 | The Warwick woodlands, or, Things as they were there, ten years ago |  |
2. ON A SECOND VISIT.
1. THE WAYSIDE INN.
On a still clear October evening Frank Forester and Harry
Archer were sitting at the open window of a neat country tavern,
in a sequestered nook of Rockland County, looking out upon as
beautiful a view as ever gladdened the eyes of wandering amateur
or artist.
The house was a large old-fashioned stone mansion, certainly not
of later date than the commencement of the revolution; and probably
had been, in its better days, the manor-house of some considerable
proprietor—the windows were of a form very unusual in the
States, opening like doors, with heavy wooden mullions and small
lattices, while the walls were so thick as to form a deep embrasure,
provided with a cushioned window-seat; the parlor, in which
the friends had taken up their temporary domicile, contained two
of these pleasant lounges, the larger looking out due south upon
the little garden, with the road before it, and, beyond the road, a
prospect, of which more anon—the other commanding a space of
smooth green turf in front of the stables, whereon our old acquaintance,
Timothy, was leading to and fro a pair of smoking
horses. The dark-green drag, with all its winter furniture of gaily
decorated bear-skins, stood half-seen beneath the low-arched wagonshed.
The walls of the room—the best room of the tavern—were pannelled
with the dark glossy wood of the black cherry, and a huge
mantel-piece of the same material, took up at least one half of the
side opposite the larger window, while on the hearth below reposed
a glowing bed of red-hot hickory ashes a foot at least in depth, a
huge log of that glorious fuel blazing upon the massive andirons.
Two large deep gun-cases, a leathern magazine of shot, and sundry
canisters of diamond gunpowder, Brough's, were displayed on a
long table under the end window—a four-horse whip, and two fly-rods
in India-rubber cases, stood in the chimney-corner; while
on the rug, three exquisitely formed Blenheim spaniels of the large
breed—short-legged and bony, with ears that almost swept the
ground as they stood upright, and coats as soft and lustrous as
floss silk.
On a round table, which should have occupied the centre of the
parlor, now pulled up to the window-seat, whereon reclined the
worthies, stood a large pitcher of iced water; a square case-bottle
of cut crystal filled, as the flavor which pervaded the whole
room sufficiently demonstrated, with superb old Antigua Shrub;
several large rummers corresponding to the fashion of the bottle;
a twisted taper of green wax, and a small silver plate with six or
eight cheroots, real manillas.
Supper was evidently over, and the friends, amply feasted, were
now luxuriating in the delicious indolence, half-dozing, half-day-dreaming,
of a calm sleepy smoke, modestly lubricated by an occasional
sip of the cool beverage before them. If we except a pile of
box-coats, capes, and macintoshes of every cut and color—a travelling
liquor-case which, standing open, displayed the tops of three
more bottles similar to that on the table, and spaces lined with velvet
for all the glass in use—and another little leathern box, which,
like the liquor-case, showed its contents of several silver plates,
knives, forks, spoons, flasks of sauce, and condiments of different
kinds—the whole interior, as a painter would have called it, has
been depicted with all accuracy.
Without, the view on which the windows opened was indeed
most lovely. The day had been very bright and calm; there was
not a single cloud in the pale transparent heaven, and the sun,
which had shone cheerfully all day from his first rising in the east,
till now when he was hanging like a ball of bloody fire in the thin
filmy haze which curtained the horizon, was still shooting his long
rays, and casting many a shadow over the slopes and hollows which
diversified the scene.
Immediately across the road lay a rich velvet meadow, luxuriant
still and green—for the preceding month had been rather wet, and
frost had not set in to nip its verdure—sloping down southerly to a
broad shallow trout-stream, which rippled all glittering and bright
over a pebbly bed, although the margin on the hither side was
somewhat swampy, with tufts of willows and bushes of dark alder
fringing it here and there, and dipping their branches in its waters
—the farther bank was skirted by a tall grove of maple, hickory,
and oak, with a thick undergrowth of sumach arrayed in all the
gorgeous garniture of autumn, purples and brilliant scarlets and
chrome yellows, mixed up and harmonized with the dark copper
foliage of a few sere beeches, and the gray trunks apparent here
and there through the thin screen of the fast-falling leaves.
Beyond this grove, the bank rose bold and rich in swelling curves,
with a fine corn-field, topped already to admit every sunbeam to
the ripening ears. A buckwheat stubble, conspicuous by its deep
ruddy hue, and two or three brown pastures divided by high fences,
and sumachs, with here and there a goodly tree waving above
them, made up the centre of the picture. Beyond this cultured
knoll there seemed to be a deep pitch of the land clothed with a
hanging wood of heavy timber; and, above this again, the soil
surged upward into a huge and round-topped hill, with several
golden stubbles, shining out from the frame-work of primeval forest,
which, dark with many a mighty pine, covered the mountain to the
top, except where at its western edge it showed a huge and rifted
precipice of rock.
To the right, looking down the stream, the hills closed in quite
to the water's brink on the far side, rough and uncultivated, with
many a blue and misty peak discovered through the gaps in their
bold broken outline, and a broad lake-like sheet, as calm and brightly
pictured as a mirror, reflecting their inverted beauties so wondrously
distinct and vivid, that the amazed eye might not recognize the
parting between reality and shadow. An old gray mill deeply embosomed
in a clump of weeping willows, still verdant, though the
woods were sere and waxing leafless, explained the nature of that
tranquil pool, while, beyond that, the hills swept down from the rear
of the building, which contained the parlor whence the two sportsmen
gazed, and seemed entirely to bar the valley, so suddenly, and
in so short a curve, did it wind round their western shoulder. To
the left hand, the view was closed by a thick belt of second growth,
through which the sandy road and glittering stream wandered
away together on their mazy path, and over which the summits of
yet loftier and more rugged steeps towered heavenward.
Over this valley they had for some time gazed in silence, till
now the broad sun sank behind the mountains, and the shrill whistle
of the quail, which had been momently audible during the whole
afternoon, ceased suddenly; four or five night-hawks might be
seen wheeling high in pursuit of their insect prey through the thin
atmosphere, and the sharp chirrup of a solitary katydid, the last of
its summer tribe, was the only sound that interrupted the faint rush
of the rapid stream, which came more clearly on the ear now that
the louder noises of busy babbling daylight had yielded to the stillness
of approaching night. Before long a bright gleam shot through
the tufted outline of a dark wooded hill, and shortly after, just when
a gray and misty shadow had settled down upon the half-seen land-scape,
the broad full moon came soaring up above the tree-tops,
pouring her soft and silver radiance over the lovely valley, and investing
its rare beauties with something of romance—a sentiment
which belongs not to the gay gaudy sunshine.
Just at this moment, while neither of the friends felt much inclined
to talk, the door opened suddenly, and Timothy's black
head was thrust in, with a query if “they did n't need t' waax
candles?”
“Not yet, Tim,” answered Archer, “not yet for an hour or so—
but hold a minute—how have the horses fed?”
“T' ould gray drayed off directly, and he's gane tull t' loike
for iver—and sae Ay'se give him a hot maash enow!”
That's right. I saw he wasn't quite up to the mark the last
ten miles or so. If he don't dry off now, give him a cordial ball
out of the tool-chest—one of the number 3—camphire and cardamums
and ginger; a clove of garlic, and treacle quantum suff:
hey, Frank, that will set him to rights, I warrant it. Now have
you dined yourself, or supped, as the good people here insist on
calling it?”
“Weel Ay wot, have I, Sur,” responded Timothy; “an hour
agone and better.”
“Exactly; then step out yourself into the kitchen, and make us
a good cup of our own coffee, strong and hot, do you see? and
when that's done, bring it in with the candles; and, hark you, run
up to the bed-room and bring my netting needles down, and the
ball of silk twist, and the front of that new game-bag, I began the
other night. If you were not as lazy as possible, friend Frank,
you would bring your fly-book out, when the light comes, and tie
some hackles.”
“Perhaps I may, when the light comes,” Forester answered;
“but I'm in no hurry for it; I like of all things to look out, and
watch the changes of the night over a landscape even less beautiful
than this. One half the pleasure of field sports to me, is other
than the mere excitement. If there were nothing but the eagerness
of the pursuit, and the gratification of successful vanity, fond as I
am of shooting, I should, I believe, have long since wearied of it;
but there are so many other things connected intimately with it—
the wandering among the loveliest scenery—the full enjoyment
of the sweetest weather—the learning the innumerable and all-wondrous
attributes and instincts of animated nature—all these are
what make up to me the rapture I derive from woodcraft! Why,
such a scene as this—a scene which how few, save the vagrant
sportsman, or the countryman who but rarely appreciates the picturesque,
have ever witnessed—is enough, with the pure and tranquil
thoughts it calls up in the heart, to plead a trumpet-tongued
apology, for all the vanity, and uselessness, and cruelty, and what
not, so constantly alleged against our field sports.”
“Oh! yes,” cried Harry; “yes, indeed, Frank, I perfectly
agree with you. But all that last is mere humbug—humbug, too, of
the lowest and most foolish order—I never hear a man droning
about the cruelty of field sports, but I set him down, on the spot,
either as a hypocrite or a fool, and probably a glorious union of
the two. When man can exist without killing myriads of animals
with every breath of vital air he draws, with every draught of
water he imbibes, with every footstep he prints upon the turf or
gravel of his garden—when he abstains from every sort of animal
food—and, above all, when he abstains from his great pursuit of
torturing his fellow men—then let him prate, if he will, of sportsmen's
cruelty.
“For show me one trade, one profession, wherein one man's success
triumph and rapture to the winner, disgrace and anguish to the
loser! And then these fellows, fattened on widows' tears and orphans'
misery, preach you pure homilies about the cruelty of taking
life. But you are quite right about the combination of pleasures—
the excitement, too, of quick motion through the fresh air—the
sense of liberty amid wide plains, or tangled woods, or on the wild
hill tops—this, surely, to the reflective sportsman—and who can
be a true sportsman, and not reflective—is the great charm of his
pursuit.”
“And do you not think that this pleasure exists in a higher degree
here in America, than in our own England?”
“As how, Frank?—I don't take.”
“Why, in the greater, I will not say beauty—for I don't think
there is greater natural beauty in the general landscape of the
States—but novelty and wildness of the scenery! Even the
richest and most cultivated tracts of America, that I have seen,
except the Western part of New York, which is unquestionably
the ugliest, and dullest, and most unpoetical region on earth, have
a young untamed freshness about them, which you do not find in
England.
“In the middle of the high-tilled and fertile cornfield you come upon
some sudden hollow, tangled with brake and bush which hedge in
some small pool where float the brilliant cups and smooth leaves of
the water lily, and whence on your approach up-springs the blue-winged
teal, or gorgeous wood-duck. Then the long sweeping
woodlands, embracing in themselves every variety of ground, deep
marshy swamp, and fertile level thick-set with giant timber, and
sandy barrens with their scrubby undergrowth, and difficult rocky
steeps; and above all, the seeming and comparative solitude—the
dinner carried along with you and eaten under the shady tree, beside
the bubbling basin of some spring—all this is vastly more exciting,
than walking through trim stubbles and rich turnip fields,
and lunching on bread and cheese and home-brewed, in a snug farm-house.
In short, field sports here have a richer range, are much
more various, wilder—”
“Hold there, Frank; hold hard there, I cannot concede the
wilder, not the really wilder—seemingly they are wilder; for, as
you say, the scenery is wilder—and all the game, with the exception
of the English snipe, being wood-haunters, you are led into
rougher districts. But oh! no, no!—the field sports are not really
wilder—in the Atlantic States at least—nor half so wild as those
of England!”
“I should like to hear you prove that, Archer,” answered Frank,
“for I am constantly beset with the superiority of American field
sports to tame English preserve shooting!”
“Pooh! pooh! that is only by people who know nothing about
either; by people, who fancy that a preserve means a park full of
tame birds, instead of a range, perhaps, of many thousand acres, of
the very wildest, barest moorland, stocked with the wariest and
say, is this, that every English game-bird—to use an American
phrase—is warier and wilder than its compeer in the United States.
Who, for instance, ever saw in England, Ireland, or Scotland,
eighteen or twenty snipe or woodcock, lying within a space of
twelve yards square, two or three dogs pointing in the midst of
them, and the birds rising one by one, the gunshots rattling over
them, till ten or twelve are on the ground before there is time to
bag one.
“English partridge will, I grant, do this sometimes, on very warm
days in September; but let a man go out with his heavy gun and
steady dog late in December, or the month preceding it, let him
see thirty or more covies—as on good ground he may—let him see
every covey rise at a hundred yards, and fly a mile; let him be
proud and glad to bag his three or four brace; and then tell me
that there is any sport in these Atlantic States so wild as English
winter field-shooting.
“Of grouse shooting on the bare hills, which, by the way, are
wilder, more solitary far, and more aloof from the abodes of men,
than any thing between Boston and the Green Bay, I do not of
course speak; as it confessedly is the most wild and difficult kind of
shooting.
“Still less of deer stalking—for Scrope's book has been read
largely even here; and no man, how prejudiced soever, can compare
the standing at a deer-path all day long, waiting till a great
timid beast is driven up within ten yards of your muzzle, with that
extraordinary sport on bald and barren mountains, where nothing
but vast and muscular exertion, the eye of the eagle, and the cunning
of the serpent, can bring you within range of the wild cattle
of the hills.
“Battue shooting, I grant, is tame work; but partridge shooting,
after the middle of October, is infinitely wilder, requiring more exertion
and more toil than quail shooting. Even the pheasant—the
tamest of our English game—is infinitely bolder on the wing than
the ruffed grouse, or New York partridge; while about snipe and
woodcock there exists no comparison—since by my own observation,
confirmed by the opinion of old sportsmen, I am convinced that
nine-tenths of the snipe and cock bagged in the States, are killed
between fifteen and twenty paces; while, I can safely say, I never
saw a full snipe rise in England within that average distance.
Quail even, the hardest bird to kill, the swiftest and the boldest on
the wing, are very rarely killed further than twenty-five to thirty,
whereas you may shoot from daylight to sunset in England, after
October, and not pick up a single partridge within the farthest, as
a minimum distance.”
“Well! that's all true, I grant,” said Forester “yet even you
allow that it is harder to kill game here than at home; and if I do
not err, I have heard you admit that the best shot in all England
could be beat easily by the crack shots on this side; how does all
this agree!”
“Why very easily, I think,” Harry replied, “though to the last
remark, I added in his first season here! Now that American field
sports are wilder in one sense, I grant readily; with the exception
of snipe-shooting here, and grouse-shooting in Scotland, the former
being tamer, in all senses, than any English—the latter wilder in
all senses than any American—field-sport.
“American sporting, however, is certainly wilder, in so much as
it is pursued on much wilder ground; in so much as we have a
greater variety of game—and in so much as we have many more
snap shots, and fewer fair dead points.
“Harder it is, I grant; for it is all, with scarcely an exception,
followed in very thick and heavy covert—covert to which the thickest
woods I ever saw in England are but as open ground. Moreover,
the woods are so very large that the gun must be close up
with the dog; and consequently the shots must, half of them, be
fired in attitudes most awkward, and in ground which would, I
think, at home, be generally styled impracticable; thirdly, all the
summer shooting here is made with the leaf on—with these
thick tangled matted swamps clad in the thickest foliage.
“Your dogs must beat within twenty yards at farthest, and when
they stand you are aware of the fact rather by ceasing to hear their
motion, than by seeing them at point; I am satisfied that of six
pointed shots in summer shooting, three at the least must be treated
as snap shots! Many birds must be shot at—and many are killed—
which are never seen at all, till they are bagged; and many men
here will kill three out of four summer woodcock, day in and day
out, where an English sportsman, however crack a shot he might
be, would give the thing up in despair in half an hour.
“Practice, however, soon brings this all to rights. The first
season I shot here—I was a very fair, indeed a good, young shot,
when I came out hither—not at all crack, but decidedly better than
the common run!—the first day I shot was on 4th of July, 1832, the
place Seer's swamp, the open end of it; the witness old Tom Draw
—and there I missed, in what we now call open covert, fourteen
birds running; and left the place in despair—I could not, though I
missed at home by shooting too quick—I could not, for the life of
me, shoot quick enough. Even you, Frank, shoot three times as
well as you did, when you began here; yet you began in autumn,
which is decidedly a great advantage, and came on by degrees, so
that the following summer you were not so much nonplussed,
though I remember the first day or two, you bitched it badly.”
“Well, I believe I must knock under, Harry,” Forester answered;
“and here comes Timothy with the coffee, and so we will
to bed, that taken, though I do want to argufy with you, on some of
your other notions about dogs, scent, and so forth. But do you
think the Commodore will join us here to-morrow?”
“No! I don't think so,” Harry said, “I know it! Did not he
arrive in New York last first of July, from a yachting tour at four
o'clock in the afternoon; receive my note saying that I was off to
Tom's that morning; and start by the Highlander at five that evening?
through, and find me just sitting down to breakfast, and change his
toggery, and out, and walk all day—like a trump as he is? And
did not we, by the same token, bag—besides twenty-five more
killed that we could not find—one hundred and fifteen cock between
ten o'clock and sunset; while you, you false deceiver, were kicking
up your heels in Buffalo? Is not all this a true bill, and have you
now the impudence to ask me whether I think the Commodore will
come? I only wish I was as sure of a day's sport to-morrow, as I
am of his being to the fore at luncheon time?”
“At luncheon time, hey? I did not know that you looked for
him so early! Will he be in time, then, for the afternoon's shooting?”
“Why, certainly he will,” returned Archer. “The wind has
been fair up the river all day long, though it has been but light;
and the Ianthe will run up before it like a race-horse. I should not
be much surprised if he were here to breakfast.”
“And that we may be up in time for him, if perchance he should,
let us to bed forthwith,” said Frank with a heavy yawn.
“I am content,” answered Harry, finishing his cup of coffee, and
flinging the stump of his cheroot into the fire. “Goodnight!
Timothy will call you in the morning.”
“Goodnight, old fellow.”
And the friends parted merrily, in prospect of a pleasant day's
sport on the morrow.
2. THE MORNING'S SPORT.
It was not yet broad daylight when Harry Archer, who had, as
was usual with him on his sporting tours, arisen with the lark, was
sitting in the little parlor I have before described, close to the chimney
corner, where a bright lively fire was already burning, and
spreading a warm cheerful glow through the apartment.
The large round table, drawn up close to the hearth, was covered
with a clean though coarse white cloth, and laid for breakfast, with
two cups and saucers, flanked by as many plates and egg-cups,
although as yet no further preparations for the morning meal, except
the presence of a huge home-made loaf and a large roll of rich
golden-hued butter, had been made by the neat-handed Phillis of the
country inn. Two candles were lighted, for though the day had
broken, the sun was not yet high enough to cast his rays into that
deep and rock-walled valley, and by their light Archer was busy
with the game-bag, the front of which he had finished netting on
the previous night.
