 | DAY THE FOURTH. The Warwick woodlands, or, Things as they were there, ten years ago |  |
4. DAY THE FOURTH.
When we had entered Tom's hospitable dwelling, and delivered
over our guns to be duly cleaned, and the dogs to be suppered, by
Tim Matlock, I passed through the parlor, on my way to my own
crib, where I found Archer in close confabulation with a tall raw-boned
Dutchman, with a keen freckled face, small 'cute gray eyes,
looking suspiciously about from under the shade of a pair of straggling
sandy eyebrows, small reddish whiskers, and a head of carrotty
hair as rough and tangled as a fox's back.
His aspect was a wondrous mixture of sneakingness and smartness,
and his expression did most villainously belie him, if he were
not as sharp a customer as ever wagged an elbow, or betted on a
horse-race.
“Frank,” exclaimed Harry as I entered, “I make you know
Mr. McTaggart, better known hereabouts as the flying Dutchman,
though how he came by a Scotch name I can't pretend to say; he
keeps the best quarter horses, and plays the best hand of whist in
the country; and now, get yourself clean as quick as possible, for
Tom never gives one five minutes wherein to dress himself—so
bustle.”
And off he went as he had finished speaking, and I, shaking my
new friend cordially by an exceeding bony unwashed paw, incontinently
followed his example—and in good time I did so; for I had
scarcely changed my shooting boots and wet worsteds for slippers
and silk socks, before my door, as usual, was lounged open by Tom's
massy foot, and I was thus exhorted.
“Come, come, your supper's gittin' cold; I never see such men
as you and Archer is; you're wash, wash, wash—all day! It's
little water enough that you use any other ways.”
“Why, is there any other use for water, Tom?” I asked, simply
enough.
“It's lucky if there aint, any how—leastwise, where you and
Archer is—else you'd leave none for the rest of us. It's a good
thing you han't thought of washing your darned stinking hides in
rum—you will be at it some of these odd days, I warrant me—why
now, McTaggart, it's only yesterday I caught Archer up stairs, a
fiddling away up there at his teeth with a little ivory brush; brushing
them with cold water—cleaning them he calls it! Cuss all
such trash, says I.”
While I was listening in mute astonishment, wondering whether
in truth the old savage never cleaned his teeth, Archer made his
appearance, and to a better supper never did I sit down, than was
spread at the old round table, in such profusion as might have well
sufficed to feed a troop of horse.
“What have we got here, Tom?” cried Harry as he took the
peppers in it, Tom?”
“Sartain there is,” replied that worthy, “and a prime rump-steak
in the bottom, and some first-best salt pork, chopped fine, and three
small onions; like little Wax-skin used to fix them, when he was
up here all last fall.”
“Take some of this pie, Frank;” said Archer, as he handed me a
huge plate of leafy reeking pie-crust, with a slice of fat steak, and
a plump hen quail, and gravy, and etceteras, that might have made
an alderman's mouth water; “and if you do n't say it's the very
best thing you ever tasted, you are not half so good a judge as I
used to hold you. It took little Johnny and myself three wet days
to concoct it. Pie, Tom, or roast pig?” he continued; “or
broiled woodcock? Here they are, all of them.”
“Why, I reckon I'll take cock; briled meat wants to be ate
right stret away as soon as it comes off the griddle; and of all
darned nice ways of cooking, to brile a thing, quick now, over hot
hickory ashes, is the best for me!”
“I believe you're right about eating the cock first, for they
will not be worth a farthing if they get cold. So you stick to the
pig, do you—hey, McTaggart? Well, there is no reckoning on
taste—holloa, Tim, look sharp! the champagne all 'round—I'm
choking!”
And for some time no sound was heard, but the continuous clatter
of knives and forks, the occasional popping of a cork, succeeded by
the gurgling of the generous wine as it flowed into the tall rummers;
and every now and then a loud and rattling eructation from
Tom Draw; who, as he said, could never half enjoy a meal if he
could not stop now and then to blow off steam.
At last, however—for supper, alas! like all other earthly pleasures,
must come to an end—“The fairest still the fleetest”—our
appetites waned gradually; and notwithstanding Harry's earnest
exhortations, and the production of a broiled ham-bone, devilled to the
very utmost pitch of English mustard, soy, oil of Aix, and cayenne
pepper, by no hands, as may be guessed, but those of that universal
genius, Timothy; one by one, we gave over our labors edacious, to
betake us to potations of no small depth or frequency.
