 | DAY THE FIFTH. The Warwick woodlands, or, Things as they were there, ten years ago |  |
5. DAY THE FIFTH.
Our last day's shooting in the vale of Sugar-loaf was over; and,
something contrary to Harry's first intention, we had decided, instead
of striking westward into Sullivan or Ulster, to drive five
miles upon our homeward route, and beat the Long-pond mountain
—not now for such small game as woodcock, quail, or partridge;
but for a herd of deer, which, although now but rarely found along
the western hills, was said to have been seen already several times,
to the number of six or seven head, in a small cove, or hollow basin,
close to the summit of the Bellevale ridge.
As it was not of course our plan to return again to Tom Draw's,
every thing was now carefully and neatly packed away; the game,
of which we had indeed a goodly stock, was produced from Tom's
ice-house, where, suspended from the rafters, it had been kept
as sound and fresh as though it had been all killed only on the
preceding day.
A long deep box, fitting beneath the gun-case under the front
seat, was now produced, and proved to be another of Harry's notable
inventions; for it was lined throughout, lid, bottom, sides and
all, with zine, and in the centre had a well or small compartment of
the same material, with a raised grating in the bottom. This well
was forthwith lined with a square yard, or rather more, of flannel,
into which was heaped a quantity of ice pounded as fine as possible,
sufficient to cram it absolutely to the top; the rest of the box was
then filled with the birds, displayed in regular rows, with heads
and tails alternating, and a thin coat of clean dry wheaten straw
between each layer, until but a few inches' depth remained between
the noble pile and the lid of this extempore refrigerator; this space
being filled in with flannel packed close and folded tightly, the box
was locked and thrust into the accurately fitting boot by dint of the
exertion of Timothy's whole strength.
“There, Frank,” cried Harry, who had superintended the storage
of the whole with nice scrutiny, “those chaps will keep there as
sound as roaches, till we get to young Tom's at Ramapo; you cannot
think what work I had, trying in vain to save them, before I hit
upon this method; I tried hops, which I have known in England to
keep birds in an extraordinary manner—for, what you'll scarce believe,
I once ate at Ptarmigan, the day year after it was killed,
which had been packed with hops, in perfect preservation, at
Farnley, Mr. Fawke's place in Yorkshire!—and I tried prepared
charcoal, and got my woodcock, down to New York, looking like
chimney sweeps, and smelling—”
“What the h—ll difference does it make to you now, Archer,
I'd be pleased to know?” interposed Tom; “what under heaven
they smells like—a man that eats cock with their guts in, like
stink!”
“Shut up, you old villain,” answered Harry, laughing, “bring
the milk punch, and get your great coat on, if you mean to go
with us; for it's quite keen this morning, I can tell you; and we
must be stirring too, for the sun will be up before we get to
Teachman's. Now, Jem, get out the hounds; how do you take
them, Tom?”
“Why, that d—d Injun, Jem, he 'll take them in my lumber
wagon—and, I say, Jem, see that you don't over-drive old roan—
away with you, and rouse up Garry, he means to go, I guess?”
After a mighty round of punch, in which, as we were now departing,
one half at least of the village joined, we all got under
way; Tom, buttoned up to the throat in a huge white lion skin
wrap-rascal, looking for all the world like a polar bear erect on its
hind legs; and all of us muffled up pretty snugly, a proceeding
which was rendered necessary by a brisk bracing northwest
breeze.
The sky, though it was scarcely the first twilight of an autumnal
dawn, was beautifully clear, and as transparent—though still somewhat
dusky—as a wide sheet of crystal; a few pale stars were
twinkling here and there; but in the east a broad gray streak
changing on the horizon's edge to a faint straw color, announced
the sun's approach.