Frank Forester had not as yet made his appearance; and still,
while the gigantic copper kettle bubbled and steamed away upon
the hearth, discoursing eloquent music, and servant after servant
bustled in, one with a cold quail-pie, another with a quart jug of
cream, and fresh eggs ready to be boiled by the fastidious epicures
in person, he steadily worked on, housewife and saddler's silk, and
wax and scissors ready to his hand; and when at last the door flew
open, and the delinquent comrade entered, he flung his finished job
upon the chair, and gathered up his implements, with,
“Now, Frank, let's lose no time, but get our breakfasts. Halloa!
Tim, bring the rockingham and the tea-chest; do you hear?”
“Well, Harry, so you've done the game-bag,” exclaimed the
other, as he lifted it up and eyed it somewhat superciliously—
“Well, it is a good one certainly; but you are the d—dest fellow I
ever met, to give yourself unnecessary trouble. Here you have
been three days about this bag, hard all; and when it's done, it is
not half as good a one as you can buy at Cooper's for a dollar, with
all this new-fangled machinery of loops and buttons, and I do n't
know what.”
“And you, Master Frank,” retorted Harry, nothing daunted—
“to be a good shot and a good sportsman—which, with some few
exceptions, I must confess you are—are the most culpably and wilfully
careless about your appointments I ever met. I do n't call a
man half a sportsman, who has not every thing he wants at hand
for an emergency, at half a minute's notice. Now it so happens
that you cannot get, in New York at all, anything like a decent
game bag—a little fancy-worked French or German jigmaree machine
you can get anywhere, I grant, that will do well enough for
a fellow to carry on his own shoulders, who goes out robin-gunning,
fresh, and unmutilated. Now, these loops and buttons, at which
you laugh, will make the difference of a week at least in the bird's
keeping, if every hour or so you empty your pockets—wherein I
take it for granted you put your birds as fast as you bag them—
smooth down their plumage gently, stretch their legs out, and hang
them by the heads, running the button down close to the neck of each.
In this way this bag, which is, as you see, half a yard long, by a quarter
and half a quarter deep, made double, one bag of fustian with
a net front, which makes two pockets—will carry fifty-one quail or
woodcock, no one of them pressing upon, or interfering with, another,
and it would carry sixty-eight if I had put another row of loops in
the inner bag; which I did not, that I might have the bottom vacant
to carry a few spare articles, such as a bag of Westley Richards'
caps, and a couple of dozen of Ely's cartridges.”
“Oh! that's all very well,” said Frank, “but who the deuce can
be at the bore of it?”
“Why be at the bore of shooting at all, for that matter?” replied
Harry—“I, for one, think that if a thing is worth doing at all, it is
worth doing well—and I can't bear to kill a hundred or a hundred
and fifty birds, as our party almost always do out here, and then be
obliged to throw them away, just for want of a little care. Why, I
was shooting summer cock one July day two years ago—there had
been heavy rain in the early morning, and the grass and bushes
were very wet—Jem Blake was with me, and we had great sport,
and he laughed at me like the deuce for taking my birds out of my
pocket at the end of every hour's sport, and making Timothy smooth
them down carefully, and bag them all after my fashion. Egad I
had the laugh though, when we got home at night!”
“How so,” asked Frank, “in what way had you the laugh?”
“Simply in this—a good many of the birds were very hard shot,
as is always the case in summer shooting, and all of them got more
or less wet, as did the pockets of Jem's shooting jacket, wherein he
persisted in carrying his birds all day—the end was, that when we
got home at night, it having been a close, hot, steamy day, he had
not one bird which was not more or less tainted[1]
—and, as you know
of course, when taint has once begun, nothing can check it.”
“Ay! ay! well that indeed's a reason; if you can't buy such a
bag, especially!”
“Well, you cannot then, I can tell you! and I'm glad you're
convinced for once; and here comes breakfast—so now let us to
work, that we may get on our ground as early as may be. For quail
you cannot be too early; for if you don't find them while they are
rambling on their feeding ground, it is a great chance if you find
them at all.”
“But, after all, you can only use up one or two bevies or so; and,
that done, you must hunt for them in the basking time of day, after
somewhat paradoxically given that morning.
“Not at all, Frank, not at all,” answered Harry—“that is if you
know your ground; and know it to be well stocked; and have a
good marker with you.”
“Oh! this is something new of yours—some strange device fantastical—let's
have it, pray.”
“Certainly you shall; you shall have it now in precept, and in
an hour or two in practice. You see those stubbles on the hill—in
those seven or eight fields there are, or at least should be, some five
bevies; there is good covert, good easy covert all about, and we
can mark our birds down easily; now, when I find one bevy, I shall
get as many barrels into it as I can, mark it down as correctly as
possible, and then go and look for another.”
“What! and not follow it up? Now, Harry, that's mere stuff;
wait till the scent's gone cold, and till the dogs cann't find them?
'Gad, that's clever, any way!”
“Exactly the reverse, friend Frank; exactly the reverse. If you
follow up a bevy, of quail mark you, on the instant, it's ten to one
almost that you don't spring them. If, on the contrary, you wait
for half an hour, you are sure of them. How it is, I cannot precisely
tell you. I have sometimes thought that quail have the
power of holding in their scent, whether purposely or naturally—
from the effect of fear perhaps contracting the pores, and hindering
the escape of the effluvia—I know not, but I am far from being convinced
even now that it is not so. A very good sportsman, and true
friend of mine, insists upon it that birds give out no scent except
from the feet, and that, consequently, if they squat without running
they cannot be found. I do not, however, believe the theory, and
hold it to be disproved by the fact that dead birds do give out scent.
I have generally observed that there is no difficulty in retrieving
dead quail, but that, wounded, they are constantly lost. But, be that
as it may, the birds pitch down, each into the best bit of covert he
can find, and squat there like so many stones, leaving no trail or
taint upon the grass or bushes, and being of course proportionally
hard to find; in half an hour they will begin, if not disturbed, to
call and travel, and you can hunt them up, without the slightest
trouble. If you have a very large tract of country to beat, and
birds are very scarce, of course it would not answer to pass on; nor
ever, even if they are plentiful, in wild or windy weather, or in
large open woods; but where you have fair ground, lots of birds,
and fine weather, I would always beat on in a circuit, for the reason
I have given you. In the first place, every bevy you flush flies
from its feeding to its basking ground, so that you get over all the
first early, and know where to look afterward; instead of killing off
one bevy, and then going blundering on, at blind guess work, and
finding nothing. In the second place, you have a chance of driving
two or three bevies into one brake, and of getting sport proportionate;
and in the third place, as I have told you, you are much surer
of finding marked birds after an hour's lapse, than on the moment.”
“I will do you the justice to say,” Forester replied, “that you
always make a tolerably good fight in support of your opinions; and
so you have done now, but I want to hear something more about this
matter of holding scent—facts! facts! and let me judge for myself.”
“Well, Frank, give me a bit more of that pie in the mean time,
andI will tell you the strongest case in point I ever witnessed. I
was shooting near Stamford, in Connecticut, three years ago, with
C— K—, and another friend; we had three as good dogs out,
as ever had a trigger drawn over them. My little imported yellow
and white setter, Chase, after which this old rascal is called—which
Mike Sandford considered the best-nosed dog he had ever broken—
a capital young pointer dog of K—'s, which has since turned out,
as I hear, superlative, and P—'s old and stanch setter Count. It
was the middle of a fine autumn day, and the scenting was very
uncommonly good. One of our beaters flushed a bevy of quail very
wide of us, and they came over our heads down a steep hill-side,
and all lighted in a small circular hollow, without a bit of underbrush
or even grass, full of tall thrifty oak trees, of perhaps twenty-five
years' growth. They were not much out of gun-shot, and we
all three distinctly saw them light; and I observed them flap and
fold their wings as they settled. We walked straight to the spot,
and beat it five or six times over, not one of our dogs ever drawing,
and not one bird rising. We could not make it out; my friends
thought they had treed, and laughed at me when I expressed my
belief that they were still before us, under our very noses. The
ground was covered only by a deep bed of sere decaying oak leaves.
Well, we went on, and beat all round the neighborhood within a
quarter of a mile, and did not find a bird, when lo! at the end of
perhaps half an hour, we heard them calling—followed the cry back
to that very hollow; the instant we entered it, all the three dogs
made game, drawing upon three several birds, roaded them up, and
pointed steady, and we had half an hour's good sport, and we were
all convinced that the birds had been there all the time. I have
seen many instances of the same kind, and more particularly with
wing-tipped birds, but none I think so tangible as this!”
“Well, I am not a convert, Harry; but, as the Chancellor said,
I doubt.”
“And that I consider not a little, from such a positive wretch as
you are; but come, we have done breakfast, and it's broad daylight.
Come, Timothy, on with the bag and belts; he breakfasted before
we had got up, and gave the dogs a bite.”
“Which dogs do you take, Harry; and do you use cartridge?”
“Oh! the setters for the morning; they are the only fellows for
the stubble; we should be all day with the cockers; even setters,
as we must break them here for wood shooting, have not enough of
speed or dash for the open. Cartridges? yes! I shall use a loose
charge in my right, and a blue cartridge in my left; later in the
season I use a blue in my right and a red in my left. It just makes
the difference between killing with both, or with one barrel. The
than loose shot; and they kill clean!”
“Yet many good sportsmen dislike them,” Frank replied; “they
say they ball!”
“They do not now, if you load with them properly; formerly
they would do so at times, but that defect is now rectified—with
the blue and red cartridges at least—the green, which are only fit
for wild-fowl, or deer-shooting, will do so sometimes, but very rarely;
and they will execute surprisingly. For a bad or uncertain
rifle-shot, the green cartridge, with SG shot is the thing—twelve
good-sized slugs, propelled with force enough to go through an inch
plank, at eighty yards, within a compass of three feet—but no wad
must be used, either upon the cartridge, or between that and the
powder; the small end must be inserted downward, and the cartridge
must be chosen so that the wad at the top shall fit the gun,
the case being two sizes less than the calibre. With these directions
no man need make a mistake; and, if he can cover a bird
fairly, and is cool enough not to fire within twenty yards, he will
never complain of cartridges, after a single trial. Remember, too,
that vice versâ to the rule of a loose charge, the heavier you load
with powder, the closer will your cartridge carry. The men who
do not like cartridges are—you may rely upon it—of the class
which prefers scattering guns. I always use them, except in July
shooting, and I shall even put a few red in my pockets, in case the
wind should get up in the afternoon. Besides which, I always take
along two buckshot cartridges, in case of happening, as Timothy
would say, on some big varmint. I have four pockets in my shooting
waistcoat, each stitched off into four compartments—each of
which holds, erect, one cartridge—you cannot carry them loose in
your pocket, as they are very apt to break. Another advantage of
this is, that in no way can you carry shot with so little inconvenience,
as to weight; beside which, you load one third quicker, and
your gun never leads!”
“Well!” I believe I will take some to-day—but don't you wait
for the Commodore?”
“No! He drives up, as I told you, from Nyack, where he lands
from his yacht, and will be here at twelve o'clock to luncheon; if
he had been coming for the morning shooting, he would have been
here ere this. By that time we shall have bagged twenty-five or
thirty quail, and a ruffed grouse or two; beside driving two or three
bevies down into the meadows and the alder bushes by the stream,
which are quite full of woodcock. After luncheon, with the Commodore's
aid, we will pick up these stragglers, and all the timber-doodles!”
In another moment the setters were unchained, and came careering,
at the top of their speed, into the breakfast room, where Harry
stood before the fire, loading his double gun, while Timothy was
buttoning on his left leggin. Frank, meanwhile, had taken up his
gun, and quietly sneaked out of the door, two flat irregular reports
explaining, half a moment after, the purport of his absence.
“Well, now, Frank, that is”—expostulated Harry—“that is just
the most snobbish thing I ever saw you do; aint you ashamed of
yourself now, you genuine cockney?”
“Not a bit—my gun has not been used these three months, and
something might have got into the chamber!”
“Something might not, if when you cleaned it last you had laid
a wad in the centre of a bit of greased rag three inches square and
rammed it about an inch down the barrel, leaving the ends of the
linen hanging out. And by running your rod down you could have
ascertained the fact, without unnecessarily fouling your piece. A
gun has no right ever to miss fire now; and never does, if you use
Westley Richards' caps, and diamond gunpowder—putting the
caps on the last thing—which has the further advantage of being
much the safer plan, and seeing that the powder is up to the cones
before you do so. If it is not so, let your hammer down, and give a
smart tap to the under side of the breech, holding it uppermost, and
you will never need a picker; or at least almost never. Remember,
too, that the best picker in the world is a strong needle headed
with sealing wax. And now that you have finished loading, and I
lecturing, just jump over the fence to your right; and that footpath
will bring us to the stepping-stones across the Ramapo. By Jove,
but we shall have a lovely morning.”
He did so, and away they went, with the dogs following steadily
at the heel, crossed the small river dry-shod, climbed up the wooded
bank by dint of hand and foot, and reached the broad brown corn
stubble. Harry, however, did not wave his dogs to the right hand
and left, but calling them in, quietly plodded along the headland,
and climbed another fence, and crossed a buckwheat stubble, still
without beating or disturbing any ground, and then another field
full of long bents and ragwort, an old deserted pasture, and Frank
began to grumble, but just then a pair of bars gave access to a wide
fifty acre lot, which had been wheat, the stubble standing still knee
deep, and yielding a rare covert.
“Now we are at the far end of our beat, and we have got the
wind too in the dogs' noses, Master Frank—and so hold up, good
lads,” said Harry. And off the setters shot like lightning, crossing
and quartering their ground superbly.
“There! there! well done, old Chase—a dead stiff point already,
and Shot backing him as steady as a rail. Step up, Frank, step up
quietly, and let us keep the hill of them.”
They came up close, quite close to the stanch dog, and then,
but not till then, he feathered and drew on, and Shot came crawling
up till his nose was but a few inches in the rear of Chase's,
whose point he never thought of taking from him. Now they are
both upon the game. See how they frown and slaver, the birds are
close below their noses.
Whirr—r—r! “There they go—a glorious bevy!” exclaimed
Harry, as he cocked his right barrel and cut down the old cock bird,
which had risen rather to his right hand, with his loose charge—
“blaze away, Frank!” Bang—bang!—and two more birds came
and sent the cartridge after the now distant bevy, and to Frank's
admiration a fourth bird was keeled over most beautifully, and clean
killed, while crossing to the right, at forty-six yards, as they paced
it afterward.
“Now mark! mark, Timothy—mark, Frank!” And shading
their eyes from the level sunbeams, the three stood gazing steadily
after the rapid bevy. They cross the pasture, skim very low over
the brush fence of the cornfield—they disappear behind it—they are
down! no! no! not yet—they are just skirting the summit of the
topped maize stalks—now they are down indeed, just by that old
ruined hovel, where the cat-briers and sumach have overspread its
cellar and foundation with thick underwood. And all the while the
sturdy dogs are crouching at their feet unmoving.
“Will you not follow those, Harry?” Forester inquired—“there
are at least sixteen of them!”
“Not I,” said Archer, “not I, indeed, till I have beat this field—
I expect to put up another bevy among those little crags there in
the corner, where the red cedars grow—and if we do, they will
strike down the fence of the buckweat stubble—that stubble we
must make good, and the rye beside it, and drive, if possible, all
that we find before us to the corn field. Don't be impatient, and
you'll see in time that I am in the right.”
No more words were now wasted; the four birds were bagged
without trouble, and the sportsmen being in the open were handed
over on the spot to Tim; who stroked their freckled breasts, and
beautifully mottled wing coverts and backs, with a caressing touch,
as though he loved them; and finally, in true Jack Ketch style,
tucked them up severally by the neck. Archer was not mistaken
in his prognostics—another bevy had run into the dwarf cedars from
the stubble at the sound of the firing, and were roaded up in right
good style, first one dog, and then the other, leading; but without
any jealousy or haste.
They had, however, run so far, that they had got wild, and, as
there was no bottom covert on the crags, had traversed them quite
over to the open, on the far side—and, just as Archer was in the act
of warning Forester to hurry softly round and head them, they
flushed at thirty yards, and had flown some five more before they
were in sight, the feathery evergreens for a while cutting off the
view—the dogs stood dead at the sound of their wings. Then, as
they came in sight, Harry discharged both barrels very quickly—
the loose shot first, which evidently took effect, for one bird cowered
and seemed about to fall, but gathered wing again, and went
on for the present—the cartridge, which went next, although the
bevy had flown ten yards further, did its work clean, and stopped
its bird. Frank fired but once, and killed, using his cartridge first,
and thinking it in vain to fire the loose shot. The remaining birds
skimmed down the hill, and lighted in the thick bushy hedge-row,
as Archer had foreseen.
“So much for Ely!” exclaimed Harry—“had we both used two
one which we shall not get; a thing that I most particularly hate.”
“That bird will rise again,” said Frank.
“Never!” replied the other, “he has one, if not two, shot in
him, well forward—if I am not much mistaken, before the wing—
he is dead now! but let us on. These we must follow, for they are
on our line; you keep this side the fence, and I will cross it with
the dogs—come with me, Timothy.”
In a few minutes more there was a dead point at the hedge-row.
“Look to, Frank!”
“Ay! ay!” “Poke them out, Tim;” then followed sundry
bumps and threshings of the briers, and out with a noisy flutter
burst two birds under Forester's nose. Bang! bang!
“The first shot too quick, altogether,” muttered Archer; “Ay,
he has missed one; mark it, Tim—there he goes down in the corn,
by jingo—you've got that bird, Frank? That's well! Hold up
Shot”—another point within five yards. “Look out again, Frank.”
But this time vainly did Tim poke, and thresh, and peer into the
bushes—yet still Shot stood, stiff as a marble statue—then Chase
drew up and snuffed about, and pushed his head and fore-legs into
the matted briers, and thereupon a muzzling noise ensued, and
forth with out he came, mouthing a dead bird, warm still, and bleeding
from the neck and breast.
“Frank, he has got my bird—and shot, just as I told you, through
the neck and near the great wing joint—good dog! good dog!”
“The devil!”
“Yes, the devil! but look out man, here is yet one more point;”
and this time ten or twelve birds flushed upon Archer's side; he
slew, as usual, his brace, and as they crossed, at long distance,
Frank knocked down one more—the rest flew to the corn-field.