“It is directly contrary to my rule, Frank, to drink before a good
day's shooting—and a good day I mean to have to-morrow!—but I
am thirsty, and the least thought chilly; so here goes for a debauch!
Tim, look in my box with the clothes, and you will find
two flasks of curaçao; bring them down, and a dozen lemons, and
some lump sugar—look alive! and you, Tom, out with your best
brandy; I'll make a jorum that will open your eyes tight before
you've done with it. That's right, Tim; now get the soup tureen,
the biggest one, and see that it's clean. The old villain has got
a punch bowl—bring half a dozen of champagne, a bucket full of
ice, and then go down into the kitchen, and make two quarts of
green tea, as strong as possible; and when it's made, set it to cool
in the ice-house!”
In a few minutes all the ingredients were at hand; the rind,
peeled carefully from all the lemons, was deposited with two tumblers
full of finely powdered sugar in the bottom of the tureen;
thereupon were poured instantly three pints of pale old Cognae;
and these were left to steep, without admixture, until Tim Matlock
made his entrance with the cold, strong, green tea; two quarts of
this, strained clear, were added to the brandy, and then two flasks
of curacao!
Into this mixture a dozen lumps of clear ice were thrown, and
the whole stirred up 'till the sugar was entirely suspended; then
pop! pop! went the long necks, and their creaming nectar was
discharged into the bowl; and by the body of Bacchus—as the
Italians swear—and by his soul too, which he never steeped in
such delicious nectar, what a drink that was, when it was completed.
Even Tom Draw, who ever was much disposed to look upon
strange potables as trash, and who had eyed the whole proceedings
with ill-concealed suspicion and disdain, when he had quaffed off a
pint-beaker full, which he did without once moving the vessel from
his head, smacked his lips with a report which might have been
heard half a mile off, and which resembled very nearly the crack
of a first-rate huntsman's whip.
“That's not slow, now!” he said, half dubiously, “to cell God's
truth now, that's first rate; I reckon, though, it would be better if
there wasn't that tea into it—it makes it weak and trashy like!”
“You be hanged!” answered Harry, “that's mere affectation—
that smack of your lips told the story; did you ever hear such an
infernal sound? I never did, by George!”
“Begging your pardon, Measter Archer,” interposed Timothy,
pulling his forelock, with an expression of profound respect, mingled
with a ludicrous air of regret, at being forced to differ in the least
degree from his master; “begging your pardon, Measter Archer,
that was a roommer noise, and by a vary gre-at de-al too, when
Measter McTavish sneezed me clean oot o't' wagon!”
`What's that?—what the devil's that?” cried I; “this
McTavish must be a queer genius; one day I hear of his frightening
a bull out of a meadow, and the next of his sneezing a man
out of a phaeton.”
“It's simply true!—both are simply true! We were driving
very slowly on an immensely hot day in the middle of August, between
Lebanon Springs and Claverack; McTavish and I on the
front seat, and Tim behind. Well! we were creeping at a foot's
pace, up a long, steep hill, just at the very hottest time of day; not
a word had been spoken for above an hour, for we were all tired
and languid—except once, when McTavish asked for his third
tumbler, since breakfast, of Starke's Ferintosh, of which we had
three two-quart bottles in the liquor case—when suddenly, without
any sign or warning, McTavish gave a sneeze which, on my honor,
was scarcely inferior in loudness to a pistol shot! The horses
started almost off the road, I jumped about half a foot off my seat,
the wagon into the road, and lay there sprawling in the dust, while
Mac sat perfectly unmoved, without a smile upon his face, looking
straight before him, exactly as if nothing had happened.”
“Nonsense, Harry,” exclaimed I; “that positively won't go
down.”
“That's an etarnal lie, now, Archer!” Tom chimed in; “leastwise
I don't know why I should say so neither, for I never saw no
deviltry goin on yet, that did'nt come as nat'ral to McTavish, as
lying to a minister, or”—
“Rum to Tom Draw!” responded Harry. “But it's true as the
gospel, ask Timothy there!”
“Nay it's all true; only it's scarce so bad i' t' story, as it was
i' right airnest! Ay cooped oot o' t' drag—loike ivry thing—my
hinder eend was sair a moonth and better!”
“Now then,” said I, “it's Tom's turn; “let us hear about the
bull.”