The whole face of the country, hill, vale, and woodland, was
overspread by an universal coat of silvery hoar-frost; thin wreaths
of snowy mist rising above the tops of the sere woodlands, throughout
the whole length of the lovely vale, indicated as clearly as
though it were traced on a map, the direction of the stream that
watered it; and as we paused upon the brow of the first hillock,
and looked back toward the village, with its white steeples and
neat cottage dwellings buried in the still repose of that early hour,
with only one or two faint columns of blue smoke worming their
way up lazily into the cloudless atmosphere, a feeling of regret—
such as has often crossed my mind before, when leaving any place
wherein I have spent a few days happily, and which I never may
see more—rendered me somewhat indisposed to talk.
Something or other—it might with Harry, perhaps, have been a
similar train of thought—caused both my comrades to be more taciturn
by far than was their wont; and we had rattled over five miles
of our route, and scaled the first ridge of the hills, and dived into
the wide ravine; midway the depth of this the pretty village of
Bellevale lies on the brink of the dammed rivulet, which, a few
yards below the neat stone bridge, takes a precipitous leap of fifty
feet, over a rustic wier, and rushes onward, bounding from ledge
to ledge of rifted rocks, chafing and fretting as if it were doing a
match against time, and were in danger of losing its race.
Thus we had passed the heavy lumber wagon, with Jem and
Garry perched on a board laid across it, and the four couple of
stanch hounds nestling in the straw which Tom had provided in
sounds except the rattle of the wheels, the occasional interjectional
whistle of Harry to his horses, or the flip of the well handled
whip.
Just, however, as we were shooting ahead of the lumber wain,
an exclamation from Tom Draw, which should have been a sentence,
had it not been very abruptly terminated in a long rattling
eructation, arrested Archer's progress.
Pulling short up where a jog across the road, constructed—after
the damnable mode adopted in all the hilly portions of the interior—
in order to prevent the heavy rains from channelling the descent,
afforded him a chance of stopping on the hill, so as to slack his
traces. “How now,” he exclaimed; “what the deuce ails you
now, you old rhinoceros?”
“Oh, Archer, I feels bad; worst sort, by Judas! It's that milk
punch, I reckon; it keeps a raising—raising, all the time, like—”
“And you want to lay it, I suppose, like a ghost, in a sea of
whiskey; well, I've no especial objection! Here, Tim, hand the
case bottle, and the dram cup! No! no! confound you, pass it this
way first, for if Tom once gets hold of it, we may say good-bye to
it altogether. There,” he continued, after we had both taken a moderate
sip at the superb old Ferintosh, “there, now, take your
chance at it, and for Heaven's sake do leave a drop for Jem and
Garry; by George now, you shall not drink it all!” as Tom poured
down the third cup full, each being as big as an ordinary beer-glass.
“There was above a pint and a half in it when you began,
and now there's barely one cup-full between the two of them.
An't you ashamed of yourself now, you greedy old devil?”
“It doos go right, I swon!” was the only reply that could be got
out of him.
“That's more a plaguy sight than the bullets will do, out
of your old tower musket; you're so drunk now, I fancy, that you
couldn't hold it straight enough to hit a deer at three rods, let
alone thirty, which you are so fond of chattering about.”
“Do tell now,” replied Tom, “did you, or any other feller, ever
see me shoot the worser for a mite of liquor, and as for deer,
that's all a no sich thing: there arnt no deer a this side of Duck-seedar's.
It's all a lie of Teachman's and that Deckering son of a
gun.”
“Holloa! hold up, Tom—recollect yesterday!—I thought there
had been no cock down by the first bridge there, these six years;
why you're getting quite stupid, and a croaker too, in your old
age.”
“Mayhap I be,” he answered rather gruffly; “mayhap I be,
but you won't git no deer to-day, I'll stand drinks for the company;
and if we doos start one' I'll lay on my own musket agin
your rifle.”
Well! we'll soon see, for here we are,” Harry replied, as after
leaving the high-road just at the summit of the Bellevale mountain,
he rattled down a very broken rutty bye-road at the rate of at least
whose fleshy sides were jolted almost out of their skin by the concussion
of the wheels against the many stones and jogs which opposed
their progress.