In the middle of the buckwheat they flushed another, and, in the
rye, another bevy, both of which crossed the stream, and settled
down among the alders. They reached the corn field, and picked
up their birds there, quite as fast as Frank himself desired—three
ruffed grouse they had bagged, and four rabbits, in a small dingle
full of thorns, before they reached the corn; and just as the tin
horns were sounding for noon and dinner from many a neighboring
farm, they bagged their thirty-fourth quail. At the same moment,
the rattle of a distant wagon on the hard road, and a loud cheer replying
to the last shot, announced the Commodore; who pulled up at
the tavern door just as they crossed the stepping-stones, having
made a right good morning's work, with a dead certainty of better
sport in the afternoon, since they had marked two untouched bevies,
thirty-five birds at least, beside some ten or twelve more stragglers
into the alder brakes, which Harry knew to hold—moreover,
thirty woodcock, as he said, at the fewest.
“Well! Harry,” exclaimed Frank, as he set down his gun, and
sat down to the table, “I must for once knock under—your practice
has borne out your precepts.”
3. THE WOODCOCK.
Luncheon was soon discussed, a noble cold quail pie and a spiced
round of beef, which formed the most essential parts thereof, displaying
in their rapidly diminished bulk ocular evidence of the extent
of sportmen's appetites; a single glass of shrub and water
followed, cheroots were lighted, and forth the comrades sallied, the
Commodore inquiring as they went what were the prospects of
success.
“You fellows,” he concluded, “have, I suppose, swept the ground
completely.”
“That you shall see directly,” answered Archer; “I shall make
you no promises. But see how evidently Grouse recollects those
dogs of mine, though it is nearly a year since they have met; don't
you think so, A—?”
“To be sure I do,” replied the Commodore; “I saw it the first
moment you came up—had they been strangers he would have
tackled them upon the instant; and instead of that he began wagging
his tail, and wriggling about, and playing with them. Oh!
depend upon it, dogs think, and remember, and reflect far more
than we imagine—”
“Oh! run back, Timothy—run back!” here Archer interrupted
him—“we don't want you this afternoon. Harness the nags and
pack the wagon, and put them to, at five—we shall be at home by
then, for we intend to be at Tom's night. Now look out, Frank,
those three last quail, we marked in from the hill, dropped in the
next field, where the ragwort stands so thick; and five to one, as
there is a thin growth of brushwood all down this wall side, they
will have run down hither. Why, man alive! you've got no copper
caps on!”
“By George! no more I have—I took them off when I laid down
my gun in the house, and forgot to replace them.”
“And a very dangerous thing you did in taking them off, permit
me to assure you. Any one but a fool, or a very young child,
knows at once that a gun with caps on is loaded. You leave yours
on the table without caps, and in comes some meddling chap or
other, puts on one to try the locks, or to frighten his sweetheart, or
for some other no less sapient purpose, and off it goes! and if it kill
no one, it's God's mercy! Never do that again, Frank!”
Meanwhile they had arrived within ten yards of the low rickety
stone wall, skirted by a thin fringe of saplings, in which Archer
expected to find game—Grouse, never in what might be called exact
command, had disappeared beyond it.
“Hold up, good dogs!” cried Harry, and as he spoke away went
Shot and Chase—the red dog, some three yards ahead, jumped on
the wall, and, in the act of bounding over it, saw Grouse at point
hind foot drawn up in the act of pointing, for both the fore were
occupied in clinging to some trivial inequalities of the rough coping,
his feathery flag erect, his black eye fixed, and his lip slavering;
for so hot was the scent that it reached his exquisitely fashioned
organs, though Grouse was many feet advanced between him and
the game. Shot backed at the wall-foot, seeing the red dog only,
and utterly unconscious that the pointer had made the game beyond.
“By Jove! but that is beautiful!” exclaimed the Commodore.
“That is a perfect picture!—the very perfection of steadiness and
breaking.”
They crossed the wall, and poor Shot, in the rear, saw them no
more; his instinct strongly, aye! naturally, tempted him to break
in, but second nature, in the shape of discipline, prevailed; and,
though he trembled with excitement, he moved not an inch. Grouse
was as firm as iron, his nose within six inches of a bunch of wintergreen,
pointed directly downward, and his head cocked a little on
one side—they stepped up to him, and, still on the wall-top, Chase
held to his uneasy attitude.
“Now then,” said Harry, “look out, till I kick him up.”
No sooner said than done—the toe of his thick shooting-boot
crushed the slight evergreen, and out whirred, with his white chaps
and speckled breast conspicuous, an old cock quail. He rose to
Forester, but ere that worthy had even cocked his gun—for he had
now adopted Archer's plan, and carried his piece always at half
cock, till needed—flew to the right across the Commodore; so
Frank released his hammer and brought down his Manton, while
A— deliberately covered, and handsomely cut down the bird at
five-and-twenty yards.
Grouse made a movement to run in, but came back instantly
when called.
“Just look back, if you please, one moment, before loading,” said
Harry, “for that down-charge is well worth looking at.”
And so indeed it was—for there, upon the wall-top, where he had
been balancing, Chase had contrived to lie down at the gunshot—
wagging his stern slightly to and fro, with his white fore-paws
hanging down, and his head couched between them, his haunches
propped up on the coping stone, and his whole attitude apparently
untenable for half a minute.
“Now, load away for pity's sake, as quickly as you can; that
posture must be any thing but pleasant.”
This was soon done; inasmuch as the Commodore is not exactly
one to dally in such matters; and when his locks ticked, as he
drew the hammers to half-cock, Chase quietly dismounted from his
perch, and Shot's head and fore-paws appeared above the barrier;
but not till Archer's hand gave the expected signal did the stanch
brutes move on.
“Come, Shot, good dog—it is but fair you should have some part
Fetch him, good lad! Well done!”
In a few minutes' space, four or five more birds came to bag—
they had run, at the near report, up the wall side among the
bushes, and the dogs footed them along it, now one and now another
taking the lead successively, but without any eagerness or
raking—looking round constantly, each to observe his comrades' or
his master's movements, and pointing slightly, but not steadily, at
every foot, till at the last all three, in different places, stood almost
simultaneously—all three dead points.
One bird jumped up to Frank, which he knocked over. A double
shot fell to the Commodore, who held the centre of the line, and
dropped both cleverly—the second, a long shot, wing-tipped only.
Harry flushed three and killed two clean, both within thirty paces,
and then covered the third bird with his empty barrels—but, though
no shot could follow from that quarter, he was not to escape scot
free, for wheeling short to the left hand, and flying high, he crossed
the Commodore in easy distance, and afterward gave Forester a
chance.
“Try him, Frank,” halloaed Archer—and “It's no use!” cried
A—, almost together, just as he raised his gun, and levelled it a
good two feet before the quail.
But it was use, and Harry's practised eye had judged the distance
more correctly than the short sight of the Commodore permitted—the
bird quailed instantly, as the shot struck, but flew on
notwithstanding, slanting down wind, however, toward the ground,
and falling on the hill-side at a full hundred yards.
“We shall not get him,” Forester exclaimed; “and I am sorry
for it, since it was a good shot.”
“A right good shot,” responded Harry, “and we shall get him.
He fell quite dead; I saw him bounce up, like a ball, when he struck
the hard ground. But A—'s second bird is only wing-tipped, and
I don't think we shall get him; for the ground where he fell is
very tussocky and full of grass, and if he creeps in, as they mostly
will do, into some hole in the bog-ground, it is ten to one against the
best dog in America!”
And so it came to pass, for they did bag Forester's, and all the
other quail except the Commodore's, which, though the dogs trailed
him well, and worked like Trojans, they could not for their lives
make out.
After this little rally they went down to the alders by the stream-side,
and had enough to do, till it was growing rapidly too dark to
shoot—for the woodcock were very plentiful—it was sweet ground,
too, not for feeding only, but for lying, and that, as Harry pointed
out, is a great thing in the autumn.
The grass was short and still rich under foot, although it froze
hard every night; but all along the brook's marge there were many
small oozy bubbling springlets, which it required a stinging night
to congeal; and round these the ground was poached up by the
cattle, and laid bare in spots of deep, soft, black loam; and the innumerable
that, where they laid up for the night soever, here was their feeding
ground, and here it had been through the autumn.
But this was not all, for at every ten or twenty paces was a dense
tuft of willow bushes, growing for the most part upon the higher
knolls where it was dry and sunny, their roots heaped round with
drift wood, from the decay of which had shot up a dense tangled
growth of cat-briers. In these the birds were lying, all but some
five or six which had run out to feed, and were flushed, fat, and
large, and lazy, quite in the open meadow.
“They stay here later,” Harry said, as they bagged the last
bird, which, be it observed, was the twenty-seventh, “than any
where I know. Here I have killed them when there was ice
thicker than a dollar on all the waters round about, and when you
might see a thin and smoke-like mist boiling up from each springlet.
Kill them all off to-day, and you will find a dozen fresh birds
here to-morrow, and so on for a fornight—they come down from
the high ground as it gets too cold for them to endure their high
and rarified atmosphere, and congregate hither!”
“And why not more in humber at a time?” asked A—.
“Aye! there we are in the dark—we do not know sufficiently
the habits of the bird, to speak with certainty. I do not think they
are pugnacious, and yet you never find more on a feeding ground
than it will well accommodate for many days, nay weeks, together.
One might imagine that their migrations would be made en masse,
that all the birds upon these neighboring hills would crowd down
to this spot together, and feed here till it was exhausted, and then
on—but this is not so! I know fifty small spots like this, each a
sure find in the summer for three or four broods, say from eight to
twelve birds. During the summer, when you have killed the first
lot, no more return—but the moment the frost begins, there you
will find them—never exceeding the original eight or ten in number,
but keeping up continually to that mark—and whether you
kill none at all, or thirty birds a week, there you will always find
about that number, and in no case any more. Those that are killed
off are supplied, within two days at farthest, by new comers; yet
so far as I can judge, the original birds, if not killed, hold their
own, unmolested by intruders. Whence the supplies come in—for
they must be near neighbors by the rapidity of their succession—
and why they abstain from their favorite grounds in worse locations,
remains, and I fear we must remain, in the dark. All the
habits of the woodcock are, indeed, very partially and slightly understood.
They arrive here, and breed early in the spring—sometimes,
indeed, before the snow is off the hills—get their young off
in June, and with their young are most unmercifully, most unsportsmanly,
thinned off, when they can hardly fly—such is the error, as
I think it, of the law—but I could not convince my stanch friends,
Philo, and J. Cypress, Jr., of the fact, when they bestirred themselves
in favor of the progeny of their especial favorites, perdix virginiana
and tetrao umbellus, and did defer the times for slaying
to kill the latter bird at all. But vainly did I plead, and a
false advocate was Cypress after all, despite his nominal friendship,
for that unhappy Scolopax, who in July at least deserves his nick-name
minor, or the infant. For, setting joke apart, what a burning
shame it is to murder the poor little half-fledged younglings in
July, when they will scarcely weigh six ounces; when they will
drop again within ten paces of the dog that flushes, or the gun that
misses them; and when the heat will not allow you even to enjoy
the consummation of their slaughter. Look at these fellows now,
with their gray foreheads, their plump ruddy breasts, their strong,
well feathered pinions, each one ten ounces at the least. Think how
these jolly old cocks tower away, with their shrill whistle, through
the tree-tops, and twist and dodge with an agility of wing and
thought-like speed, scarcely inferior to the snipe's or swallow's,
and fly a half mile if you miss them; and laugh to scorn the efforts
of any one to bag them, who is not a right out-and-outer! No chance
shot, no stray pellet speaks for these—it must be the charge, the
whole charge, and nothing but the charge, which will cut down
the grown bird of October! The law should have said woodcock
thou shalt not kill until September; quail thou shalt not kill till
October, the twenty-fifth if you please; partridge thou shalt kill in
all places, and at all times, when thou canst! and that, as we know,
Frank, and A—, that is not every where or often!”
“But, seriously,” said the Commodore, “seriously, would you indeed
abolish summer shooting!”
“Most seriously! most solemnly I would!” Archer responded.
“In the first place because, as I have said, it is a perfect sin to
shoot cock in July; and secondly, because no one would, I am
convinced, shoot for his own pleasure at that season, if it were
not a question of now or never. Between the intense heat, and
the swarms of musquitoes, and the unfitness of that season for
the dogs, which can rarely scent their game half the proper
distance, and the density of the leafy coverts; and lastly, the difficulty
of keeping the game fresh till you can use it, render July
shooting a toil, in my opinion, rather than a real pleasure; although
we are such hunting creatures, that rather than not have our prey
at all, we will pursue it in all times, and through all inconveniences.
Fancy, my dear fellows, only fancy what superb shooting we
should have if not a bird were killed till they were all full grown, and
fit to kill; fancy bagging a hundred and twenty-five fall woodcock
in a single autumn day, as we did this very year on a summer's day!”
“Oh! I agree with you completely,” said Frank Forester, “but
I am afraid such a law will never be brought to bear in this country
—the very day on which cock shooting does not really begin, but is
supposed by nine tenths of the people to begin—the fourth of July,
is against it.[2]
Moreover, the amateur killers of game are so very
all but impossible to enforce the laws at all upon this subject. Woodcock
even now are eaten in June—nay, I have heard, and believe
it to be true, that many hotels in New York serve them up even in
March and April; quail, this autumn, have been sold openly in the
markets, many days previous to the expiration of close time. And
in fact, sorry I am to say it, so far as eating-houses are in question,
the game laws are nearly a dead letter.
“In the country, also, I have universally found it to be the case,
that although the penalty of a breach may be exacted from strangers,
no farmer will differ with a neighbor, as they call it, for the
sake of a bird. Whether time, and a greater diffusion of sporting
propensities, and sporting feelings, may alter this for the better or
no, I leave to sager and more politic pates than mine. And now I
say, Harry, you surely do not intend to trundle us off to Tom
Draw's to-night without a drink at starting? I see Timothy has
got the drag up to the door, and the horses harnessed, and all ready
for a start.”
“Yes! yes! all that's true,” answered Harry, “but take my
word for it, the liquor case is not put in yet. Well, Timothy,” he
went on, as they reached the door, “that is right. Have you got
every thing put up?”
“All but t' gam' bag and t' liquor ca-ase, sur,” Tim replied,
touching his hat gnostically as he spoke; “Ay reckoned, ple-ease
sur, 'at you 'd maybe want to fill t' yan oop, and empty t' oother!”
“Very well thought, indeed!” said Archer, winking to Forester
the while. “Let that boy stand a few minutes to the horses' heads,
and come into the house yourself and pack the birds up, and fetch
us some water.”
“T' watter is upon t' table, sur, and t' cigars, and a loight; but
Ay'se be in wi you directly. Coom hither, lad, till Ay shew thee
hoo to guide 'em; thou munna tocch t' bits for the loife o' thee, but
joost stan' there anent them—if they stir loike, joost speak to 'em—
Ayse hear thee!” and he left his charge and entered the small parlor,
where the three friends were now assembled, with a cheroot
apiece already lighted, and three tall brimming rummers on the
table.
“Look sharp and put the birds up,” said Harry, pitching, as he
spoke, the fine fat fellows right and left out of his wide game
pockets, “and when that's done fill yourself out a drink, and help
us on with our great coats.”
“What are you going to do with the guns?” inquired the Commodore.
“To carry them uncased and loaded; substituting in my own
two buckshot cartridges for loose shot,” replied Archer. “The
Irish are playing the very devil through this part of the country—
we are close to the line of the great Erie railroad—and they are
murdering' and robbing, and I know not what, for miles around.
The last time I was at old Tom's he told me that but ten days or a
fortnight previously a poor Irish woman, who lived in his village,
pass to-night; and was found the next morning with her person
brutally abused, kneeling against a fence stone dead, strangled
with her own cambric handkerchief. He says, too, that not a week
passes but some of them are found dead in the meadows, or in the
ditches, killed in some lawless fray; and no one ever dreams of
taking any notice, or making any inquiry about the matter!”
“Is it possible? then keep the guns at hand by all means!”
“Yes! but this time we will violate my rule about the copper
caps—there is no rule, you are aware, but what has some exception—and
the exception to this of mine is, always take off your
copper caps before getting into a wagon; the jar will occasionally
explode them, an upset will undoubtedly. So uncap, Messrs.
Forester and A—, and put the bright little exploders into your
pockets, where they will be both safe and handy! And now,
birds are in, drinks are in, dogs and guns are in, and now let us
be off!”
No more words were wasted; the landlord's bill was paid, Frank
Forester and Timothy got up behind, the Commodore took the front
seat, Harry sprang, reins in hand, to the box, and off they bowled,
with lamps and cigars burning merrily, for it was now quite dark,
along the well-known mountain road, which Archer boasted he could
drive as safely in the most gloomy night of winter as in a summer
noon. And so it proved this time, for though he piloted his horses
with a cool head and delicate finger through every sort of difficulty
that a road can offer, up long and toilsome hills without a rail between
the narrow track and the deep precipice, down sharp and
stony pitches, over loose clattering bridges, along wet marshy levels,
he never seemed in doubt or trouble for a moment, but talked and
laughed away, as if he were a mere spectator.
After they had gone a few miles on their way—“you broke off
short, Archer,” said the Commodore, “in the middle of your dissertation
on the natural history and habits of the woodcock, turning a
propos des bottes to the cruelty of killing them in midsummer. In
all which, by the way, I quite agree with you. But I don't want
to lose the rest of your lucubrations on this most interesting topic.
What do you think becomes of the birds in August, after the moult
begins?”
“Verily, Commodore, that is a positive poser. Many good sportsmen
believe that they remain where they were before; getting into
the thickest and wettest brakes, refusing to rise before the dog, and
giving out little or no scent!”
“Do you believe this?”
“No; I believe there is a brief migration, but whither I cannot
tell you with any certainty. Some birds do stay, as they assert;
and that a few do stay, and do give out enough scent to enable dogs
to find them, is a proof to me that all do not. A good sportsman
can always find a few birds even during the moult, and I do not
think that birds killed at that time are at all worse eating than others.
But I am satisfied that the great bulk shift their quarters, whither I
and deep swales which are found throughout all the mountain tracts
of the middle States; and in these, as I believe, they remain dispersed
and scattered in such small parties that they are not worth
looking after, till the frost drives them down to their old haunts. A
gentleman, whom I can depend on, told me once that he climbed
Bull Hill one year late in September—Bull Hill is one of the loftiest
peaks in the Highlands of the Hudson—merely to show the prospect
to a friend, and he found all the brushwood on the summit full
of fine autumn cock, not a bird having been seen for weeks in the
low woodlands at the base. They had no guns with them at the
time, and some days elapsed before he could again spare a few
hours to hunt them up; in the meantime frost came, the birds returned
to their accustomed swamps and levels, and, when he did
again scale the rough mountain, not a bird rewarded his trouble.
This, if true, which I do not doubt, would go far to prove my theory
correct; but it is not easy to arrive at absolute certainty, for if I am
right, during that period birds are to be found no where in abundance,
and a man must be a downright Audubon to be willing to go mountain-stalking—the
hardest walking in the world, by the way—purely
for the sake of learning the habits of friend Scolopax, with no hope
of getting a good bag after all.”