“Oh, the bull!” answered Tom. “Well you see, Archer there,
and little Waxskin—you know little Waxskin, I guess, Mister
Forester—and old McTavish, had gone down to shoot to Hell-hole
—where we was yesterday, you see!—well now! it was hot—hot,
worst kind; I tell you—and I was sort o' tired out—so Waxskin, in
he goes into the thick, and Archer arter him, and up the old crick
side—thinkin, you see, that we was goin up, where you and I
walked yesterday—but not a bit of it; we never thought of no such
thing, not we! We sot ourselves down underneath the haystacks,
and made ourselves two good stiff horns of toddy; and cooled off
there, all in the shade, as slick as silk.
“Well, arter we'd been there quite a piece, bang! we hears, in the
very thick of the swamp—bang! bang!—and then I heerd Harry
Archer roar out `mark! mark!—Tom, mark!—you old fat rascal,'—and
sure enough, right where I should have been, if I 'd
been a doin right, out came two woodcock—big ones—they looked
like hens, and I kind o' thought it was a shame, so I got up to go to
them, and called McTavish to go with me; but torights, jest as he
was a gittin up, a heap of critters comes all chasin up, scart by a
dog, I reckon, kickin their darned heels up, and bellowin like mad—
and there was one young bull amongst them, quite a lump of a bull
now I tell you; and the bull he came up pretty nigh to us, and
stood, and stawmped, and sort o' snorted, as if he did'nt know right
what he would be arter, and McTavish, he gits up, and turns right
round with his back to the critter; he 'd got a bit of a round jacket
on, and he stoops down till his head came right atween his legs,
kind o' straddlin like, so that the bull could see nothing of him but
his t'other eend, and his head right under it, chin uppermost, with
his big black whiskers, lookin as fierce as all h—l, and fiercer;
well! the bull he stawmped agin, and pawed, and bellowed, and I
was in hopes, I swon, that he would have hooked him; but jest then
McTavish, starts to run, goin along as I have told you, hind eend
foremost—bo-oo went the bull, a-boo-oo, and off he starts like a
critters arter him, and then they kind o' circled round—and all
stood still and stared—and stawmped, 'till he got nigh to them, and
then they all stricks off agin; and so they went on—runnin and
then standin still,—and so they went on the hull of an hour, I'll be
bound; and I lay there upon my back laughin 'till I was stiff
and sore all over; and then came Waxskin and old Archer, wrathy
as h—l and swearin'—Lord how they did swear!
“They 'd been a slavin there through the darned thorns and briers,
and the old stinkin mud holes, and flushed a most almighty sight of
cock, where the brush was too thick to shoot them, and every one
they flushed, he came stret out into the open field, where Archer
knew we should have been, and where we should have killed a
thunderin mess, and no mistake; and they went on dammin, and
wonderin, and sweatin through the brush, till they got out to the
far eend, and there they had to make tracks back to us through the
bog meadow, under a brilin sun, and when they did get back, the
bull was jest a goin through the bars—and every d—d drop o' the
rum was drinked up; and the sun was settin, and the day's shootin
—that was spoiled!—and then McTavish tantalized them the worst
sort. But I did laugh to kill; it was the best I ever did see, was
that spree—Ha! ha! ha!”
And, as he finished, he burst out into his first horse laugh, in
which I chorused him most heartily, having in truth been in convulsions,
between the queerness of his lingo, and the absurdly grotesque
attitudes into which he threw himself, in imitating the persons
concerning whom his story ran. After this, jest succeeded
jest! and story, story! 'till, in good truth, the glass circling the
while with most portentous speed, I began to feel bees in my head,
and till in truth no one, I believe, of the party, was entirely collected
in his thoughts, except Tom Draw, whom it is as impossible for
liquor to affect, as it would be for brandy to make a hogshead drunk,
and who stalked off to bed with an air of solemn gravity that would
have well become a Spanish grandee of the olden time, telling us,
as he left the room, that we were all as drunk as h—l, and that we
should be stinkin in our beds till noon to-morrow.
A prediction, by the way, which he took right good care to defeat
in his own person; for, in less than five hours after we retired,
which was about the first of the small hours, he rushed into my
room, and finding that the awful noises, which he made, had no
effect in waking me, dragged me bodily out of bed, and clapping
my wet sponge in my face, walked off, as he said, to fetch the bitters,
which were to make me as fine as silk upon the instant.