“Here we are, or at least soon will be. It is but a short half
mile through these woods to Teachman's cottage. Is there a gun
loaded, Tim? It's ten to one we shall have a partridge fluttering
up and treeing here directly; I'll let the dogs out—get away Flash!
get away Dan! you little rascals. Jump out, good dogs, Shot,
Chase—hie up with you!” and out they went rattling and scrambling
through the brush-wood all four abreast!
At the same moment Tim, leaning over into the body of the
wagon, lugged out a brace of guns from their leathern cases; Harry's
short ounce ball rifle, and the long single barrelled duck gun.
“'T roifle is loaden wi a single ball, and 't single goon wi' yan of
them green cartridges!”
“Much good ball and buck-shot will do us against partridge;
nevertheless, if one trees, I'll try if I can't cut his head off for him,”
said Archer, laughing.
“Nay! nay! it be-ant book-shot; it's no but noomber three; tak'
haud on 't, Measter Draa, tak' haud on 't. It's no hoort thee,
mon, and 't horses boath stand foire cannily!”
Scarce had Fat Tom obeyed his imperative solicitations, and
scarce had Tim taken hold of the ribbands which Harry relinquished
the moment he got the rifle into his hands, before a most
extraordinary hubbub arose in the little skirt of coppice to our left;
the spaniels quested for a second's space at the utmost, when a tremendons
crash of the branches arose, and both the setters gave
tongue furiously with a quick savage yell.
The road at this point of the wood made a short and very sudden
angle, so as to enclose a small point of extremely dense thicket between
its two branches; on one of these was our wagon, and down
the other the lumber-wain was rumbling, at the moment when this
strange and most unexpected outcry started us all.
“What in t' fient's neam is you?” cried Timothy.
“And what the devil's that?” responded I and Archer in a
breath.
But whatever it was that had aroused the dogs to such a most
unusual pitch of fury, it went crashing through the brush-wood for
some five or six strokes at a fearful rate toward the other wagon;
before, however, it had reached the road, a most appalling shout
from Jem, followed upon the instant by the blended voices of
all the hounds opening at once, as on a view, excited us yet
farther!
I was still tugging at my double gun, in the vain hope of getting
it out time enough for action. Tom had scrambled out of the
wagon on the first alarm, and stood eye, ear, and heart erect, by
the off side of the horses, which were very restless, pawing, and
plunging violently, and almost defying Timothy's best skill to hold
them; while Harry, having cast off his box-coat, stood firm and
and ready; when, headed back upon us by the yell of Lyn and the
loud clamor of his fresh foes, the first buck I had seen in America,
and the largest I had seen any where, dashed at a single plunge
into the road, clearing the green head of a fallen hemlock, apparently
without an effort, his splendid antlers laid back on his neck,
and his white flag lashing his fair round haunch as the fleet bitches
Bonny Belle and Blossom yelled with their shrill fierce trebles close
behind him.
Seeing that it was useless to persist in my endeavor to extricate
my gun, and satisfied that the matter was in good hands, I was
content to look on, an inactive but most eager witness.
Tom, who from his position at the head of the off horse, commanded
the first view of the splendld creature, pitched his gun to
his shoulder hastily and fired; the smoke drifted across my face,
but through its vapory folds I could distinguish the dim figure of
the noble hart still bounding unhurt onward; but, before the first
echo of the round ringing report of Tom's shot-gun reached my
ear, the sharp flat crack of Harry's rifle followed it, and at the self-same
instant the buck sprang six feet into the air, and pitched head
foremost on the ground; it was but for a moment, however, for
with the speed of light he struggled to his feet, and though sore
wounded, was yet toiling onward when the two English foxhounds
dashed at his throat and pulled him down again.
“Run in, Tom, run in! quick,” shouted Harry, “he's not clean
killed, and may gore the dogs sadly!”
“I've got no knife,” responded Tom, but dauntlessly he dashed in,
all the same, to the rescue of the bitches—which I believe he loved
almost as well as his own children—and though, encumbered by
his ponderous white top-coat, not to say by his two hundred and
fifty weight of solid flesh, seized the fierce animal by the brow-antlers,
and bore him to the ground, before Harry, who had leaped
out of the wagon, with his first words, could reach him.