“How late have you ever killed a cock previous to their great
southern flight?”
“Never myself beyond the fifteenth of November; but Tom
Draw assures me, and his asseveration was accidently corroborated
by a man who walked along with him, that he killed thirty birds
last year in Hell-Hole, which both of you fellows know, on the
thirteenth of December. There had been a very severe frost indeed,
and the ice on that very morning was quite thick, and the mud
frozen hard enough to bear in places. But the day was warm,
bright, and genial, and, as he says, it came into his head to see
`if cock was was all gone,' and he went to what he knew to be
the latest ground, and found the very heaviest and finest birds he
ever saw!”
“Oh! that of course,” said A—, “if he found any! Did you
ever hear of any other birds so late?”
“Yes! later—Mike Sandford, I think, but some Jerseyman or
other—killed a couple the day after Christmas day, on a long southern
slope covered with close dwarf cedars, and watered by some
tepid springs, not far from Pine Brook; and I have been told that
the rabbit shooters, who always go out in a party between Christmas
and New Year's day, almost invariably flush a bird or two there
in mid-winter. The same thing is told of a similar situation on the
southwestern slope of Staten Island; and I believe truly in both
instances. These, however, must, I think, be looked upon not as
cases of late emigration, but as rare instances of the bird wintering
here to the northward; which I doubt not a few do annually. I
should like much to know if there is any State of the Union where
the cock is perennial. I do not see why he should not be so in
The great heat of the extreme southern summer drives them north,
as surely as our northern winter sends them south; and the great
emigrations of the main flight are northward in February and March,
and southward in November, varying by a few days only according
to the variations of the seasons!”
“Well, I trust they have not emigrated hence yet—ha! ha!
ha”' laughed the Commodore, with his peculiar hearty deep-toned
merriment.
“Not they! not they! I warrant them,” said Archer; “but that
to-morrow must bring forth.”
“Come, Harry,” exclaimed Forester, after a little pause, “spin
us a shooting yarn, to kill the time, till we get to fat Tom's.”
“A yarn! well, what shall it be?”
“I don't know; oh! yes! yes! I do. You once told me something
about a wolf-hunt, and then shut up your mouth all at once,
and would give me no satisfaction.”
“A wolf-hunt?” cried the Commodore, “were you ever at a
wolf-hunt; and here in this country, Harry?”
“Indeed was I, and—”
“The story, then, the story; we must have it.”
“Oh! as for story, there is not much—”
“The story! the story!” shouted Frank. “You may as well
begin at once, for we will have it.”
“Oh! very well. All is one to me, but you will be tired enough
of it before I have got through so here goes for
A WOLF HUNT ON THE WARWICK HILLS,”
said Archer, and without more ado spun his yarn as follows.
“There are few wilder regions within the compass of the United
States, much less in the vicinity of its most populous and cultivated
districts, than that long line of rocky wood-crowned heights which
—at times rising to an elevation and exhibiting a boldness of outline
that justifies the application to them of the term `mountains,'
while at others they would be more appropriately designated as
hills or knolls—run all across the Eastern and the Midland States,
from the White Mountains westward to the Alleghanies, between
which mighty chains they form an intermediate and continuous
link.
“Through this stern barrier all the great rivers of the States,
through which they run, have rent themselves a passage, exhibiting
in every instance the most sublime and boldest scenery, while
many of the minor, though still noble streams, come forth sparkling
and bright and cold from the clear lakes and lonely springs
embosomed in its dark recesses.
“Possessing, for the most part, a width of eight or ten miles, this
chain of hills consists, at some points, of a single ridge, rude, forest-clad
and lonely—at others, of two, three, or even four distinct and
separate lines of heights, with valleys more or less highly cultured,
dividing them.
“With these hills—known as the Highlands—where the gigantic
Hudson has cloven, at some distant day, a devious path for his eternal
and resistless waters, and by a hundred other names, the Warwick
Hills, the Greenwoods, and yet farther west, the Blue Ridge
and the Kittatinny Mountains, as they trend southerly and west
across New York and New Jersey—with these hills I have now
to do.
“Not as the temples meet for the lonely muse, fit habitations for
the poet's rich imaginings! not as they are most glorious in their
natural scenery—whether the youthful May is covering their rugged
brows with the bright tender verdure of the tasselled larch, and
the yet brighter green of maple, mountain ash and willow—or the
full flush of summer has clothed their forests with impervious and
shadowy foliage, while carpeting their sides with the unnumbered
blossoms of calmia, rhododendron and azalia!—whether the gorgeous
hues of autumn gleam like the banners of ten thousand victor
armies along their rugged slopes, or the frozen winds of winter
have roofed their headlands with inviolate white snow! Not as
their bowels teem with the wealth of mines which ages of man's
avarice may vainly labor to exhaust! but as they are the loved
abode of many a woodland denizen that has retreated, even from
more remote and seemingly far wilder fastnesses, to these sequestered
haunts. I love them, in that the graceful hind conceals her
timid fawn among the ferns that wave on the lone banks of many a
nameless rill, threading their hills, untrodden save by the miner, or
the unfrequent huntsman's foot—in that the noble stag frays oftentimes
his antlers against their giant trees—in that the mighty bear
lies hushed in grim repose amid their tangled swamps—in that their
bushy dingles resound nightly to the long-drawn howl of the gaunt
famished wolf—in that the lynx and wild-cat yet mark their prey
from the pine branches—in that the ruffed grouse drums, the woodcock
bleats, and the quail chirrups from every height or hollow—in
that, more strange to tell, the noblest game of trans-atlantic fowl,
the glorious turkey—although, like angels' visits, they be indeed
but few and far between—yet spread their bronzed tails to the sun,
and swell and gobble in their most secret wilds.
“I love those hills of Warwick—many a glorious day have I passed
in their green recesses; many a wild tale have I heard of sylvan
sport and forest warfare, and many, too, of patriot partisanship in
the old revolutionary days—the days that tried men's souls—while
sitting at my noontide meal by the secluded well-head, under the
canopy of some primeval oak, with implements of woodland sport,
rifle or shot-gun by my side, and well-broke setter or stanch hound
recumbent at my feet. And one of these tales will I now venture
to record, though it will sound but weak and feeble from my lips, if
compared to the rich, racy, quaint and humorous thing it was, when
flowing from the nature-gifted tongue of our old friend Tom Draw.”
“Hear! hear!” cried Frank, “the chap is eloquent!”
“It was the middle of the winter 1832—which was, as you will
recollect, of most unusual severity—that I had gone up to Tom
Draw's, with a view merely to quail shooting, though I had taken
up, as usual, my rifle, hoping perhaps to get a chance shot at a
deer. The very first night I arrived, the old bar-room was full of
farmers, talking all very eagerly about the ravages which had been
wrought among their flocks by a small pack of wolves, five or six,
as they said, in number, headed by an old gaunt famished brute,
which had for many years been known through the whole region,
by the loss of one hind foot, which had been cut off in a steel trap.
“More than a hundred sheep had been destroyed during the winter,
and several calves beside; and what had stirred especially the
bile of the good yeomen, was that, with more than customary boldness,
they had the previous night made a descent into the precincts
of the village, and carried off a fat wether of Tom Draw's.
“A slight fall of snow had taken place the morning I arrived,
and, this suggesting to Tom's mind a possibility of hunting up the
felons, a party had gone out and tracked them to a small swamp on
the Bellevale Mountain, wherein they had undoubtedly made their
head-quarters. Arrangements had been made on all sides—forty
or fifty stout and active men were mustered, well armed, though
variously, with muskets, ducking-guns and rifles—some fifteen
couple of strong hounds, of every height and color, were collected—
some twenty horses saddled and bridled, and twice as many sleighs
were ready; with provisions, ammunition, liquor and blankets, all
prepared for a week's bivouac. The plan prescribed was in the first
place to surround the swamp, as silently as possible, with all our
forces, and then to force the pack out so as to face our volley. This,
should the method be successful, would finish the whole hunt at
once; but should the three-legged savage succeed in making his
escape, we were to hunt him by relays, bivouacking upon the ground
wherever night should find us, and taking up the chase again upon
the following morning, until continual fatigue should wear out the
fierce brute. I had two horses with me, and Tim Matlock; so I
made up my mind at once, got a light one-horse sleigh up in the
village, rigged it with all my bear-skins, good store of whiskey,
eatables and so forth, saddled the gray with my best Somerset,
holsters and surcingle attached, and made one of the party on the
instant.
“Before daylight we started, a dozen mounted men leading the
way, with the intent to get quite round the ridge, and cut off the
retreat of these most wily beasts of prey, before the coming of the
rear-guard should alarm them—and the remainder of the party
sleighing it merrily along, with all the hounds attached to them.
The dawn was yet in its first gray dimness when we got into line
along the little ridge which bounds that small dense brake on the
northeastern side—upon the southern side the hill rose almost inaccessibly
in a succession of short limestone ledges—westward the
open woods, through which the hounds and footmen were approaching,
sloped down in a long easy fall, into the deep secluded basin,
time waist deep in water, and almost inaccessible, though now
floored with a sheet of solid ice, firm as the rocks around it—due
northward was an open field, dividing the wolf-dingle from the
mountain road by which we always travel.
“Our plot had been well laid, and thus far had succeeded. I, with
eleven horsemen, drawn up in easy pistol shot one of the other, had
taken our ground in perfect silence; and, as we readily discovered,
by the untrodden surface of the snow, our enemies were as yet undisturbed.
My station was the extreme left of our line, as we faced
westward, close to the first ridge of the southern hill; and there I
sat in mute expectancy, my holsters thrown wide open, my Kuchenreüters
loaded and cocked, and my good ounce-ball rifle lying
prepared within the hollow of my arm.
“Within a short half hour I saw the second party, captained by our
friend Garry, coming up one by one and forming silently and promptly
upon the hill side—and directly after I heard the crash and shout
of our beaters, as they plunged into the thicket at its westward end.
So far as I could perceive, all had gone well. Two sides, my own
eyes told me, were surrounded, and the continuous line in which
the shouts ran all along the farther end would have assured me, if
assurance had been needful, for Tom himself commanded in that
quarter, that all was perfectly secure on that side. A Jerseyman,
a hunter of no small repute, had been detached with a fourth band to
guard the open fields upon the north; due time had been allotted to
him, and, as we judged, he was upon his ground. Scarce had the
first yell echoed through the forest before the pattering of many
feet might be heard, mingled with the rustling of the matted boughs
throughout the covert—and as the beaters came on, a whole host of
rabbits, with no less than seven foxes, two of them gray, came
scampering through our line in mortal terror; but on they went unharmed,
for strict had been the orders that no shot should be fired,
save at the lawful objects of the chase. Just at this moment I saw
Garry, who stood a hundred feet above me on the hill, commanding
the whole basin of the swamp, bring up his rifle. This was enough
for me—my thumb was on the cock, the nail of my forefinger pressed
closely on the trigger-guard. He lowered it again, as though
he had lost sight of his object—raised it again with great rapidity,
and fired. My eye was on the muzzle of his piece, and just as the
bright stream of flame glanced from it, distinctly visible in the dim
morning twilight, before my ear had caught the sound of the report,
a sharp long snarl rose from the thicket, announcing that a wolf was
wounded. Eagerly, keenly did I listen; but there came no further
sound to tell me of his whereabout.
“`I hit him,' shouted Garry, `I hit him then, I swon; but I guess
not so badly, but he can travel still. Look out you, Archer, he's
squatted in the thick there, and won't stir 'till they get close a top
on him.'
“While he was speaking yet, a loud and startling shout arose from
the open field, announcing to my ear upon the instant that one or
from the absence of any firing. The leader of our squad was clearly
of the same opinion; for, motioning to us to spread our line a little
wider, he galloped off at a tremendous rate, spurning the snowballs
high into the air, accompanied by three of his best men, to stop the
gap which had been left through the misapprehension of the Jerseyman.
“This he accomplished; but not until the great wolf, wilier than
his comrades, had got off unharmed. He had not moved five minutes
before a small dark bitch-wolf broke away through our line, at the
angle furthest from my station, and drew a scattering volley from
more than half our men—too rapid and too random to be deadly—
though several of the balls struck close about her, I thought she
had got off scot free; but Jem McDaniel—whom you know—a cool,
old steady hand, had held his fire, and taking a long quiet aim,
lodged his ball fairly in the centre of her shoulders—over she went,
and over, tearing the snow with tooth and claw in her death agony;
while fancying, I suppose, that all our guns were emptied—for, by
my life, I think the crafty brutes can almost reason—out popped
two more! one between me and my right hand man—the other, a
large dog, dragging a wounded leg behind him, under my horse's
very feet. Bob made a curious demi-volte, I do assure you, as the
dark brindled villain darted between his fore legs with an angry
snarl; but at a single word and slight admonition of the curb, stood
motionless as though he had been carved in marble. Quickly I
brought my rifle up, though steadily enough, and—more, I fancy, by
good luck than management—planted my bullet in the neck, just
where the skull and spine unite, so that he bounced three feet at
least above the frozen snow, and fell quite dead, within twelve
paces of the covert. The other wolf, which had crept out to my
right hand, was welcomed by the almost simultaneous fire of three
pieces, one of which only lodged its bullet, a small one by the way—
eighty or ninety only to the pound—too light entirely to tell a
story, in the brute's loins.
“He gave a savage yell enough as the shot told; and, for the first
twenty or thirty yards, dragged his hind-quarters heavily; but, as
he went on, he recovered, gathering headway very rapidly over the
little ridge, and through the open woodland, toward a clear field
on the mountain's brow. Just as this passed, a dozen shots were
fired, in a quick running volley, from the thicket, just where an
old cart-way divides it; followed, after a moment's pause, by one
full, round report, which I knew instantly to be the voice of old
Tom's musket; nor did I err, for, while its echoes were yet vocal
in the leafless forest, the owner's jovial shout was heard—
“`Wiped all your eyes, boys! all of them, by the Etarnal!—
Who-whoop for our side!—and I'll bet horns for all on us, old
leather-breeches has killed his'n.'
“This passed so rapidly—in fact it was all nearly simultaneous—
that the fourth wolf was yet in sight, when the last shot was fired.
We all knew well enough that the main object of our chase had for
already; nor was there any longer aught to be gained by sticking
to our stations. So, more for deviltry than from entertaining any
real hope of overtaking him, I chucked my rifle to the nearest
of the farmers, touched old Bob with the spur, and went away on
a hard gallop after the wounded fugitive, who was now plodding
onward at the usual long loping canter of his tribe. For about
half a mile the wood was open, and sloped gently upward, until it
joined the open country, where it was bounded by a high rugged
fence, made in the usual snake fashion, with a huge heavy
top-rail. This we soon reached; the wolf, which was more hurt
than I had fancied, beginning to lag grievously, crept through it
scarcely a hundred yards ahead of me, and, by good luck, at a spot
where the top rail had been partially dislodged, so that Bob swept
over it, almost without an effort, in his gallop; though it presented
an impenetrable rampart to some half dozen of the horsemen who
had followed. I was now in a cleared lot of some ten acres, forming
the summit of the hill, which, farther on, sunk steeply into a
dark ravine full of thick brushwood, with a small verge of thinly
growing coppice not more than twenty yards in width, on tolerably
level ground, within the low stone-wall which parted it from the
cultivated land. I felt that I was now upon my vantage ground;
and you may be sure, Frank, that I spared not the spurs; but the
wolf, conscious probably of the vicinity of some place of safety,
strained every nerve and ran, in fact, as if he had been almost unwounded;
so that he was still twelve or fourteen paces from me
when he jumped on the wall.
“Once over this, I well knew he was safe; for I was thoroughly
acquainted with the ground, and was of course aware that no horse
could descend the banks of the precipitous ravine. In this predicament,
I thought I might as well take a chance at him with one of
my good pistols, though of course with faint hopes of touching
him. However, I pulled out the right hand nine-inch barrel, took
a quick sight, and let drive at him; and, much to my delight, the
sound was answered by the long snarling howl, which I had that
day heard too often to doubt any more its meaning. Over he
jumped, however, and the wall covering him from my sight, I had
no means of judging how badly he was hurt; so on I went, and
charged the wall with a tight rein, and a steady pull; and lucky
for me was it, that I had a steady pull; for under the lee of the wall
there was a heap of rugged logs into which Bob plunged gallantly,
and, in spite of my hard hold on him, floundered a moment, and
went over. Had I been going at top speed, a very nasty fall must
have been the immediate consequence—as it was, both of us rolled
over; but with small violence, and on soft snow, so that no harm
was done.
“As I came off, however, I found myself in a most unpleasant
neighborhood; for my good friend the wolf, hurt pretty badly by
the last shot, had, as it seemed, ensconced himself among the
logs, whence Bob's assault and subsequent discomfiture had somewhat
snow, I found myself within six feet of my friend, seemingly very
doubtful whether to fight or fly! But, by good luck, my bullet
had struck him on the hip-bone, and being of a rather large calibre,
had let his claret pretty freely loose, besides shattering the bone,
so that he was but in poor fighting trim; and I had time to get
back to the gray—who stood snorting and panting, up to his knees
in snow and rubbish, but without offering to stir—to draw my
second pistol, and to give Isegrin—as the Germans call him—the
coup de grace, before he could attain the friendly shelter of the
dingle, to which with all due speed he was retreating. By this
time all our comrades had assembled. Loud was the glee—boisterous
the applause, which fell especially to me, who had performed
with my own hand the glorious feat of slaying two wolves in one
morning; and deep the cups of applejack, Scotch whiskey, and
Jamaica spirits, which flowed in rich libations, according to the
tastes of the compotators, over the slaughtered quarry.
“Breakfast was produced on the spot; cold salt pork, onions, and
hard biscuit forming the principal dishes, washed down by nothing
weaker than the pure ardent! Not long, however, did fat Tom
permit us to enjoy our ease.
“`Come, boys,' he shouted, `no lazin' here; no gormandizin'—
the worst part of our work's afore us; the old lame devil is
afoot, and five miles off by now. We must get back, and lay the
hounds on, right stret off—and well if the scent an't cold now!
He's tuk right off toward Duckcedars'—for so Tom ever calls
Truxedo Pond—a lovely crescent-shaped lakelet deep in the bosom
of the Greenwoods—`so off with you, Jem, down by the road, as hard
as you can strick with ten of your boys in sleighs, and half the
hounds; and if you find his tracks acrost the road, don't wait for
us, but strick right arter him. You, Garry, keep stret down the
old road with ten dogs and all the plunder—we'll meet at night, I
reckon.'