This time, I must confess that I did not look with quite so much
disgust on the old apple-jack; and in fact, after a moderate horn, I
completed my ablutions, and found myself perfectly fresh and ready
for the field. Breakfast was soon despatched, and on this occasion
as soon as we had got through the broiled ham and eggs, the wagon
made its appearance at the door.
“What's this, Harry,” I exclaimed, “where are we bound for,
now?”
“Why, Master Frank,” he answered, “to tell you the plain
truth, while you were sleeping off the effects of the last night's re-gent's
punch, I was on foot inquiring into the state of matters and
things; and since we have pretty well exhausted our home beats,
and I have heard that some ground, about ten miles distant, is in
prime order, I have determined to take a try there; but we must
look pretty lively, for it is seven now, and we have got a drive of
ten stiff miles before us. Now, old Grampus, are you ready?”
“Aye! aye!” responded Tom, and mounted up, a work of no
small toil for him, into the back seat of the wagon, where I soon
took my seat beside him, with the two well-broke setters crouching
at our feet, and the three guns strapped neatly to the side rails of
the wagons. Harry next mounted the box. Tim touched his hat
and jumped up to his side, and off we rattled at a merry trot, wheeling
around the rival tavern which stood in close propinquity to
Tom's; then turning short again to the left hand, along a broken
stony road, with several high and long hills, and very awkward
bridges in the valleys, to the northwestward of the village.
Five miles brought us into a pretty little village lying at the
base of another ridge of what might almost be denominated mountains,
save that they were cultivated to the very top. As we paused
on the brow of this, another glorious valley spread out to our view,
with the broad sluggish waters of the Wallkill winding away, with
hardly any visible motion, toward the northeast, through a vast
tract of meadow-land covered with high, rank grass, dotted with
clumps of willows and alder brakes, and interspersed with large
deep swamps, thick-set with high grown timber; while far beyond
these, to the west, lay the tall variegated chain of the Shawangunk
mountains.
Rattling briskly down the hill, we passed another thriving village,
built on the mountain side; made two or three sharp ugly
turns, still going at a smashing pace, and coming on the level
ground, entered an extensive cedar swamp, impenetrable above
with the dark boughs of the evergreen colossi, and below with half
a dozen varieties of rhododendron, calmia, and azalia. Through
this dark dreary track, the road ran straight as the bird flies, supported
on the trunks of trees, constituting what is here called a
corduroy road; an article which, praise be to all the gods, is disappearing
now so rapidly, that this is the only bit to be found in
the civilized regions of New York—and bordered to the right and
left by ditches of black tenacious mire. Beyond this we scaled another
sandy hillock, and pulled up at a little wayside tavern, at the
door of which Harry set himself lustily to halloa.
“Why, John—hilloa, hillo—John Riker.”
Whereon, out came, stooping low to pass under the lintel of a
very fair sized door, one of the tallest men I ever looked upon; his
height, too, was exaggerated by the narrowness of his chest and
shoulders, which would have been rather small for a man of five foot
muscular, and his whole frame evidently powerful and athletic,
though his gait was slouching, and his air singularly awkward and
unhandy.
“Why, how do, Mr. Archer? I had n't heerd you was in these
pairts—arter woodcock, I reckon?”
“Yes, John, as usual; and you must go along with us, and show
us the best ground.”
“Well, you see, I carn't go to day—for Squire Breawn, and Dan
Faushea, and a whole grist of Goshen boys is comin' over to the
island here to fish; but you carn't well go wrong.”
“Why not—are birds plenty?”
“Well! I guess they be! Plentier than ever yet I see them
here.”
“By Jove! that's good news,” Harry answered; “where shall
we find the first?”
“Why, amost anywheres—but here, jist down by the first bridge,
there's a hull heap—leastwise there was a Friday—and then you'd
best go on to the second bridge, and keep the edge of the hill right
up and down to Merrit's Island; and then beat down here home to
the first bridge again. But won't you liquor?”
“No! not this morning, John; we did our liquoring last night.
Tom, do you hear what John says?”
“I hear, I hear,” growled out old Tom, “but the critter lies like
h—l. He always does lie, d—n him.”
“Well, here goes, and we'll soon see!”
And away we went again, spinning down a little descent, to a
flat space between the hill-foot and the river, having a thick tangled
swamp on the right, and a small boggy meadow full of grass,
breast-high, with a thin open alder grove beyond it on the left. Just
as we reached the bridge Harry pulled up.