The next moment the keen short hunting knife, without which
Archer never takes the field, had severed at a single stroke the
weasand of the gallant brute; the black blood streamed out on the
smoking hoar-frost, the full eyes glazed, and, after one sharp fluttering
struggle, the life departed from those graceful limbs, which
had been but a few short instants previous so full of glorious energy
—of fiery vigor.
“Well, that's the strangest thing I ever heard of, let alone seeing,”
exclaimed Archer, “fancy a buck like that lying in such a
mere fringe of coppice, and so near to the road-side, too! and why
the deuce did he lay here till we almost passed him!”
“I know how it's been, any heaw,” said Jem, who had by this
time come up, and was looking on with much exultation flashing in
his keen small eye. “Bill Speer up on the hill there telled me jist
now, that they druv a big deer down from the back-bone clear down
to this here hollow just above, last night arter dark. Bill shot at
him, and kind o' reckoned he hot him—but I guess he 's mistaken
was 't 'at killed him?”
“I did,” exclaimed Tom, “I did by —!”
“Why you most impudent of all old liars,” replied Harry—while
at the same time, with a most prodigious chuckle, Tim Matlock
pointed to the white bark of a birch sapling, about the thickness of
a man's thigh, standing at somewhat less than fifteen paces' distance,
wherein the large shot contained by the wire cartridge—the best
sporting invention by the way, that has been made since percussion
caps—had bedded themselves in a black circle, cut an inch at least
into the solid wood, and about two inches in diameter!
“I ken gay and fairly,” exclaimed Tim, “'at Ay rammed an
Eley's patent cartridge into 't single goon this morning; and yonder
is 't i' t' birk tree, an Ay ken a load o' shot frae an unce
bullet!”
The laugh was general now against fat Tom; especially as the
small wound made by the heavy ball of Harry's rifle was plainly
visible, about a hand's breadth behind the heart, on the side toward
which he had aimed; while the lead had passed directly through,
in an oblique direction forward, breaking the left shoulder blade,
and lodging just beneath the skin, whence a touch of the knife dislodged
it.
“What now—what now, boys?” cried the old sinner, no whit
disconcerted by the general mirth against him. “I say, by gin! I
killed him, and I say so yet. Which on ye all—which on ye all
daared to go in on him, without a knife nor nothen. I killed him,
I say, anyhow, and so let's drink!”
“Well, I believe we must wet him,” Harry answered, “so get
out another flask of whiskey, Tim; and you Jem and Garry lend
me a hand to lift this fine chap into the wagon. By Jove! but this
will make the Teachmans open their eyes; and now look sharp!
You sent the Teachmans word that we were coming, Tom?”
“Sartin! and they've got breakfast ready long enough before
this, anyways.”
With no more of delay, but with lots more of merriment and
shouting, on we drove; and in five minutes' space, just as the sun
was rising, reached the small rude enclosure around two or three
log huts, lying just on the verge of the beautiful clear lake. Two
long sharp boats, and a canoe scooped out of a whole tree, were
drawn up on the sandy beach; a fishing net of many yards in length
was drying on the rails; a brace of large, strong, black and tan
foxhounds were lying on the step before the door; a dozen mongrel
geese, with one wing-tipped wild one among them, were sauntering
and gabbling about the narrow yard; and a glorious white-headed
fishing eagle, with a clipped wing, but otherwise at large,
was perched upon the roof hard by the chimney.
At the rattle of our arrival, out came from the larger of the cottages,
three tall rough-looking countrymen to greet us, not one of
whom stood less than six foot in his stockings, while two were
several inches taller.
Great was their wonder, and loud were their congratulations
when they beheld the unexpected prize which we had gained, while
on our route; but little space was given at that time to either; for
the coffee, which, by the way, was poor enough, and the hot cakes
and fried perch, which were capital, and the grilled salt pork, swimming
in fat, and the large mealy potatoes bursting through their
brown skins, were ready smoking upon a rough wooden board,
covered, however, by a clean white table cloth, beside a sparkling
fire of wood, which our drive through the brisk mountain air had
rendered by no means unacceptable.