“No sooner said than done! the parties were sent off with the
relays. This was on Monday morning—Tom and I, and some
thirteen others, with eight couple of the best dogs, stuck to his
slot on foot. It was two hours at least, so long had he been gone,
before a single hound spoke to it, and I had begun well nigh to
despair; but Tom's immense sagacity, which seemed almost to
know instinctively the course of the wily savage, enabling us to
cut off the angles of his course, at last brought us up somewhat
nearer to him. At about noon, two or three of the hounds opened,
but doubtfully and faintly. His slot, however, showed that they
were right, and lustily we cheered them on! Tom, marvelling the
while that we heard not the cry of Jem's relay.
“`For I'll be darned,' he said, `if he hasn't crossed the road
long enough since; and that dumb nigger, Jem,'s not had the sense
to stick to him!'
“For once, however, the fat man was wrong; for, as it appeared
when we neared the road, the wolf had headed back, scared doubtless
wide ring, had crossed three miles below the spot where Jem was
posted. This circuit we were forced to make, as at first sight we
fancied he had headed altogether back, and it was four o'clock
before we got upon his scent, hot, fresh, and breast-high; running
toward the road, that is, due eastward from the covert whence
he had bolted in the morning. Nor were our friends inactive; for,
guided by the clamors of our pack, making the forests musical, they
now held down the road; and, as the felon crossed, caught a long
view of him as he limped over it, and laid the fresh hounds on.
“A brilliant rally followed—we calling off our wearied dogs, and
hasting to the lower road, where we found Garry with the sleighs,
and dashing off in our turn through all sorts of bye-paths and
wood-roads to head them once again! This, with much labor, we
effected; but the full winter-moon had risen, and the innumerable
stars were sparkling in the frosty skies, when we flogged off the
hounds—kindled our night fires—prepared our evening meal, feasted,
and spread our blankets, and slept soundly under no warmer
canopy than the blue firmament—secure that our lame friend would
lie up for the night at no great distance. With the first peep of
dawn we were again afoot, and, the snow still befriending us, we
roused him from a cedar-brake at about nine o'clock, cut him off
three times with fresh dogs and men, the second day, and passed
the night, some sixteen miles from home, in the rude hovel of a
charcoal burner.
“Greater excitement I cannot imagine, than that wild, independent
chace!—sometimes on foot, cheering the hounds through
swamp and dingle, over rough cliffs and ledges where foot of horse
could avail nothing. Sometimes on horseback, gallopping merrily
through the more open woodlands. Sometimes careering in the
flying sleigh, to the gay music of its bells, along the wild wood
paths! Well did we fare, too—well! aye, sumptuously!—for our
outskirters, though they reserved their rifles for the appropriate
game, were not so sparing with the shot-gun; so that, night after
night, our chaldron reeked with the mingled steam of rabbit, quail,
and partridge, seethed up à la Meg Merrilies, with fat pork, onions,
and potatoes—by the Lord Harry! Frank, a glorious and unmatched
consummée.
“To make, however, a long tale short—for every day's work,
although varied to the actors by thousands of minute but unnarratable
particulars, would appear but as a repetition of the last, to the
mere listener—to make a long tale short, on the third day he
doubled back, took us directly over the same ground—and in the
middle of the day, on Saturday, was roused in view by the leading
hounds, from the same little swamp in which the five had harbored
during the early winter. No man was near the hounds when he
broke covert. But fat Tom, who had been detached from the party
to bring up provisions from the village, was driving in his sleigh
steadily along the road, when the sharp chorus of the hounds
aroused him. A minute after, the lame scoundrel limped across
his double-barrel, one loaded with buck shot, the other merely prepared
for partridge—he blazed away, however, but in vain! Out
came ten couple on his track, hard after him; and old Tom, cursing
his bad luck, stood to survey the chase across the open.
“Strange was the felon's fate! The first fence, after he had
crossed the road, was full six feet in height, framed of huge split
logs, piled so close together that, save between the two topmost
rails, a small dog even could have found no passage. Full at this
opening the wolf dashed, as fresh, Tom said, as though he had not
run a yard; but as he struggled through it, his efforts shook the
top rails from the yokes, and the huge piece of timber falling across
his loins, pinned him completely! At a mile off I heard his howl
myself, and the confused and savage hubbub, as the hounds front
and rear, assailed him.
“Hampered although he was, he battled it out fiercely—aye,
heroically—as six of our best hounds maimed for life, and one slain
outright, testified.
“Heavens! how the fat man scrambled across the fence! he
reached the spot, and, far too much excited to reload his piece and
quietly blow out the fierce brute's brains, fell to belaboring him about
the head with his gun stock, shouting the while and yelling; so
that the din of his tongue, mixed with the snarls and long howls of
the mangled savage, and the fierce baying of the dogs, fairly alarmed
me, as I said before, at a mile's distance!
“As it chanced, Timothy was on the road close by, with Peacock;
I caught sight of him, mounted, and spurred on fiercely to
the rescue; but when I reached the hill's brow, all was over. Tom,
puffing and panting like a grampus in shoal water, covered—garments
and face and hands—with lupine gore, had finished his huge
enemy, after he had destroyed his gun, with what he called a stick,
but what you and I, Frank, should term a fair-sized tree; and with
his foot upon the brindled monster's neck, was quaffing copious
rapture from the neck of a quart bottle—once full, but nowwell
nigh exhausted—of his appropriate and cherished beverage.[3]
Thus
fell the last wolf on the Hills of Warwick!
“There, I have finished my yarn, and in good time,” cried Harry,
“for here we are at the bridge, and in five minutes more we shall
be at old Tom's door.”
“A right good yarn!” said Forester; “and right well spun, upon
my word.”
“But is it a yarn?” asked A—, or is it intended to be the
truth?”
“Oh! the truth,” laughed Frank, “the truth, as much as Archer
can tell the truth; embellished, you understand, embellished!”
“The truth, strictly,” answered Harry, quietly—“the truth, not
embellished. When I tell personal adventures, I am not in the
habit of decorating them with falsehood.”
“I had no idea,” responded the Commodore, “that there had been
any wolves here so recently.”
“There are wolves here now,” said Archer, “though they are
scarce and wary. It was but last year that I rode down over the
back-bone of the mountain, on the Pompton road, in the night time,
and that on the third of July, and one fellow followed me along the
road till I got quite down into the cultivated country.”
“The devil he did!”
“How did you know he was following you?” exclaimed Frank
and the Commodore, almost in a breath.
“Did you see him?”
“Not I—but I heard him howl half a dozen times, and each time
nearer than before. When I got out of the hills he was not six hundred
yards behind me.”
“Pleasant, that! Were you armed? What did you do?”
“It was not really so unpleasant, after all—for I knew that he
would not attack me at that season of the year. I had my pistols
in my holsters; and for the rest, I jogged steadily along, taking
care to keep my nag in good wind for a spirt, if it should be needed.
I knew that for three or four miles I could outrun him, if it should
come to the worst, though in the end a wolf can run down the
fastest horse; and, as every mile brought me nearer to the settlement,
I did not care much about it. Had it been winter, when the
brutes are hard pressed for food, and the deep snows are against a
horse's speed, it would be a very different thing. Hurrah! here we
are! Hurrah! fat Tom! ahoy! a-ho-oy!”
In the State of New York close time for woodcock expires on the last day of
June—in New Jersey on the fourth of July—leaving the bird lawful prey on the 1st
and the 5th, respectively.
The facts and incidents of the lame wolf's death are strictly true, although they
were not witnessed by the writer.
4. THE SUPPER PARTY.
Blithe, loud and hearty was the welcome of fat Tom, when by
the clear view halloa with which Harry drove up to the door at a
spanking trot, the horses stopping willingly at the high well known
stoop, he learned who were these his nocturnal visiters. There was
a slight tinge of frostiness in the evening air, and a bright blazing
fire filled the whole bar-room with a cheerful merry light, and cast
a long stream of red lustre from the tall windows, and half-open
doorway, but in an instant all that escaped from the last mentioned
aperture was totally obstructed, as if the door had been pushed to,
by the huge body of mine host.
“Why, d—n it,” he exclaimed, “if that beant Archer! and a hull
grist of boys he's brought along with him, too, any how. How are
you, Harry, who've you got along? It's so etarnal thunderin'
dark as I carnt see'em no how!”
“Frank and the Commodore, that's all,” Archer replied, “and
how are you, old Corporation?”
Oh! oh! I'm most d—d glad as you've brought A—; you
might have left that other critter to home, though, jest as well—
we doosn't want him blowin' out his little hide here; lazin' about,
and doin' nothin' day nor night but eat and grumble; and drink,
and drink, as if he'd got a meal sack in his little guts. Why, Timothy,
how be you?” he concluded, smiting him on the back a
downright blow, that would have almost felled an ox, as he was
getting out the baggage.
“Doant thee noo, Measter Draa,” expostulated Tim, “behaave
thyself, man, or Ay'se give thee soomat thou woant Ioike, I'm
thinking. Noo! send oot yan o't' nagers, joost to stand tull t'nags
till Ay lift oot t'boxes!”
“A nigger, is it? d—n their black skins! there was a dozen here
jest now, a blockin' up the fire-side, and stinkin' so no white man
could come nearst it, till I got an axe-handle, half an hour or so
since, and cleared out the heap of them! Niggers! they'll be here
all of them torights, I warrant; where you sees Archer, there's
never no scaceness of dogs and niggers. But come, walk in boys!
walk in, anyhow—Jem'll be here torights, and he's worth two
d—d niggers any day, though he's black-fleshed, I guess, if one
was jest to skin the etarnal creatur.”
Very few minutes passed before they were all drawn up round
the fire, Captain Reade and two or three more making room for
them, as they pulled up their chairs about the glowing hearth—
having hung up their coats and capes against the wall.
“You'll be here best, boys,” said Tom, “for a piece—the parlor
fire's not been lit yet this fall, and it is quite cold nights now—but
Brower'll kindle it up agin supper, for you'll be wantin' to eat,
all of you, I reckon, you're sich d—d everlastin' gormandizers.”
“That most undoubtedly we shall,” said Frank, “for it's past
eight now, and the deuce a mouthful have we put into our heads
since twelve.”
“Barrin' the liquor, Frank! Barrin' the liquor—now don't lie!
don't lie, boy, so ridic'lous—as if I'd known you these six years,
and then was agoin' to believe as you'd not drinked since noon!”
“Why, you old hogshead you! who wants you to believe anything
of the kind—we had one drink at Tom's, your cousin's, when
we started, but deuce the drop since.”
“That's just the reason why you're so snarlish, then, I reckon!
Your coppers is got bilin', leastwise if they beant all biled out—
you'd best drink stret away, I guess, afore the bottom of the biler
gits left bare—for if it does, and it's red hot now, boy, you'll be a
blowin' up, like an old steamboat, when you pumps in fresh water.”
“Well, Tom,” said Archer, “I do not think it would be a bad
move to take a drop of something, and a cracker; for I suppose we
shall not get supper much short of two hours; and I'm so deuced
hungry, that if I don't get something just to take off the edge, I
shall not be able to eat when it does come!”
“I'll make a pitcher of egg nog; A——drinks egg nog, I guess,
although he's the poorest drinkin' man I ever did see. Now,
Brower, look alive—the fire's lit, is it? Well, then, jump now and
feed them two poor starvin' bags-a-bones, as Archer calls dogs, and
tell your mother to git supper. Have you brought anything along
to eat or drink, boys—I guess we have n't nothin' in the house!”
“Oh! you be hanged,” said Harry, “I've brought a round of
cold spiced beef, but I'm not going to cut that up for supper; we
shall want it to take along for luncheon—you must get something!
Oh, by the way, you may let the girls pick half a dozen quail and
broil them, if you choose!”
“Quail! do you say? and where'll I git quail, I'd be pleased to
know?”
“Out of that gamebag,” answered Harry, deliberately, pointing
to the well filled plump net which Timothy had just brought in and
hung up on the pegs beside the box-coats. Without a word or syllable
the old chap rushed to the wall, seized it, and scarcely pausing
to sweep out of the way a large file of “the Spirit,” and several
numbers of “the Register,” emptied it on the table.
“Where the h—l, Archer, did you kill them?” he asked, “you
did n't kill all them to-day, I guess! One, two, three—why, there's
twenty-seven cock, and forty-nine quail! By gin! here's another;
just fifty quail, three partridge, and six rabbits; well, that's a most
all-fired nice mess, I swon; if you killed them to-day you done right
well, I tell you—you won't git no such mess of birds here now—
but you was two days killin' these, I guess!”
“Not we, Tom! Frank and I drove up from York last night, and
slept at young Tom's, down the valley—we were out just as soon
as it was light, and got the quail, all except fifteen or sixteen,
the ruffed grouse and four rabbits, before twelve o'clock. At
twelve the Commodore came up from Nyack, where he left his
one, and between that and five bagged all the cock, the balance, as
you would call it, of the quail, and the other two bunnies.”
“Well, then, you made good work of it, I tell you, and you wont
do nothin' like that again this winter—not in Warwick; but I won't
touch them quail—it's a sin to break that bunch—but you do n't
never care to take the rabbits home, and the old woman's got some
beautiful fresh onions—she'll make a stew of them—a smother, as
you call it, in a little less than no time, Archer; and I've got
half a dozen of them big gray snipe—English snipe—that I killed
down by my little run'-side; you'll have them roasted with the
guts in, I guess! and then there's a pork-steak and sassagers—and
if you don't like that, you can jist go without. Here, Brower, take
these to your mother, and tell her to git supper right stret off—and
you tell Emma Jane to make some buckwheat cakes for A—! he
can't sup no how without buckwheat cakes; and I sets a great store
by A—! I doos, by G—! and you need n't laugh, boys, for I doos
a darned sight more than what I doos by you.”
“That's civil, at all events, and candid,” replied Frank; “and
it's consolatory, too, for I can fancy no greater reproach to a man,
than to be set store on by you. I do not comprehend at all, how
A— bears up under it. But come, do make that egg nog that
you're chattering about.”
“How will I make it, Harry—with beer, or milk, or cider!”
“All three! now be off, and don't jaw any more!” answered Archer—“asking
such silly questions, as if you did not know better
than any of us.”
In a few minutes the delicious compound was prepared, and, with
a plate of toasted crackers and some right good Orange County
butter, was set on a small round stand before the fire; while from
the neighboring kitchen rich fnmes began to load the air, indicative
of the approaching supper. In the mean time, the wagon was unloaded;
Timothy bustled to and fro; the parlor was arranged; the
bed-rooms were selected by that worthy; and every thing set out
in its own place, so that they could not possibly have been more
comfortable in their own houses. The horses had been duly cleaned,
and clothed, and fed; the dogs provided with abundance of dry
straw, and a hot mess of milk and meal; and now, in the far corner
of the bar-room, the indefatigable varlet was cleaning the three
double guns, as scientifically as though he had served his apprenticeship
to a gunsmith.
Just at this moment a heavy foot was heard upon the stoop, succeeded
by a whining and a great scratching at the door. “Here comes
that Indian, Jem,” cried Tom, and as he spoke the door flew open,
and in rushed old Whino, the tall black and tan fox-hound, and
Bonnybelle, and Blossom, and another large blue mottled bitch, of
the Southern breed. It was a curious sight to observe by how sudden
and intuitive an instinct the hounds rushed up to Archer, and
fawned upon him, jumping up with their fore-paws upon his knees,
and thrusting their bland smiling faces almost into his face; as he,
dog language to them, until, excited beyond all measure, old
Whino seated himself deliberately on the floor, raised his nose toward
the ceiling, and set up a long, protracted, and most melancholy
howl, which, before it had attained, however, to its grand climax,
was brought to a conclusion by being converted into a sharp
and treble yell! a consummation brought about by a smart application
of Harry's double-thonged four-horse whip, wielded with all the
power of Tom's right arm, and accompanied by a “Git out, now,
d—n you—the whole grist! Kennel! now, kennel! out with them,
Jem, consarn you; out with them, and yourself, too! out of this, or
I'll put the gad about you, you white Deckerin' nigger you!”
“Come back, when you have put them up, Jem; and mind you
don't let them be where they can get at the setters, or they'll be
fighting like the devil,” interposed Archer—“I want to have a chat
with you. By-the-bye, Tom, where's Dash—you'd better look out,
or the Commodore's dog, Grouse, will eat him before morning—
mine will not quarrel with him, but Grouse will to a certainty.”
“Then for a sartainty I'll shoot Grouse, and wallop Grouse's
master, and that 'ill be two d—d right things done one mornin';
the first would be a most d—d right one, any how, and kind too! for
theu A— would be forced to git himself a good, nice setter dog,
and not go shootin' over a great old fat bustin' pinter, as is n't worth
so much as I be to hunt birds!”
“Ha! ha! ha!” shouted the Commodore, whom nothing can, by
any earthly means, put out of temper, “ha! ha! ha! I should like to
see you shoot Grouse, Tom, for all the store you set by me, you'd
get the worst of that game. You had better take Archer's advice,
I can tell you.”
“Archer's advice, indeed! it's likely now that I'd have left my
nice little dog to be spiled by your big brutes, now aint it? Come,
come, here's supper.”
“Get something to drink, Jem, along with Timothy, and come
in when we've got through supper.”
“Yes, sir,” replied the knight of the cut-throat; “I've got some
news to tell you, too, Tom, if you'll wait a bit.”
“D—n you, and your news too,” responded Tom, “you're sich a
thunderin' liar, there's no knowin' when you do speak truth. We'll
not be losin' our supper for no lies, I guess! Leastways I won't!
Come, Archer.”
And with a right good appetite they walked into the parlor;
every thing was in order; every article placed just as it had been
when Frank went up to spend his first week in the Woodlands;
the gun-case stood on the same chairs below the window; the table
by the door was laid out with the same display of powder-flasks,
shot-pouches, and accountrements of all sizes. The liquor stand was
placed by Harry's chair, open, containing the case-bottles, the rummers
being duly ranged upon the board, which was well lighted by
four tall wax candles, and being laid with Harry's silver, made
quite a smart display. The rabbits smoked at the head, smothered
chops, thin and crisply broiled, exhaled rich odors at the bottom;
the English snipe, roasted to half a turn, and reposing on their neat
squares of toast, were balanced by a dish of well-fried sausages, reclining
on a bed of mashed potatoes; champagne was on the table,
unresined and unwired, awaiting only one touch of the knife to release
the struggling spirit from its transparent prison. Few words
were spoken for some time, unless it were a challenge to champagne,
the corks of which popped frequently and furious; or a request
for another snipe, or another spoonfull of the sauce; while all
devoted themselves to the work in hand with a sincere and business-like
earnestness of demeanor, that proved either the excellence
of Tom Draw's cookery, or the efficacy of the Spartan sauce which
the sportsmen had brought to assist them at their meal. The last
rich drops of the fourth flask were trickling into Tom's wide-lipped
rummer, when Harry said,
“Come, we have done, I think, for one night; let's have the eatables
removed, and we will have a pipe, and hear what Jem has got
to say; and you have told us nothing about birds, either, you old
elephant; what do you mean by it? That's right, Tim, now bring
in my cigars, and Mr. Forester's cheroots, and cold iced water, and
boiling hot water, and sugar, out of my box, and lemons. The shrub
is here, and the Scotch whiskey; will you have another bottle of
champagne, Tom? No! Well, then, look sharp, Timothy, and send
Jem in.”