“Jump out, boys, jump out! Here's the spot.”
“I tell you there aint none; d—n you! There aint none never
here, nor haint been these six years; you know that now, yourself,
Archer.”
“We'll try it, all the same,” said Harry, who was coolly loading
his gun. “The season has been wetter than common, and this
ground is generally too dry. Drive on, Tim, over the bridge, into
the hollow; you'll be out of shot there; and wait till we come.
Holloa! mark, Tom.”
For, as the wagon wheels rattled upon the bridge, up jumped a
cock out of the ditch by the road side, from under a willow brush,
and skimmed past all of us within five yards. Tom Draw and I,
who had got out after Harry, were but in the act of ramming down
our first barrels; but Harry, who had loaded one, and was at that
moment putting down the wad upon the second, dropped his ramrod
with the most perfect sang-froid I ever witnessed, took a cap
out of his right-hand pocket, applied it to the cone, and pitching up
his gun, knocked down the bird as it wheeled to cross the road behind
us, by the cleverest shot possible.
“That's pretty well for no birds, anyhow, Tom,” he exclaimed,
dropping his butt to load. “Go and gather that bird, Frank, to save
time; he lies in the wagon rut, there. How now? down charge,
you Chase, sir! what are you about?”
The bird was quickly bagged, and Harry loaded. We stepped
across a dry ditch, and both dogs made game at the same instant.
“Follow the red dog, Frank!” cried Archer, “and go very slow;
there are birds here!”
And as he spoke, while the dogs were crawling along, cat-like,
pointing at every step, and then again creeping onward, up skirred
two birds under the very nose of the white setter, and crossed quite
to the left of Harry. I saw him raise his gun, but that was all;
for at the self-same moment one rose to me, and my ear caught the
flap of yet another to my right; five barrels were discharged so
quickly that they made but three reports; I cut my bird well down,
and looking quickly to the left, saw nothing but a stream of feathers
drifting along the wind. At the same time old Tom shouted on
the right—
“I have killed two, by George! What have you done, boys?”
“Two, I!” said Archer. “Wait, Frank, do n't you begin to
load till one of us is ready; there'll be another cock up, like enough.
Keep your barrel; I'll be ready in a jiffy!”
And well it was that I obeyed him, for at the squeak of the card,
in its descent down his barrel, another bird did rise, and was making
off for the open alders, when my whole charge riddled him;
and instantly at the report three more flapped up, and of course
went off unharmed; but we marked them, one by one, down in the
grass at the wood edge. Harry loaded again. We set off to pick
up our dead birds. Shot drew, as I thought, on my first, and pointed
dead within a yard of where he fell. I walked up carelessly, with
my gun under my arm, and was actually stooping to bag him, as I
thought, when whiz! one rose almost in my face; and, bothered
by seeing us all around him, towered straight up into the air.
Taken completely by surprise, I blazed away in a hurry, and
missed clean; but not five yards did he go, before Tom cut him
down.
“Aha! boy! whose eye's wiped now?”
“Mine, Tom, very fairly; but can that be the same cock I
knocked down, Archer?”
“Not a bit of it; I saw your's fall dead as a stone; he lies half a
yard farther in that tussoc.”
“How the deuce did you see him? Why you were shooting
your own at the same moment.”
“All knack, Frank; I marked both my own and yours, and one
of Tom's beside. Are you ready? Hold up, Shot! There! he
has got your dead bird! Was not I right? And look to! for, by
Jove! he is standing on another, with the dead bird in his mouth!
That's pretty, is it not?”
Again two rose, and both were killed; one by Tom, and one by
Archer; my gun hanging fire.
“That's nine birds down before we have bagged one,” said
Archer; “I hope no more will rise, or we'll be losing these.”
But this time his hopes were not destined to meet accomplishment,
for seven more woodcock got up, five of which were scattered
in the grass around us, wing-broken or dead, before we had even
bagged the bird which Shot was gently mouthing.
“I never saw any thing like this in my life, Tom! Did you?”
cried Harry.
“I never did, by George!” responded Tom. “Now do you think
there's any three men to be found in York, such darned etarnal
fools as to be willing to shoot a match agin us?”
“To be sure I do, lots of them; and to beat us too, to boot, you
stupid old porpoise. Why, there's Harry T—, and Nick
L—, and a dozen more of them, that you and I would have no
more chance with, than a gallon of brandy would have of escaping
from you at a single sitting. But we have shot pretty well to-day.