We breakfasted like hungry men and hunters, both rapidly and
well; and before half an hour elapsed, Archer, with Jem and one
of our bold hosts, started away, well provided with powder, ball,
and whiskey, and accompanied by all the hounds, to make a circuit
of the western hill, on the summit of which they expected to
be joined by two or three more of the neighbors, whence they proposed
to drive the whole sweep of the forest-clad descent down to
the water's edge.
Tim was enjoined to see to the provisions, and to provide as good
a dinner as his best gastronomic skill and the contents of our portable
larder might afford, and I was put under the charge of Tom,
who seemed, for about an hour, disposed to do nothing but to lie
dozing, with a cigar in his mouth, stretched upon the broad of his
back, on a bank facing the early sunshine just without the door;
while our hosts were collecting bait, preparing fishing tackle, and
cleaning or repairing their huge clumsy muskets. At length, when
the drivers had been gone already for considerably more than an
hour, he got up and shook himself.
“Now, then, boys,” he exclaimed, “we'll be a movin. You Joe
Teachman, what are you lazin there about, d—n you? You go
with Mr. Forester and Garry in the big boat, and pull as fast as you
can put your oars to water, till you git opposite the white-stone
pint—and there lie still as fishes! You may fish, though, if you
will, Forester,” he added, turning to me, “and I do reckon the big
yellow pearch will bite the darndest, this cold morning, arter the
sun gits fairly up—but soon as ever you hear the hounds holler, or
one of them chaps shoot, then look you out right stret away for business!
Cale, here, and I'll take the small boat, and keep in sight
of you; and so we can kiver all this eend of the pond like, if the
deer tries to cross hereaways. How long is 't, Cale, since we had
six on them all at once in the water—six—seven—eight! well, I
swon, it's ten years agone now! But come, we mus'nt stand here
talkin, else we'll get a dammin when they drives down a buck into
the pond, and none of us in there to tackle with him!”
So without more ado, we got into our boats, disposed our guns,
with the stocks toward us in the bows, laid in our stock of tinder,
pipes, and liquor, and rowed off merrily to our appointed stations.
Never, in the whole course of my life, has it been my fortune to
look upon more lovely scenery than I beheld that morning. The
long narrow winding lake, lying as pure as crystal beneath the
mirror, the abrupt and broken hills, which sank down so precipitously
into it—clad as they were in foliage of every gorgeous dye,
with which the autumn of America loves to enhance the beauty of
her forest pictures—that, could they find their way into its mountain-girdled
basin, ships of large burthen might lie afloat within a
stone's throw of the shore—the slopes of the wood-covered knolls,
here brown, or golden, and interspersed with the rich crimson of
the faded maples, there verdant with the evergreen leaves of the
pine and cedar—and the far azure summits of the most distant
peaks, all steeped in the serene and glowing sunshine of an October
morning.
For hours we lay there, our little vessel floating as the occasional
breath of a sudden breeze, curling the lake into sparkling
wavelets, chose to direct our course, smoking our cigars, and chatting
cozily, and now and then pulling up a great broad-backed yellow
bass, whose flapping would for a time disturb the peaceful
silence, which reigned over wood, and dale, and water, quite unbroken
save by the chance clamor of a passing crow—yet not a
sound betokening the approach of our drivers had reached our
ears.
Suddenly, when the sun had long passed his meridian height,
and was declining rapidly toward the horizon, the full round shot
of a musket rang from the mountain top, followed immediately by
a sharp yell, and in an instant the whole basin of the lake was filled
with the harmonious discord of the hounds.
I could distinguish on the moment the clear sharp challenge of
Harry's high-bred foxhounds, the deep bass voices of the Southern
dogs, and the untamable and cur-like yelping of the dogs which the
Teachmans had taken with them.
Ten minutes passed full of anxiety, almost of fear.
We knew not as yet whither to turn our boats' head, for every
second the course of the hounds seemed to vary, at one instant they
would appear to be rushing directly down to us, and the next instant
they would turn as though they were going up the hill again.