And thereupon Jem entered, thumbing his hat assiduously, and
sat down in the corner, by the window, where he was speedily accommodated
with a supply of liquor, enough to temper any quantity
of clay.
“Well, Jem,” said Archer, “unbutton your bag now; what's
the news?”
“Well, Mr. Aircher, it be n't no use to tell you on't, with Tom,
there, puttin' a body out, and swearin' it's a lie, and dammin' a
chap up and down. It be n't no use to tell you, and yet I'd kind o'
like to, but then you won't believe a fellow, not one on you!”
“In course not,” answered Forester; and at the same instant
Tom struck in likewise—
“It's a lie, afore you tell it; it's a lie, d—n you, and you knows
it. I'd sooner take a nigger's word than yours, Jem, any how, for
the d—d niggers will tell the truth when they ca n't git no good by
lyin', but you, you will lie all times! When the truth would do the
best, and you would tell it if you could, you ca n't help lyin'!”
“Shut up, you old thief; shut up instantly, and let the man speak,
will you; I can see by his face that he has got something to tell;
and as for lying, you beat him at it any day.”
Tom was about to answer, when Harry, who had been eagerly
engaged in mixing a huge tumbler-full of strong cold shrub punch,
thrust it under his nose, and he, unable to resist the soft seductive
odor, seized it incontinently, and neither spoke nor breathed again
until the bottom of the rummer was brought parallel to the ceiling;
eructation; and then, with a calm placid smile, exclaimed,
“Tell on, Jem.” Whereupon that worthy launched into his full
tide of narrative, as follows.
“Well, you sees, Mr. Aircher, I tuk up this mornin' clean up
the old crick side, nigh to Vernon, and then I turned in back of old
Squire Vandergriff's, and druv the mountains clear down here till
I reached Rocky Hill; I'd pretty good sport, too, I tell you; I shot
a big gray fox on Round Top, and started a raal rouser of a red one
down in the big swamp, in the bottom, and them sluts did keep the
darndest ragin' you ever did hear tell on. Well, they tuk him
clean out across the open, past Andy Joneses, and they skeart up in
his stubbles three bevies, I guess, got into one like! there was a
drove of them, I tell you, and then they brought him back to the
hills agin, and run him twice clean round the Rocky Hill, and when
they came round the last time, the English sluts war n't half a rod
from his tail no how, and so he tried his last chance, and he holed;
but my! now Mr. Aircher, by d—n you niver did see nothin' like
the partridges; they kept a brushin' up and brushin' up, and treein'
every little while; I guess if I seen one I seen a hundred; why, I
killed seven on 'em with coarse shot up in the pines, and I dared n't
shoot exceptin' at their heads. If you'll go up there now, to-morrow,
and take the dogs along, I know as you'll git fifty.”
“Well, if that's all your news, Jem, I won't give you much for
it; and, as for going into the mountains to look after partridges,
you don't catch me at it, that's all!” said Harry. “Is that all?”
“Not by a great shot!” answered Jem, grinning, “but the truth
is, I know you won't believe me; but I can tell you what, you can
kill a big fat buck, if you'll git up a little afore daylight!”
“A buck, Jem! a buck near here?” inquired Forester and Archer
in a breath.
“I told you, boys, the critter could n't help it; he's stuck to
truth jest so long, and he was forced to lie, or else he would have
busted!”
“It's true, by thunder,” answered Jem; “I wish I may n't eat
nor drink nother, if there's one bit of lie in it; d—n the bit, Tom!
I'm in airnest, now, right down; and you knows as I would n't go
to lie about it!”
“Well! well! where was't; where was't, Jem?”
“Why, he lies, I guess, now, in that little thickest swamp of all,
jist in the eend of the swale atween Round Top and Rocky Hill,
right in the pines and laurels; leastways I druv him down there
with the dogs, and I swon that he never crossed into the open
meadow; and I went round, and made a circle like clean round
about him, and d—n the dog trailed on him no how; and bein' as
he's hard hot, I guess he'll stay there since he harbored.”
“Hard hit, is he? why, did you get a shot at him?”
“A fair one,” Jem replied; “not three rod off from me; he jumped
up out of the channel of Stony Brook, where, in a sort o' bend,
there was a lot of bushes, sumach and winter-green, and ferns; he
off when he bounced up first, but I pulled without cocking, and
when I'd got my gun fixed, he'd got off a little piece, and I'd got
nauthen but fox-shot, but I hot him jist in the side of the flank; the
blood flew out like winkin', and the hounds arter him like mad, up
and down, and round and back, and he a kind o' weak like, and
they'd overhauled him once and again, and tackled him, but there
was only four on them, and so he beat them off like every time, and
onned again! They could n't hold him no how, till I got up to
them, and I could n't fix it no how, so as I'd git another shot at
him; but it was growin' dark fast, and I flogged off the sluts arter
a deal o' work, and viewed him down the old blind run-way into the
swale eend, where I telled you; and then I laid still quite a piece;
and then I circled round, to see if he'd quit it, and not one dog tuk
track on him, and so I feels right sartain as he's in that hole now,
and will be in the mornin', if so be we goes there in time, afore the
sun's up.”
“That we can do easily enough,” said Archer, “what do you
say, Tom? Is it worth while?”
“Why,” answered old Draw instantly, “if so be only we could
be sartain that the d—d critter warn't a lyin', there could n't be no
doubt about it; for if the buck did lay up there this night, why
he'll be there to-morrow; and if so be he's there, why we can get
him sure!”
“Well, Jem, what have you got to say now,” said the Commodore;
“is it the truth or no?”
“Why, darn it all,” retorted Jem, “harn't I just told you it was
true; it's most d—d hard a fellow can't be believed now—why,
Mr. Aircher, did I ever lie to you?”
“Oh! if you ask me that,” said Harry, “you know I must say
`Yes!'—for you have, fifty times at the least computation. Do you
remember the day you towed me up the Decker's run to look for
woodcock?”
“And you found nothing,” interrupted Tom, “but wood”—
“Oh shut up, do Tom,” broke in Forester, “and let us hear
about this buck. If we agree to give you a five dollar bill, Jem,
in case we do find him where you say, what will you be willing to
forfeit if we do not?”
“You may shoot at me, by G—d!” answered Jem, “all on you
—ivery one on you—at forty yards, with rifle or buckshot!”
“It certainly is very likely that we should be willing to get
hanged for the sake of shooting such a mangy hound as you, Jem,”
answered Forester, “when one could shoot a good clean dog—
Tom's Dash, for example--for nothing!”
“Could you though?” Tom replied, “I'd like to ketch you at
it, my dear boy—I'd wax the little hide off of you. But come, let us
be settling. Is it a lie now, Jem; speak out—is it a lie, consarn
you? for if it be, you'd best jest say't out now, and save your bones
to-morrow. Well, boys, the critter's sulky, so most like it is true
—and I guess we'll be arter him. We'll be up bright and airly,
at all, and be right back to breakfast. I'll start Jem and the captain
here, and Dave Seers, with the dogs, an hour a fore us! and let
them come right down the swale, and drive him to the open—Harry
and Forester, you two can ride your own nags, and I'll take old
Roan, and A—— here shall have the colt.”
“Very well! Timothy, did they feed well to-night? if they did,
give them tbeir oats very early, and no water. I know it's too bad
after their work to-day, but we shall not be out two hours!”
“Weel! it's no matter gin they were oot six,” responded
Timothy, “they wadna be a pin the waur o't!”
“Take out my rifle, then—and pick some buckshot cartridges to
fit the bore of all the double guns. Frank's got his rifle; so you
can take my heavy single gun—your gauge is 17, A——, quite too
small for buckshot; mine is 11, and will do its work clean with
Ely's cartridge and pretty heavy powder, at eighty-five to ninety
yards. Tom's bore is twelve, and I've brought some to fit his old
double, and some, too, for my own gun, though it is almost too
small!”
“What gauge is yours, Harry?”
“Fourteen; which I consider the very best bore possible for
general shooting. I think the gunsmiths are running headlong
now into the opposite of their old error—when they found that fifteens
and fourteens outshot vastly the old small calibres—fifty years
since no guns were larger than eighteen, and few than twenty;
they are now quite out-doing it. I have seen late-imported guns of
seven pounds, and not above twenty-six inches long, with eleven
and even ten gauge calibres! you might as well shoot with a blunderbus
at once!”[4]
“They would tell at cock in close summer covert,” answered
A——.
“For a man who can't cover his bird they might,” replied Harry;
“but you may rely on it they lose three times as much in force as
they gain in the space they cover; at forty yards you could not kill
even a woodcock with them once in fifty times, and a quail, or English
snipe, at that distance never!”
“What do you think the right length and weight, then, for an
eleven bore?”
“Certainly not less than nine pounds, and thirty inches; but I
would prefer ten pounds and thirty-three inches; though except,
for a fowl-gun to use in boat-shooting, such a piece would be quite
too ponderous and clumsy. My single gun is eleven gauge, eight
pounds and thirty-three inches; and even with loose shot executes
superbly; but with Ely's green cartridge I have put forty BB shot
into a square of two and a half feet at one hundred and twenty-five
yards; sharply enough, too, to imbed the shot so firmly in the fence
knife to get them out. This I propose that you should use tomorrow,
with a 1½ oz. SG cartridge, which contains eighteen buck-shot,
and which, if you get a shot any where within a hundred
yards, will kill him as dead, I warrant it, as an ounce bullet.”
“Which you intend to try, I fancy,” added Frank.
“Not quite! my rifle carries eighteen only to the pound; and
yours, if I forget not, only thirty-two.”
“But mine is double.”
“Never mind that; thirty-two will not execute with certainty
above a hundred and fifty yards!”
“And how far in the devil's name would you have it execute, as
you calls it,” asked old Tom.
“Three hundred!” replied Harry, coolly.
“H—ll,” replied Draw, “do n't tell me no sich thunderin' nonsense;
I'll stand all day and be shot at, like a Christmas turkey, at
sixty rods, for sixpence a shot, any how.”
“I'll bet you all the liquor we can drink while we are here,
Tom,” answered Harry, “that I hit a four foot target at three hundred
yards to-morrow!”
“Off hand?” inquired Tom, with an attempt at a sneer.
“Yes, off hand! and no shot to do that either; I know men—
lots of them--who would bet to hit a foot[5]
square at that distance!”
“Well! you can't hit four, no how!”
“Will you bet?”
“Sartain!”
“Very well—Done—Twenty dollars I will stake against all the
liquor we drink while we're here. Is it a bet?”
“Yes! Done!” cried Tom—“at the first shot, you know; I
gives no second chances.”
“Very well, as you please!—I'm sure of it, that's all—Lord,
Frank, how we will drink and treat—I shall invite all the town up
here to-morrow—Come!—One more round for luck, and then to
bed!”
“Content!” cried A——; “but I mean Mr. Draw to have an
argument to-morrow night about this point of Setter vs. Pointer!
How do you say, Harry?—which is best?”
“Oh! I'll be Judge and Jury”—answered Archer—“and you
shall plead before me; and I'll make up my mind in the meantime!”
“He's for me, any how,”—shouted Tom—“Darn it all, Harry,
you knows you would n't own a pinter—no not if it was gin you!”
“I believe you are about right there, old fellow, so far as this
country goes at least?”—said Archer—“different dogs for different
soils and seasons—and, in my judgment, setters are far the best
this side the Atlantic—but it is late now, and I can't stand chattering
here—good night—you shall have as much dog-talk as you like
to-morrow.”
N.B.—Since this was written the fashion has changed again, and the English gunsmiths
are building all seventeens and eighteens—too small, I think, for general work,
and for this country especially.
When this was written strong exception was taken to it by a Southern writer
in the Spirit of the Times. Had that gentleman known what is the practice of the
heavy Tyrolese rifle he would not have written so confidently. But it is needless
to go so far as to the Tyrol. There is a well known rifle-shot in New York, who can
perform the feat, any day, which the Southern writer scoffed at as utterly impossible.
Scrope on Deerstalking will show to any impartial reader's satisfaction, that
stags in the Highlands are rarely killed within 200 and generally beyond 300 yards'
distance.
5. THE OUTLYING STAG.
It was still pitch dark, although the skies were quite clear and
cloudless, when Harry, Frank, and the Commodore re-assembled on
the following morning in Tom's best parlor, preparatory to the stag
hunt which, as determined on the previous night, was to be their
first sporting move in the valley.
Early, however, as it was, Timothy had contrived to make a
glorious fire upon the hearth, and to lay out a slight breakfast of
biscuits, butter, and cold beef, flanked by a square case-bottle of
Jamaica, and a huge jorum of boiled milk. Tom Draw had not yet
made his appearance, but the sound of his ponderous tramp, mixed
with strange oaths and loud vociferations, showed that he was on
foot, and ready for the field.
“I'll tell you what, Master A—,” said Archer, as he stood with
his back to the fire, mixing some rum with sugar and cold water,
previous to pouring the hot milk into it—“You'll be so cold in that
light jacket on the stand this morning, that you'll never be able to
hold your gun true, if you get a shot. It froze quite hard last night,
and there's some wind, too, this morning.”
“That's very true”—replied the Commodore—“but devil a thing
have I got else to wear, unless I put on my great coat, and that's
too much the other way—too big and clumsy altogether. I shall
do well enough, I dare say; and after all, my drilling jacket is not
much thinner than your fustian.”
“No”—said Harry—but you do n't fancy that I'm going out in
this, do you?—No! no! I'm too old a hand for that sort of thing—
I know that to shoot well, a man must be comfortable, and I mean
to be so. Why, man, I shall put on my Canadian hunting shirt
over this”—and with the word he slipped a loose frock, shaped
much like a wagoner's smock, or a Flemish blouse, over his head,
with large full sleeves, reaching almost to his knees, and belted
round his waist, by a broad worsted sash. This excellent garment
was composed of a thick coarse homespun woollen, bottle-green in
color, with fringe and bindings of dingy red, to match the sash about
his waist, From the sash was suspended an otter skin pouch, containing
bullets and patches, nipple wrench and turn-screw, a bit of
dry tow, an oiled rag, and all the indispensables for rifle cleaning;
while into it were thrust two knives—one a broad two-edged implement,
with a stout buck-horn haft, and a blade of at least twelve
inches—the other a much smaller weapon, not being, hilt and all,
half the length of the other's blade, but very strong, sharp as a
razor, and of surpassing temper. While he was fitting all these in
their proper places, and slinging under his left arm a small buffalo
horn of powder—he continued talking—
“Now”—he said—“if you take my advice, you'll go into my
room, and there, hanging against the wall, you'll find my winter
of pilot cloth, lined throughout with flannel. It will fit you just as
well as your own, for we're pretty much of a size. Frank, there,
will wear his old monkey jacket, the skirts of which he razeed last
winter for the very purpose. Ah, here is Brower—just run up,
Brower, and bring down my shooting jacket off the wall from behind
the door—look sharp, will you!—Now, then, I shall load, and
I advise you both to do likewise; for it's bad work doing that same
with cold fingers.”
Thus saying, he walked to the corner, and brought out his rifle,
a heavy single barrel, carrying a ball of eighteen to the pound,
quite plain but exquisitely finished. Before proceeding, however,
to load, he tried the passage of the nipple with a fine needle—three
or four of which, thrust into a cork, and headed with sealing wax,
formed a portion of the contents of his pouch—brushed the cone, and
the inside of the hammer, carefully, and wiped them, to conclude,
with a small piece of clean white kid—then measuring his powder
out exactly, into a little charger screwed to the end of his ramrod,
he inverted the piece, and introduced the rod upward till the cup
reached the chamber; when, righting the gun, he withdrew it,
leaving the powder all lodged safely at the breech, without the loss
of a single grain in the groovings. Next, he chose out a piece of
leather, the finest grained kid, without a seam or wrinkle, slightly
greased with the best watch-maker's oil—selected a ball perfectly
round and true—laid the patch upon the muzzle, and placing the
bullet exactly in the centre over the bore, buried it with a single
rap of a small lignum vitæ mallet, which hung from his button-hole;
and then, with but a trifling effort, drove it home by one steady
thrust of the stout copper-headed charging rod. This done, he
again inspected the cone, and seeing that the powder was forced
quite up into sight, picked out, with the same anxious scrutiny that
had marked all of his proceedings, a copper cap, which he pronounced
sure to go, applied it to the nipple, crushed it down firmly, with
the hammer, which he then drew back to half-cock, and bolted.
Then he set the piece down by the fireside, drained his hot jorum,
and—
“That fellow will do his work, and no mistake”—said he—
“Now A—, here is my single gun”—handing to him, as he spoke,
one of the handsomest Westley Richards a sportsman ever handled
—“thirty-three inches, nine pounds and eleven gauge. Put in
one-third above that charger, which is its usual load, and one of
those green cartridges, and I'll be bound that it will execute at
eighty paces; and that is more than Master Frank there can say
for his Manton Rifle, at least if he loads it with bullets patched in
that slovenly and most unsportsmanlike fashion.”
“I should like to know what the deuce you mean by slovenly
and unsportsmanlike”—said Frank, pulling out of his breast pocket
a couple of bullets, carefully sewed up in leather—“it is the best
plan possible, and saves lots of time—you see I can just shove my
balls in at once, without any bother of fitting patches.”
“Yes”—replied Harry—“and five to one the seam, which, however
neatly it is drawn, must leave a slight ridge, will cross the
direction of the grooving, and give the ball a counter movement;
either destroying altogether the rotatory motion communicated by the
rifling, or causing it to take a direction quite out of the true line;
accordingly as the counteraction is conveyed near the breech, or
near the muzzle of the piece.”
“Will so trifling a cause produce so powerful an effect?” inquired
the Commodore.
“The least variation, whether of concavity or convexity in the
bullet, will do so unquestionably—and I cannot see why the same
thing in a covering superinduced to the ball should not have the
same effect. Even a hole in a pellet of shot will cause it to leave
the charge, and fly off at a tangent. I was once shooting in the
fens of the Isle of Ely, and fired at a mallard sixty or sixty-five
yards off, with double B shot, when to my great amazement a workman—digging
peat at about the same distance from me with the
bird, but at least ninety yards to the right of the mallard—roared
out lustily that I had killed him. I saw that the drake was knocked
over as dead as a stone, and consequently laughed at the fellow,
and set it down as a cool trick to extort money, not uncommon
among the fen men, as applied to members of the University. I
had just finished loading, and my retriever had just brought in the
dead bird, which was quite riddled, cut up evidently by the whole
body of the charge—both the wings broken, one in three places,
one leg almost dissevered, and several shots in the neck and body—
when up came my friend, and sure enough he was hit—one pellet
had struck him on the cheek bone, and was imbedded in the skin.