Now do, for heaven's sake, let us try to bag them!”
And scattered though they were in all directions, among the
most infernal tangled grass I ever stood on, those excellent dogs
retrieved them one by one, till every bird was pocketed. We
then beat on and swept the rest of the meadow, and the outer verge
of the alders, picking up three more birds, making a total of seventeen
brought to bag in less than half an hour. We then proceeded
to the wagon, took a good pull of water from a beautiful clear
spring by the road-side, properly qualified with whiskey, and rattled
on about one mile farther to the second bridge. Here we again
got out.
“Now, Tim,” said Harry, “mark me well! Drive gently to the
old barrack yonder under the west end of that woodside, unhitch
the horses and tie them in the shade; you can give them a bite of
meadow hay at the same time; and then get luncheon ready. We
shall be with you by two o'clock at farthest.”
“Ay! ay! sur!”
And off he drove at a steady pace, while we, striking into the
meadow, to the left hand of the road, went along getting sport such
as I never beheld, or even dreamed of before. For about five hundred
yards in width from the stream, the ground was soft and miry
to the depth of some four inches, with long sword grass quite knee-deep,
and at every fifty yards a bunch of willows or swamp alders.
In every clump of bushes we found from three to five birds, and as
the shooting was for the most part very open, we rendered on the
whole a good account of them. The dogs throughout behaved
superbly, and Tom was altogether frantic with the excitement of
the sport. The time seemed short indeed, and I could not for a
moment have imagined that it was even noon, when we reached
the barrack.
This was a hut of rude unplaned boards, which had been put up
formerly with the intent of furnishing a permanent abode for some
laboring men, but which, having been long deserted, was now used
only as a temporary shelter by charcoal burners, hay-makers, or like
and fallen considerably into decay, perfectly beautiful from its romantic
site; for it stood just at the end of a long tangled covert,
with a huge pin oak tree, leaning abruptly out from an almost precipitous
bank of yellow sand, completely canopying it; while from
a crevice in the sand-stone there welled out a little source of crystal
water, which expanded into as sweet a basin as ever served a Dryad
for her bath in Arcady, of old.
Before it stretched the wide sweep of meadow land, with the
broad blue Wallkill gliding through it, fringed by a skirt of coppice,
and the high mountains, veiled with a soft autumnal mist,
sleeping beyond, robed in their many-colored garb of crimson, gold,
and green. Beside the spring the indefatigable Tim had kindled
a bright glancing fire, while in the basin were cooling two long-necked
bottles of the Baron's best; a clean white cloth was spread
in the shade before the barrack door, with plates and cups, and
bread cut duly, and a travelling case of cruets, with all the other
appurtenances needful.
On our appearance he commenced rooting in a heap of embers,
and soon produced six nondescript looking articles enclosed—as
they dress maintenon cutlets or red mullet—in double sheets of
greasy letter paper—these he incontinently dished, and to my huge
astonishment they turned out to be three couple of our woodcock,
which that indefatigable varlet had picked, and baked under the
ashes, according to some strange idea, whether original, or borrowed
at second hand from his master, I never was enabled to ascertain.
The man, be he whom he may, who invented that plat, is second
neither to Caramel nor to Ude—the exquisite juicy tenderness of
the meat, the preservation of the gravy, the richness of the trail—
by heaven! they were inimitable.
In that sweet spot we loitered a full hour—then counted our bag,
which amounted already to fifty-nine cock, not including those with
which Tim's gastronomic art had spread for us a table in the wilderness—then
leaving him to pack up and meet us at the spot
where we first started, we struck down the stream homeward,
shooting our way along a strip of coppice about ten yards in breadth,
bounded on one side by the dry bare bank of the river, and on the
other by the open meadows. We of course kept the verges of this
covert, our dogs working down the middle, and so well did we
manage it, that when we reached the wagon, just as the sun was
setting, we numbered a hundred and twenty-five birds bagged, besides
two which were so cut by the shot as to be useless, six which
we had devoured, and four or five which we lost in spite of the excellence
of our retrievers. When we got home again, although
the Dutchman was on the spot, promising us a quarter race upon the
morrow, and pressing earnestly for a rubber to-night, we were too
much used up to think of any thing but a good supper and an early
bed.
| DAY THE FOURTH. The Warwick woodlands, or, Things as they were there, ten years ago | |