Meantime our beaters were not idle—their stirring shouts, serving
alike to animate the hounds and to force the deer to water, made
rock and wood reply in cheery echoes; but, to my wonder, I caught
not for a long time one note of Harry's gladsome voice.
At length, as I strained my eyes against the broad hill-side, gilt
by the rays of the declining sun, I caught a glimpse of his form
running at a tremendous pace, bounding over stock and stone, and
plunging through dense thickets, on a portion of the declivity where
the tall trees had a few years before been destroyed by accidental
fire.
At this moment the hounds were running, to judge from their
tongues, parallel to the lake and to the line which he was running
—the next minute, with a redoubled clamor, they turned directly
down to him. I lost sight of him. But half a minute afterward,
the sharp crack of his rifle again rang upon the air, followed by a
stag had fallen.
The beaters on the hill shouted again louder and louder than before—and
the hounds still raved on. By heaven! but there must
be a herd of them a-foot! And now the pack divides! The English
hounds are bringing their game down—here—by the Lord!
just here—right in our very faces! The Southrons have borne
away over the shoulder of the hill, still running hot and hard in
Jolly Tom's direction.
“By heaven!” I cried, “look, Teachman! Garry, look! There!
See you not that noble buck?—he leaped that sumach bush like a
race-horse! and see! see! now he will take the water. Bad luck
on it! he sees us, and heads back!”
Again the fleet hounds rally in his rear, and chide till earth and
air are vocal and harmonious. Hark! hark! how Archer's cheers
ring on the wind! Now he turns once again—he nears the edge
—how glorious! with what a beautiful bold bound he leaped from
that high bluff into the flashing wave! with what a majesty he
tossed his antlered head above the spray! with how magnificent
and brave a stroke he breasts the curling billows!
“Give way! my men, give way!”
How the frail bark creaks and groans as we ply the long oars in
the rullocks—how the ash bends in our sturdy grasp—how the boat
springs beneath their impulse.
“Together, boys! together! now—now we gain—now, Garry,
lay your oar aside—up with your musket—now you are near
enough—give it to him, in heaven's name! a good shot, too! the
bullet ricochetted from the lake scarcely six inches from his nose!
Give way again—it's my shot now!”
And lifting my Joe Manton, each barrel loaded with a bullet
carefully wadded with greased buckskin, I took a careful aim and
fired.
“That's it,” cried Garry; “well done, Forester—right through
the head, by George!”
And, as he spoke, I fancied for a moment he was right. The
noble buck plunged half his height out of the bright blue water,
shaking his head as if in the death agony, but the next instant he
stretched out again with vigor unimpaired, and I could see that my
ball had only knocked a tine off his left antler.
My second barrel still remained, and without lowering the gun,
I drew my second trigger. Again a fierce plunge told that the
ball had not erred widely; and this time, when he again sank into
his wonted posture, the deep crimson dye that tinged the foam
which curled about his graceful neck, as he still struggled, feebly
fleet, before his unrelenting foes, gave token of a deadly wound.
Six more strokes of the bending oars—we shot alongside—a
noose of rope was cast across his branching tines, the keen knife
flashed across his throat, and all was over! We towed him to the
shore, where Harry and his comrades were awaiting us with another
victim to his unerring aim. We took both bucks and all
Two deer, a buck of the first head, and a doe, had taken water
close beside him—he had missed his first shot, and in toiling over-hard
to recover lost ground, had broken his oar, and been compelled
inactively to witness their escape.
Three fat bucks made the total of the day's sport—not one of
which had fallen to Tom's boasted musket.
It needed all that Tim's best dinner, with lots of champagne and
Ferintosh, could do to restore the fat chap's equanimity; but he at
last consoled himself, as we threw ourselves on the lowly beds of
the log hut, by swearing that by the etarnal devil he 'd beat us both
at partridges to-morrow.
| DAY THE FIFTH. The Warwick woodlands, or, Things as they were there, ten years ago | |