Half a crown, and a lotion of whiskey—not applied to the part, but
taken inwardly—soon proved a sovereign medicine, and picking out
the shot with the point of a needle, I found a hole in it big enough to
admit a pin's head, and about the twentieth part of an inch in depth.
This I should think is proof enough for you—but, besides this, I
have seen bullets in pistol-shooting play strange vagaries, glancing
off from the target at all sorts of queer angles.”
“Well! well!”—replied Frank, “my rifle shoots true enough for
me—true enough to kill generally—and who the deuce can be at
the bother of your pragmatical preparations? I am sure it might be
said of you, as it was of James the First, of most pacific and pedantic
memory, that you are “Captain of arts and Clerk of arms”—at
least you are a very pedant in gunnery.”
“No! no!” said A—; “You're wrong there altogether, Master
Forester; there is nothing on earth that makes so great a difference
in sportsmanship as the observation of small things. I do n't
call him a sportsman who can walk stoutly, and kill well, unless he
can give causes for effects—unless he knows the haunts and habits
both of his game and his dogs—unless he can give a why for every
wherefore!”
“Then devil a bit will you ever call me one”—answered Frank
—“For I can't be at the trouble of thinking about it.”
“Stuff—humbug—folly”—interupted Archer—“you know a
d—d deal better than that—and so do we, too!—you're only cranky!
a little cranky, Frank, and given to defending any folly you commit
without either rhyme or reason—as when you tried to persuade
me that it is the safest thing in nature to pour gunpowder out of
a canister into a pound flask, with a lighted cigar between your
teeth; to demonstrate which you had scarcely screwed the top of
the horn on, before the lighted ashes fell all over it—had they done
so a moment sooner, we should all have been blown out of the
room.”
By this time, the Commodore had donned Harry's winter jacket,
and Frank, grumbling and paradoxizing all the while, had loaded
his rifle, and buttoned up his pea-jacket, when in stalked Tom,
swathed up to his chin in a stout dreadnought coat.
“What are ye lazin' here about?”—he shouted—“you're niver
ready no how—Jem's been agone these two hours, and we'll jest
be too late, and miss gittin' a shot—if so be there be a buck—which
I'll be sworn there arn't!”
“Ha! ha!”—the Commodore burst out—“ha! ha! ha!—I
should like to know which side the laziness has been on this morning,
Mister Draw.”
“On little wax skin's there”—answered the old man, as quick as
lightning—“the little snoopin' critter carn't find his gloves now;
though the nags is at the door, and we all ready. We'll drink, boys,
while he's lookin' arter 'em—and then when he's found them, and 's
jest a gittin' on his horse, he'll find he's left his powder-horn or
knife, or somethin' else, behind him; and then we'll drink agin,
while he snoops back to fetch it.”
“You be hanged, you old rascal”—replied Forester, a little bothered
by the huge shouts of laughter which followed this most
strictly accurate account of his accustomed method of proceeding;
an account which, by the way, was fully justified not twenty
minutes afterward, by his galloping back, neck or nothing, to get
his pocket handkerchief, which he had left “in course,” as Tom
said, in his dressing-gown beside the fire.
“Come, bustle—bustle!” Harry added, as he put on his hunting
cap and pulled a huge pair of fen boots on, reaching to the mid-thigh,
which Timothy had garnished with a pair of bright English
spurs. In another minute they were all on horseback, trotting
away at a brisk pace toward the little glen, wherein, according to
Jem's last report, the stag was harbored. It was in vain that during
their quick ride the old man was entreated to inform them where
they were to take post, or what they were to do, as he would give
them no reply, nor any information whatever.
At last, however, when Forester rejoined them, after his return
to the village, he turned short off from the high road to the left,
and as he passed a set of bars into a wild hill pasture, struck into a
hard gallop.
Before them lay the high and ridgy head of Round Top, his
flanks sloping toward them, in two broad pine-clad knobs, with a
swamp of small extent, but full of tall dense thornbushes, matted
with vines and cat-briers, and carpeted with a rich undergrowth of
fern and wintergreen, and whortleberries. To the right and left of
the two knobs or spurs just mentioned, were two other deep gorges,
or dry channels, bare of brushwood, and stony—rock-walled, with
steep precipitous ledges toward the mountain, but sloping easily up
to the lower ridges. As they reached the first of these, Tom motioned
Forester to stop.
“Stand here,” he whispered, “close in here, jest behind this
here crag—and look out hereaways toward the village. If he
comes down this runway, kill him, but mind you doos n't show a
hair out of this corner; for Archer, he'll stand next, and if so be he
crosses from the swamp hole hereaways, you'll chance to get a
bullet. Be, still, now, as a mouse, and tie your horse here in the
cove!—Now, lads”—
And off he set again, rounded the knob, and making one slight
motion toward the nook, wherein he wished that Harry should keep
guard, wheeled back in utter silence, and very slowly—for they
were close to the spot wherein, as they supposed, the object of their
chase was laid up; and as yet but two of his paths were guarded
toward the plain; Jem and his comrades having long since got with
the hounds into his rear, and waiting only for the rising of the sun
to lay them on, and push along the channel of the brook.
This would compel him to break covert, either directly from the
swamp, or by one of the dry gorges mentioned. Now, therefore,
was the crisis of the whole matter; for if—before the other passes
were made good—the stag should take alarm, he might steal off
without affording a chance of a shot, and get into the mountains to
the right, where they might hunt him for a week in vain.
No marble statue could stand more silently or still than Harry
and his favorite gray, who, with erected ears and watchful eye,
trembling a little with excitement, seemed to know what he was
about, and to enjoy it no less keenly than his rider. Tom and the
Commodore, quickening their pace as they got out of ear-shot, retraced
their steps quite back to the turnpike road, along which
Harry saw them gallop furiously, in a few minutes, and turn up,
half a mile off, toward the further gulley—he saw no more, however;
though he felt certain that the Commodore was, scarce ten
minutes after he lost sight of them, standing within twelve paces of
him, at the further angle of the swamp—Tom having warily determined
that the two single guns should take post together, while the
two doubles should be placed where the wild quarry could get off
encountering but a single sportsman.
It was a period of intense excitement before the sun rose, though
it was of short duration—but scarcely had his first rays touched the
open meadow, casting a huge gray shadow from the rounded hill
which covered half the valley, while all the farther slope was laughing
in broad light, the mist wreaths curling up, thinner and thinner
every moment from the broad streamlet in the bottom, which here
scarcely had his first rays topped the hill, before a distant shout
came swelling on the air, down the ravine, announcing Jem's approach.
No hound gave tongue, however, nor did a rustle in the
brake, or any sound of life, give token of the presence of the game
—louder and nearer drew the shouts—and now Harry himself began
to doubt if there were any truth in Jem's relation, when suddenly
the sharp quick crack of Forester's rifle gave token that the
game was afoot—a loud yell from that worthy followed.
“Look out! Mark—back—mark back!”
And keenly Archer did look out, and warily did he listen—once
he detected, or fancied he detected, a rustling of the underwood,
and the crack of a dry stick, and dropping his reins on the horse's
neck, he cocked his rifle—but the sound was not repeated, nor did
any thing come into sight—so he let down the hammer once again,
and resumed his silent watch, saying to himself—
“Frank fired too quick, and he has headed up the brook to Jem.
If he is forward enough now, we shall have him back instantly,
with the hounds at his heels; but if he has loitered and hung back,
`over the hills and far away' is the word for this time.”
But Jem was in his place, and in another moment a long whoop
came ringing down the glen, and the shrill yelping rally of the
hounds as they all opened on a view together! Fiercer and wilder
grew the hubbub! And now the eager watcher might hear the
brushwood torn in all directions by the impetuous passage of the
wild deer and his inveterate pursuers.
“Now, then, it is old Tom's chance, or ours,” he thought, “for
he will not try Forester again, I warrant him, and we are all down
wind of him—so he can't judge of our whereabouts.”
In another second the bushes crashed to his left hand, and behind
him, while the dogs were raving scarcely a pistol-shot off, in the
tangled swamp. Yet he well knew that if the stag should break
there it would be A—'s shot, and, though anxious, he kept his
eye fixed steadily on his own point, holding his good piece cocked
and ready.
“Mark! Harry, mark him!”—a loud yell from the Commodore.
The stag had broken midway between them, in full sight of
A—, and seeing him, had wheeled off to the right. He was now
sweeping onward across the open field with high graceful bounds,
tossing his antlered head aloft, as if already safe, and little hurt, if
any thing, by Jem Lyn's boasted shot of the last evening. The gray
stood motionless, trembling, however, palpably, in every limb, with
eagerness—his ears laid flat upon his neck, and cowering a little,
as if he feared the shot, which it would seem his instinct told him
to expect. Harry had dropped his reins once more, and levelled
his unerring rifle—yet for a moment's space he paused, waiting for
A— to fire; there was no hurry for himself, nay, a few seconds
more would give him a yet fairer shot, for the buck now was running
partially toward him, so that a moment more would place him
broadside on, and within twenty paces.
“Bang!” came the full and round report of A—'s large shot-gun,
fired before the beast was fifteen yards away from him. He
had aimed at the head, as he was forced to do, lest he should spoil
the haunches, for he was running now directly from him—and had
the buck been fifty paces off he would have killed him dead, lodging
his whole charge, or the best part of it, in the junction of the
neck and skull—but as it was, the cartridge—the green cartridge—
had not yet spread at all; nor had one buckshot left the case!
Whistling like a single ball, as it passed Harry's front eight or nine
yards off, it drove, as his quick eye discovered, clean through the
stag's right ear, almost dissevering it, and making the animal bound
six feet off the green sward.
Just as he touched the earth again, alighting from his mighty
spring, with an aim sure and steady, and a cool practised finger, the
marksman drew his trigger, and, quick as light, the piece—well
loaded, as its dry crack announced—discharged its ponderous missile!
But, bad luck on it, even at that very instant, just in the
point of time wherein the charge was ignited, eighteen or twenty
quail, flushed by the hubbub of the hounds, rose with a loud and
startling whirr, on every side of the gray horse, under his belly and
about his ears, so close as almost to brush him with their wings—
he bolted and reared up—yet even at that disadvantage the practised
rifleman missed not his aim entirely, though he erred somewhat,
and the wound in consequence was not quite deadly.
The ball, which he had meant for the heart, his sight being taken
under the fore-shoulder, was raised and thrown forward by the motion
of the horse, and passed clean through the neck close to the
blade bone. Another leap, wilder and loftier than the last! yet still
the stag dashed onward, with the blood gushing out in streams from
the wide wound, though as yet neither speed nor strength appeared
to be impaired, so fleetly did he scour the meadow.
“He will cross Frank yet!” cried Archer. “Mark! mark him,
Forester!”
But, as he spoke, he set his rifle down against the fence, and
holloaed to the hounds, which instantly, obedient to his well-known
and cheery whoop, broke covert in a body and settled heads up and
sterns down, to the blazing scent.
At the same moment A— came trotting out from his post, gun
in hand; while at a thundering gallop, blaspheming awfully as he
came on, and rating them for “know-nothins, and blunderin' etarnal
spoil-sports,” Tom rounded the farther hill, and spurred across the
level. By this time they were all in sight of Forester, who stood
on foot, close to his horse, in the mouth of the last gorge, the buck
running across him sixty yards off, and quartering a little from him
toward the road; the hounds were, however, all midway between
him and the quarry, and as the ground sloped steeply from the
marksman, he was afraid of firing low—but took a long, and, as it
seemed, sure aim at the head.
The rifle flashed—a tine flew, splintered by the bullet, from the
brow antler, not an inch above the eye.
“Give him the other!” shouted Archer. “Give him the other
barrel!”
But Frank shook his head spitefully, and dropped the muzzle of
his piece.
“By h—ll! then, he's forgot his bullets—and had n't nothen to
load up agen, when he missed the first time!”
“Ha! ha! ha!” roared once again the Commodore—“ha! ha!
hah!—ha! ha!” till rock and mountain rang again.
“By the Etarnal!” exclaimed Draw, perfectly frantic with passion
and excitement—“By thunder! A—, I guess you'd laugh
if your best friends was all a dyin' at your feet. You would for sartain!
But look, look!—what the plague's Harry goin' at?”
For when he saw that Forester had now, for some reason or
other, no farther means of stopping the stag's career, Archer had
set spurs to his horse, and dashed away at a hard furious gallop
after the wounded buck. The hounds, which had lost sight of it as
it leaped a high stone wall with much brush round the base of it,
were running fast and furious on the scent—but still, though flagging
somewhat in his speed, the stag was leaving them. He had
turned, as the last shot struck his horns, down hill, as if to cross
the valley; but immediately, as if perceiving that he had passed
the last of his enemies, turned up again toward the mountain, describing
an arc, almost, in fact, a semicircle, from the point where
he had broken covert to that—another gully, at perhaps a short
mile's distance—from which he was now aiming.
Across the chord, then, of this arc, Harry was driving furiously,
with the intent, as it would seem, to cut him off from the gulley—
the stone wall crossed his line, but not a second did he pause for it,
but gave his horse both spurs, and lifting him a little, landed him
safely at the other side. Frank mounted rapidly, dashed after him,
and soon passed A—, who was less aptly mounted for a chase—
he likewise topped the wall, and disappeared beyond it, though the
stones flew, where the bay struck the coping with his heels.
All pluck to the back-bone, the Commodore craned not nor hesitated,
but dashed the colt, for the first time in his life, at the high
barrier—he tried to stop, but could not, so powerfully did his rider
cram him—leaped short, and tumbled head over heels, carrying
half the wall away with him, and leaving a gap as if a wagon had
passed through it—to Tom's astonishment and agony—for he supposed
the colt destroyed forever.
Scarcely, however, had A— gained his feet, before a sight met
his eyes, which made him leave the colt, and run as fast as his legs
could carry him toward the scene of action.
The stag, seeing his human enemy so near, had strained every
nerve to escape, and Harry, desperately rash and daring, seeing he
could not turn or head him, actually spurred upon him counter to
broadside, in hope to ride him down; foiled once again, in this—
his last hope, as it seemed—he drew his longest knife, and as—a
quarter of a second too late only—he crossed behind the buck, he
swung himself half out of his saddle, and striking a full blow, succeeded
of the master-hand, stumbled and fell upon his head.
Horse, stag, and man, all rolled upon the ground within the compass
of ten yards—the terrified and wounded deer striking out furiously
in all directions—so that it seemed impossible that Archer
could escape some deadly injury—while, to increase the fury and
the peril of the scene, the hounds came up, and added their fresh
fierceness to the fierce confusion. Before, however, A— came
up, Harry had gained his feet, drawn his small knife—the larger
having luckily flown many yards as he fell—and running in behind
the struggling quarry, had seized the brow antler, and at one strong
and skillful blow, severed the weasand and the jugular. One gush
of dark red gore—one plunging effort, and the superb and stately
beast lay motionless forever—while the loud death halloo rang over
the broad valley—all fears, all perils, utterly forgotten in the strong
rapture of that thrilling moment.
6. SNIPE ON THE UPLAND.
“Now then, boys, we've no time to lose,” said Archer, as he
replaced his knives, which he had been employed in wiping with
great care, in their respective scabbards, “it's getting toward
eight o'clock, and I feel tolerably peckish, the milk punch and biscuits
notwithstanding; we shall not be in the field before ten o'clock,
do our best for it. Now, Jem,” he continued, as that worthy, followed
by David Seers and the Captain, made their appearance, hot
and breathless, but in high spirits at the glorious termination of the
morning's sport—“Now, Jem, you and the Captain must look out a
good strong pole, and tie that fellow's legs, and carry him between
you as far as Blain's house—you can come up with the wagon this
afternoon and bring him down to the village. What the deuce are
you pottering at that colt about, Tom? He's not hurt a pin's value,
on the contrary—”
“Better for 't, I suppose, you'll be a tellin' me torights; better
for that all-fired etarnal tumble, aint he?” responded the fat chap,
with a lamentable attempt at an ironical smile, put on to hide his
real chagrin.
“In course he is,” replied Frank, who had recovered his wonted
equanimity, and who, having been most unmercifully rallied by the
whole party for leaving his bullets at home, was glad of an opportunity
to carry the war into the enemy's country, “in course he is
a great deal better—if a thing can be said to be better which, under
all circumstances, is so infernally bad, as that brute. I should
think he was better for it. Why, by the time he's had half a dozen
more such purls, he'll leap a six foot fence without shaking a loose
rail. In fact, I'll bet a dollar I carry him back over that same wall
without touching a stone.” And, as he spoke, he set his foot into
the stirrup, as if he were about to put his threat into immediate
execution.
“Quit, Forester—quit, I say—quit, now—consarn the hide on
you”—shouted the fat man, now in great tribulation, and apprehending
a second edition of the tumble—“quit foolin', or by h—l
I'll put a grist of shot, or one of they green cartridges into you stret
away—I will, by the Etarnal!” and as he spoke he dropped the
muzzle of his gun, and put his thumb upon the cock.
“I say quit foolin', too,” cried Harry, “both of you quit it; you
d—d old fool, Tom, do you really suppose he is mad enough to ride
that brute of yours again at the wall?”
“Mad enough!—Yes, I swon he be,” responded Tom; “both of
you be as mad as the hull Asylum down to York. If Frank arn't
mad, then there aint such a word as mad!” But as he spoke he
replaced his gun under his arm, and walked off to his horse, which
he mounted, without farther words, his example being followed by
the whole party, who set off on the spur, and reached the village in
less than half an hour.
Breakfast was on the table when they got there—black tea, produced
from Harry's magazine of stores, rich cream, hot bread, and
Goshen butter—eggs in abundance, boiled, roasted, fried with ham
—an omelet au fines herbes, no inconsiderable token of Tim's culinary
skill—a cold round of spiced beef, and last, not least, a dish of
wood-duck hot from the gridiron.
“By George,” said Harry, “here's a feast for an epicure, and I
can find the appetite.”
“Find it”—said Forester, grinning, who, pretending to eat
nothing or next to nothing, and not to care what was set before him,
was really the greatest gourmet and heaviest feeder of the party—
“Find it, Harry? it's quite new to me that you ever lost it. When
was it, hey?”
“Arter he'd eat a hull roast pig, I reckon—leastwise that might
make Harry lose his'n; but I'll be darned if two would be a sarcumstance
to set before you, Frank, no how. Here's A—, too,
he do n't never eat.”
“These wood-duck are delicious,” answered the Commodore,
who was very busily employed in stowing away his provant. “What
a capital bird it is, Harry.”
“Indeed is it,” said he, “and this is, me judice, the very best way
to eat it, red hot from the gridiron, cooked very quick, and brown on
the outside, and full of gravy when you cut; with a squeeze of a
lemon and a dash of cayenne it is sublime. What say you,
Forester?”
“Oh, you wont ketch him sayin' nauthen, leastwise not this half
hour—but the way he'll keep a feedin' wont be slow, I tell you—
that's the way to judge how Forester likes his grub—jest see how
he takes hold on 't.”
“Are there many wood-duck about this season, Tom?” asked
Forester, affecting to be perfectly careless and indifferent to all that
had passed. “Did you kill these yourself?”
“There was a sight on them a piece back, but they're gittin'
scase—pretty scase now, I tell you. Yes, I shot these down by
Aunt Sally's big spring-hole a Friday. I'd been a lookin' round,
you see, to find where the quail kept afore you came up here—for
I'd a been expectin' you a week and better—and I'd got in quite
late, toward sundown, with an outsidin' bevy, down by the cedar
swamp, and druv them off into the big bog meadows, below Sugar-loaf,
and I'd killed quite a bunch on them—sixteen, I reckon,
Archer; and there was n't but eighteen when I lit on 'em—and it
was gittin' pretty well dark when I came to the big spring, and
little Dash was worn dead out, and I was tired, and hot, and thunderin'
thirsty, so I sets down aside the outlet where the spring
water comes in good and cool, and I was mixin' up a nice long drink
in the big glass we hid last summer down in the mudhole, with
some great cider sperrits—when what should I hear all at once but
whistle, whistlin' over head, the wings of a hull drove on 'em, so
up I buckled the old gun; but they'd plumped down into the crick
fifteen rod off or better, down by the big pin oak, and there they
you. Well, boys, I upped gun and tuck sight stret away, but just
as I was drawin', I kind o' thought I'd got two little charges of
number eight, and that to shoot at ducks at fifteen rod was n't nauthen.
Well, then, I fell a thinkin', and then I sairched my pockets,
and arter a piece found two green cartridges of number three, as
Archer gave me in the Spring, so I drawed out the small shot, and
inned with these, and put fresh caps on to be sarten. But jest
when I'd got ready, the ducks had floated down with the stream,
and dropped behind the pint—so I downed on my knees, and crawled,
and Dash along side on me, for all the world as if the darned dog
knowed; well, I crawled quite a piece, till I'd got under a bit of
alder bush, and then I seen them—all in a lump like, except two—
six ducks and a big drake—feedin', and stickin' down their heads
into the weeds, and flutterin' up their hinder eends, and chatterin'
and jokin'—I could have covered them all with a handkercher, exceptin'
two, as I said afore, one duck and the little drake, and they
was off a rod or better from the rest, at the two different sides of
the stream—the big bunch warn't over ten rods off me, nor so far;
so I tuck sight right at the big drake's neck. The water was quite
clear and still, and seemed to have caught all the little light as was
left by the sun, for the skies had got pretty dark, I tell you; and I
could see his head quite clear agin the water—well, I draw'd trigger,
and the hull charge ripped into 'em—and there was a scrabblin'
and a squatterin' in the water now, I tell you—but not one on 'em
riz—not the darned one of the hull bunch; but up jumped both the
others, and I drawed on the drake—more by the whistlin' of his
wings, than that I seen him—but I drawed stret, Archer, any ways;
and arter I'd pulled half a moment I hard him plump down into the
creek with a splash, and the water sparkled up like a fountain
where he fell. So then I did n't wait to load, but ran along the
bank as hard as I could strick it, and when I'd got down to the spot,
I tell you, little Dash had got two on 'em out afore I came, and was
in with a third. Well, sich a cuttin' and a splashin' as there was
you niver did see, none on you—I guess, for sartin—leastwise I
niver did. I'd killed, you see, the drake and two ducks, dead at
the first fire, but three was only wounded, wing-tipped, and leg-broken,
and I can't tell you what all. It was all of nine o'clock at
night, and dark as h—l, afore I gathered them three ducks—but I
did gather 'em—Lord, boys, why I'd stayed till mornin' but I'd a
got them, sarten. Well, the drake I killed flyin' I could n't find
him that night, no how, for the stream swept him down, and I
had n't got no guide to go by—so I let him go then—but I was up
next mornin' bright and airly, and started up the stream clean from
the bridge here, up through Garry's backside, and my boghole, and
so on along the meadows to Aunt Sally's run—and I looked in every
willow bush that dammed the waters back, like, and every bunch of
weeds, and brier-brake, all the way, and sure enough I found him—
he'd been killed dead, and floated down the crick, and then the
stream had washed him up into a heap of broken sticks and briers,
left him there breast uppermost—and I was glad to find him—for I
think, Archer, as that shot was the nicest, prettiest, etarnal,
damndest, long, good shot, I iver did make, anyhow; and it was so
dark I could n't see him.”
“A sweet shot, Tom”—responded Forester—“a sweet pretty
shot, if there had only been one word of truth in it, which there is
not—do n't answer me, you old thief—shut up instantly, and get
your traps; for we've done feeding, and you've done lying, for the
present at least I hope so—and now we'll out, and see whether
you've poached up all the game in the country.”
“Well, it be gettin late for sartain,” answered Tom, “and that'll
save your little wax skin for the time; but see, jest see, boy, if I
doos n't sarve you out, now, afore sundown!”
“Which way shall we beat, Tom”—asked Harry, as he changed
his riding boots for heavy shooting shoes and leggins—“which
course to-day?”
“Why! Timothy's gittin' out the wagon, and we'll drive up the
old road round the ridge, and so strike in by Minthorne's, and take
them ridges down, and so across the hill—there's some big stubbles
there, and nice thick brush holes along the fence sides, and the boys
doos tell us there be one or two big bevies—but, d—n them, they
will lie!—and over back of Gin'ral Bertolf's barns, and so acrost
the road, and round the upper eend of the big pond, and down the
long swamp into Hell hole, and Tim can meet us with the wagon at
five o'clock under Bill Wisner's white oak—does that suit you?”
“Excellently well, Tom,” replied Harry, “I could not have cut
a better day's work out myself, if I had tried. Well, all the traps
are in, and the dogs, Timothy, is it not so?”
“Ey! ey! Sur,” shouted that worthy from without, “all in, this
half hour, and all roight!”
“Light your cigars then, quick, and let us start—hurrah!”
Within two minutes, they were all seated, Fat Tom in the post
of honor by Harry's side upon the driving box, the Commodore and
Frank, with Timothy, on the back seat, and off they rattled—ten
miles an hour without the whip, up hill and down dale all alike,
for they had but three miles to go, and that was gone in double
quick time.
“What mun Ay do wi' t' horses, Sur?” asked Tim, touching his
castor as he spoke.
“Take them home, to be sure,” replied Harry, “and meet us
with them under the oak tree, close to Mr. Wisner's house, at five
o'clock this evening.”
“Nay! nay! Sur!” answered Tim, with a broad grin, eager to
see the sport, and hating to be sent so unceremoniously home,
“that winna do, I'm thinking—who'll hug t' gam bag, and carry
t' bottles, and make t' loonchun ready; that winna do, Sur, niver.
If you ple-ease, Sur, Ay'll pit oop t' horses i' Measter Minthorne's
barn here, and shak' doon a bite o' hay tull 'em, and so gang on
and hitch oop, and draive doon to t' aik tree!”
“I understand, Tim,” said his master, laughing; “I understand
right well! you want to see the sport.”
“Ayse oophaud it!” grinned Timothy, seeing at once that he
should gain his point.
“Well! well! I do n't care about it; will Minthorne let us put
up the beasts in his barn, Tom?”
“Let us! let us!” exclaimed the fat man; “by G—d I'd like
to see Joe Minthorne, or any other of his breed, a tellin' me I
should n't put my cattle where I pleased; jest let me ketch him
at it!”
“Very well; have it your own way, Tim, take care of the
beasts, and overtake us as quick as you can!” and, as he spoke,
he let down the bars which parted a fine wheat stubble from the
road, and entered the field with the dogs at heel. “We must part
company to beat these little woods, must we not, Tom?”
“I guess so—I'll go on with A—; his Grouse and my Dash
will work well enough, and you and Frank keep down the valley
hereaways; we'll beat that little swamp-hole, and then the open
woods to the brook side, and so along the meadows to the big bottom;
you keep the hill-side coverts, and look the little pond-holes
well on Minthorne's Ridge, you'll find a cock or two there anyhow;
and beat the bushes by the wall; I guess you'll have a bevy jumpin'
up; and try, boys, do, to git 'em down the hill into the boggy bottom,
for we can use them, I tell you!” and so they parted.
Archer and Forester, with Shot and Chase at heel, entered the
little thicket indicated, and beat it carefully, but blank; although
the dogs worked hard, and seemed as if about to make game more
than once. They crossed the road, and came into another little
wood, thicker and wetter than the first, with several springy pools,
although it was almost upon the summit of the hill. Here Harry
took the left or lower hand, bidding Frank keep near the outside at
top, and full ten yards ahead of him.
“And mind, if you hear Tom shoot, or cry `mark,' jump over into
the open field, and be all eyes, for that's their line of country into
the swamp, where we would have them. Hold up, good dogs, hold
up!”
And off they went, crashing and rattling through the dry matted
briers, crossing each other evenly, and quartering the ground with
rare accuracy. Scarcely, however, had they beat ten paces, before
Shot flushed a cock as he was in the very act of turning at the end
of his beat, having run in on him down wind, without crossing the
line of scent. Flip—flip—flap rose the bird, but as the dog had
turned, and was now running from him, he perceived no cause for
alarm, fluttered a yard or two onward, and alighted. The dog, who
had neither scented nor seen the bird, caught the sound of his wing,
and stood stiff on the instant, though his stern was waved doubtfully,
and though he turned his sagacious knowing phiz over his
shoulder, as if to look out for the pinion, the flap of which had arrested
eye fell upon his master, as with his finger on the trigger-guard, and
thumb on the hammer, he was stepping softly up in a direct line,
with eye intently fixed, toward the place where the woodcock had
dropped; he knew as well as though he had been blessed with human
intellect, that game was in the wind, and remained still and
steady. Flip—flap again up jumped the bird.
“Mark cock,” cried Forester, from the other side of the wood,
not having seen any thing, but hearing the sound of the timber doodle's
wing somewhere or other; and at the self-same moment bang!
boomed the full report of Harry's right hand barrel, the feathers
drifting off down wind toward Frank, told him the work was done,
and he asked no question; but ere the cock had struck the ground,
which he did within half a second, completely doubled up—whirr,
whirr-r-r! the loud and startling hubbub of ruffed grouse taking wing
at the report of Harry's gun, succeeded—and instantly, before that
worthy had got his eye about from marking the killed woodcock,
bang! bang! from Forester. Archer dropped butt, and loaded as
fast as it was possible, and bagged his dead bird quietly, but scarcely
had he done so before Frank hailed him.
“Bring up the dogs, old fellow; I knocked down two, and I've
bagged one, but I'm afraid the other's run!”
“Stand still, then—stand still, till I join you. He-here, he-here
good dogs,” cried Harry, striding away through the brush like a
good one.
In a moment he stood by Frank, who was just pocketing his first,
a fine hen grouse.
“The other was the cock,” said Frank, “and a very large one,
too; he was a long shot, but he's very hard hit; he flew against
this tree before he fell, and bounded off it here; look at the
feathers!”
“Aye! we'll have him in a moment; seek dead, Shot; seek,
good dogs; ha! now they wind him; there! Chase has him—no!
he draws again—now Shot is standing; hold up, hold up, lads, he's
running like the mischief, and won't stop till he reaches some thick
covert.”
Bang! bang! “Mark—ma-ark!” bang! bang! “mark, Harry
Archer, mark,” came down the wind in quick succession from the
other party, who were beating some thick briers by the brook side,
at three or four fields' distance.
“Quick, Forester, quick!” shouted Archer; “over the wall, lad,
and mark them! those are quail; I'm man enough to get this fellow
by myself. Steady lads! steady-y-y!” as they were roading
on at the top of their pace. “Toho! toho-o-o, Chase; fie for shame
—don't you see, sir, Shot's got him dead there under his very nose
in those cat-briers. Ha! dead! good lads—good lads; dead! dead!
fetch him, good dog; by George but he is a fine bird. I've got
him, Forester; have you marked down the quail?”
“Aye! aye! in the bog bottom!”
“How many?”
“Twenty-three!”
“Then we'll have sport, by Jove!” and, as he spoke, they entered
a wide rushy pasture, across which, at some two or three
hundred yards, A— and fat Tom were seen advancing toward
them. They had not made three steps before both dogs stood stiff
as stones in the short grass, where there was not a particle of
covert.
“Why, what the deuce is this, Harry?”
“Devil a know know I,” responded he; “but step up to the red
dog, Frank—I'll go to the other—they've got game, and no mistake!”
“Skeap—ske-eap!” up sprang a couple of English snipe before
Shot's nose, and Harry cut them down, a splendid double shot,
before they had flown twenty yards, just as Frank dropped the one
which rose to him at the same moment. At the sound of the guns a
dozen more rose hard by, and fluttering on in rapid zigzags, dropped
once again within a hundred yards—the meadow was alive with
them.
“Did you ever see snipe here before, Tom?” asked Harry, as
he loaded.
“Never in all my life—but it's full now—load up! load up! for
God's sake!”
“No hurry, Tom! Tom—steady! the birds are tame and lie
like stones. We can get thirty or forty here, I know, if you'll be
steady only—but if we go in with these four dogs, we shall lose
all. Here comes Tim with the couples, and we'll take up all but
two!”
“That's right,” said A—; “take up Grouse and Tom's dog,
for they won't hunt with yours—and yours are the steadiest, and
fetch—that's it, Tim, couple them, and carry them away. What
have you killed, Archer?” he added, while his injunctions were
complied with.
“One woodcock and a brace of ruffed grouse! and Frank has
marked down three-and-twenty quail into that rushy bottom yonder,
where we can get every bird of them. We are going to have
great sport to-day!”
“I think so. Tom and I each killed a double shot out of that
bevy!”
“That was well! Now, then, walk slowly and far apart—we
must beat this three or four times, at least—the dogs will get them
up!”
It was not a moment before the first bird rose, but it was quite
two hours, and all the dinner horns had long blown for noon, before
the last was bagged—the four guns having scored, in that one meadow,
forty-nine English snipe—fifteen for Harry Archer—thirteen
for Tom Draw—twelve for the Commodore, and only nine
for Forester, who never killed snipe quite so well as he did cock
or quail.
“And now, boys,” exclaimed Tom, as he flung his huge carcase
on the ground, with a thud that shook it many a rood around—
that 'ar game bag—and I'm h—ll now, I tell you, for a drink!”
“Which will you take to drink, Tom?” inquired Forester, very
gravely—“fowl, pork, or crackers? Here they are, all of them!
I prefer whiskey and water myself!” qualifying, as he spoke, a
moderate cup with some of the ice-cold water which welled out in
a crystal stream from a small basin under the wreathed roots of the
sycamore which overshadowed them.
“None of your nonsense, Forester—hand us the liquor, lad—I'm
dry, I tell you!”
“I wish you'd tell me something I do n't know, then, if you feel
communicative; for I know that you're dry—now and always!
Well! do n't be mad, old fellow, here's the bottle—do n't empty it
—that's all!”
“Well! now I've drinked,” said Tom, after a vast potation, and
a sonorous eructation; “now I've drinked good—we'll have a bite
and rest awhile, and smoke a pipe; and then we'll use them quail,
and we'll have time to pick up twenty cock in Hell-hole afterwards,
and that wont be a slow day's work, I reckon.”
7. THE QUAIL.
“Certainly this is a very lovely country,” exclaimed the Commodore
suddenly, as he gazed with a quiet eye, puffing his cigar the
while, over the beautiful vale, with the clear expanse of Wickham's
Pond in the middle foreground, and the wild hoary mountains
framing the rich landscape in the distance.
“Truly, you may say that,” replied Harry; “I have travelled
over a large part of the world, and for its own peculiar style of loveliness,
I must say that I never have seen any thing to match with
the vale of Warwick. I would give much, very much, to own a
few acres, and a snug cottage here, in which I might pass the rest
of my days, far aloof from the
“Then why the h—l do n't you own a few acres?” put in ancient
Tom; “I'd be right glad to know, and gladder yit to have you up
here, Archer.”
“I would indeed, Tom,” answered Harry; “I'm not joking at
all; but there are never any small places to be bought hereabout;
and, as for large ones, your land is so confounded good, that a fellow
must be a nabob to think of buying.”
“Well, how would Jem Burt's place suit you, Archer?” asked
the fat man. “You knows it—jist a mile and a half 'tother side
Warwick, by the crick side? I guess it will have to be sold anyhow
next April; leastways the old man's dead, and the heirs want
the estate settled up like.”
“Suit me!” cried Harry, “by George! it's just the thing, if I
recollect it rightly. But how much land is there?”
“Twenty acres, I guess—not over twenty-five, no how.”
“And the house?”
“Well, that wants fixin' some; and the bridge over the crick's
putty bad, too, it will want putty nigh a new one. Why, the house
is a story and a half like; and it's jist an entry stret through the
middle, and a parlor on one side on 't, and a kitchen on the t' other;
and a chamber behind both on 'em.”
“What can it be bought for, Tom?”
“I guess three thousand dollars; twenty-five hundred, maybe.
It will go cheap, I reckon; I don't hear tell o' no one lookin' at it.”
“What will it cost me more to fix it, think you?”
“Well, you see, Archer, the land's ben most darned badly done
by, this last three years, since old 'squire 's ben so low; and the
bridge, that'll take a smart sum; and the fences is putty much gone
to rack; I guess it'll take hard on to a thousand more to fix it up
right, like you'd like to have it, without doin' nothin' at the house.”
“And fifteen hundred more for that and the stables. I wish to
Heaven I had known this yesterday; or rather before I came up
hither,” said Harry.
“Why so?” asked the Commodore.
“Why, as the deuce would have it, I told my broker to invest six
thousand, that I have got loose, in a good mortgage, if he could find
one, for five years; and I have got no stocks that I can sell out;
all that I have but this, is on good bond and mortgage, in Boston,
and little enough of it, too.”
“Well, if that's all, said Forester, “we can run down to-morrow,
and you will be in time to stop him.”
“That's true, too,” answered Harry, pondering. “Are you sure
it can be bought, Tom?”
“I guess so,” was the response.
“That means, I suppose, that you're perfectly certain of it. Why
the devil can't you speak English?”
“English!” exclaimed Frank; “Good Lord! why do n't you ask
him why he can't speak Greek? English! Lord! Lord! Lord!
Tom Draw and English!”
“I'll jist tell Archer what he warnts to know, and then see you,
my dear little critter, if I doos n't English you some!” replied the
old man, waxing wroth. “Well, