.
By heaven! they must be viewing him! How the woods ring
and crash!
“Togather hark! Togather hark! Togather! For-ra-ard, good
lads, get for-a-ard! Hya-a-ara way!”
Well halloaed Harry! I could swear to that last screech, out of
ten thousand, though it is near ten years since I last heard it! But
heavens! how they press him! Hang it! there goes a shot—the
squire has fired at him, as he tried the earths! Now, if he have
but missed him, and Pan, the god of hunters, send it so, he has no
chance but to try the open.
“By Jove he has! he must have missed! for Bonny Belle and
Blossom are raving half a mile this side of him already. And now
Tom sees him—how quietly he steals up to the fence. There! he
has fired! and all our sport is up! No! no! he waves his hat and
points this way! Can he have missed? No! he has got a fox!—
he lifts it out by the brush—there must have been two, then, on
foot together. He has done well to get that he has killed away, or
they would have stopped on him!
Hush! the leaves rustle here beside me, with a quick patter—
the twigs crackle—it is he! Move not! not for your life, Peacock!
There! he has broken cover fairly! Now he is half across the
field! he stops to listen! Ah! he will head back again. No! no!
that crash, when they came upon the warm blood, has decided him
—away he goes, with his brush high, and its white tag brandished
in the sunshine—now I may halloa him away.
“Whoop! gone awa-ay! whoop!”
I was answered on the instant by Harry's quick—
“Hark holloa! get awa-ay! to him hark! to him hark! hark
holloa!”
Most glorious Artemis, what heaven stirring music! And yet
there are but poor six couple; the scent must be as hot as fine, for
every hound seems to have twenty tongues, and every leaf an hundred
echoes! How the boughs crash again! Lo! they are here!
Bonny Belle leading—head and stern up, with a quick panting
yelp! Blossom, and Dangerous, and Dauntless, scarcely a length
behind her, striving together, neck and neck; and, by St. Hubert,
it must be a scent of twenty thousand, for here these heavy Southrons
are scarcely two rods behind them.
But fidget not, good Peacock! fret not, most excellent Pythagoras!
one moment more, and I am not the boy to balk you. And
here comes Harry on the gray; by George! he makes the brush-wood
crackle! Now for a nasty leap out of the tangled swamp!
a high six-barred fence of rough trees, leaning toward him, and up
hill! surely he will not try it!
Will he not though?
See!—his rein is tight yet easy! his seat, how beautiful, how
firm, yet how relaxed and graceful! Well done, indeed! He
slacks his rein one instant as the gray rises! the rugged rails are
cleared, and the firm pull supports him! but Harry moves not in
the saddle—no, not one hair's breadth! A five foot fence to him is
nothing! You shall not see the slightest variation between his attitude
in that strong effort, and in the easy gallop. If Tom Draw
horse”—and he does see him! hark to that most unearthly yell!
like unto nothing, either heavenly or human! He waves his hat
and hurries back as fast as he is able to the horses, well knowing
that, for pedestrians at least, the morning's sport is ended.
Harry and I were now almost abreast, riding in parallel lines,
down the rich valley, very nearly at the top speed of our horses;
taking fence after fence in our stroke, and keeping well up with
the hounds, which were running almost mute, such was the furious
speed to which the blazing scent excited them.
We had already passed above two-thirds of the whole distance
that divides the range of woods, wherein we found him, and the
pretty village which we had constituted our head quarters, a distance
of at least three miles; and now a very difficult and awkward
obstacle presented itself to our farther progress, in the shape of a
wide yawning brook between sheer banks of several feet in height,
broken, with rough and pointed stones, the whole being at least five
yards across. The gallant hounds dashed over it; and, when we
reached it, were half way across the grass field next beyond it.
“Hold him hard, Frank,” Harry shouted; “hold him hard, man,
and cram him at it!”
And so I did, though I had little hope of clearing it. I lifted him
a little on the snaffle, gave him the spur just as he reached the
brink, and with a long and swinging leap, so easy that its motion
was in truth scarce perceptible, he swept across it; before I had
the time to think, we were again going at our best pace almost
among the hounds.
Over myself, I cast a quick glance back toward Harry, who by
a short turn of the chase had been thrown a few yards behind me.
He charged it gallantly; but on the very verge, cowed by the
brightness of the rippling water, the gray made a half stop, but
leaped immediately, beneath the application of the galling spur; he
made a noble effort, but it was scarce a thing to be effected by a
standing leap, and it was with far less pleasure than surprise, that
I saw him drop his hind legs down the steep bank, having just
landed with fore-feet in the meadow.
I was afraid, indeed, he must have had an ugly fall, but, picked
up quickly by the delicate and steady finger of his rider, the good
horse found some slight projection of the bank, whereby to make a
second spring. After a heavy flounder, however, which must have
dismounted any less perfect horseman, he recovered himself well,
and before many minutes was again abreast of me!
Thus far the course of the hunted fox had lain directly homeward,
down the valley; but now the turnpike road making a sudden turn
crossed his line at right angles, while another narrower road coming
in at a tangent, went off to the south-westward in the direction
of the bold projection, which I had learned to recognize as Rocky
Hill; over the high fence into the road; well performed, gallant
horses! And now they check for a moment, puzzling about on the
dry sandy turnpike.
“Dangerous feathers on it now! Speak to it! speak to it, good
hound!”
How beautiful that flourish of the stern with which he darts away
on the recovered scent; with what a yell they open it once again!
Harry was right, he makes for Rocky Hill, but up this plaguey lane,
where the scent lies but faintly. Now! now! the road turns off
again far westward of his point! He may, by Jove! and he has
left it!
“Have at him then, lads; he is ours!”
And lo! the pace increases. Ha! what a sudden turn, and in the
middle too of a clear pasture.
“Has he been headed, Harry!”
“No! no! his strength is failing!”
And see! he makes his point again toward the hill; it is within
a quarter of a mile, and if he gain it we can do nothing with him,
for it is full of earths. But he will never reach it! See! he turns
once again; how exquisitely well those bitches run it; three times
he has doubled, now almost as short as a hare, and they, running
breast-high, have turned with him each time, not over-running it a
yard.
See how the sheep have drawn together into phalanx yonder, in
that bare pasture to the eastward; he has crossed that field for a
thousand! Yes! I am right. See! they turn once again. What
a delicious rally! An outspread towel would cover those four leading
hounds—now Dauntless has it; has it by half a neck.
“He always goes up, when a fox is sinking,” Harry exclaimed,
pointing toward him with his hunting whip.
Aye! he has given up his point entirely; he knew he could not
face the hill. Look! look at those carrion crows! how low they
stoop over that woody bank. That is his line. Here is the road
again! Over it once more merrily! and now we view him.
“Whoop! Forra-ard, lads, forra-ard!”
He cannot hold five minutes; and see, there comes fat Tom,
pounding that mare along the road, as if her fore-feet were of hammered
iron; he has come up along the turnpike, at an infernal
pace, while that turn favored him; but he will only see us kill
him, and that, too, at a respectful distance.
Another brook stretches across our course, hurrying to join the
greater stream along the banks of which we have so long been
speeding; but this is a little one; there! we have cleared it
cleverly. Now! now! the hounds are viewing him. Poor brute!
his day is come. See how he twists and doubles. Ah! now they
have him! No! that short turn has saved him, and he gains the
fence—he will lie down there! No! he stretches gallantly across
the next field—game to the last, poor devil! There!
“Who-whoop! Dead! dead! who-whoop!”
And in another instant Harry had snatched him from the hounds,
and holding him aloft displayed him to the rest, as they came up
along the road.
“A pretty burst,” he said to me, “a pretty burst, Frank, and a
like our stout islanders; they are not forced to work so hard to
gain their living. But now let us get homeward; I want my
breakfast, I can tell you, and then a rattle at the quail. I mean to
get full forty brace to-day, I promise you!”
“And we,” said I, “have marked down fifteen brace already
toward it; right in the line of our beat, Tom says.”
“That's right! well, let us go on.”
And in a short half hour we were all once again assembled about
Tom's hospitable board, and making such a breakfast, on every
sort of eatable that can be crowded on a breakfast table, as sportsmen
only have a right to make; nor they, unless they have walked
ten, or galloped half as many miles, before it.
Before we had been in an hour, Harry once again roused us out.
All had been, during our absence, fully prepared by the indefatigable
Tim; who, as the day before, accoutred with spare shot and lots
of provender, seemed to grudge us each morsel that we ate, so eager
was he to see us take the field in season.
Off we went then; but what boots it to repeat a thrice told tale;
suffice it, that the dogs worked as well as dogs can work; that
birds were plentiful, and lying good; that we fagged hard, and
shot on the whole passably, so that by sunset we had exceeded
Harry's forty brace by fifteen birds, and got beside nine couple and
a half of woodcock; which we found, most unexpectedly, basking
themselves in the open meadow, along the grassy banks of a small
rill, without a bush or tree within five hundred yards of them.
Evening had closed before we reached the well known tavern-stand,
and the merry blaze of the fire, and many candles, showed us,
while yet far distant, that due preparations were in course for our
entertainment.
“What have we here?” cried Harry, as we reached the door—
“Race horses? Why, Tom, by heaven! we've got the Flying
Dutchman here again; now for a night of it!”
And so in truth it was, a most wet, and most jovial one, seasoned
with no small wit—but of that more anon!
| DAY THE THIRD. The Warwick woodlands, or, Things as they were there, ten years ago | |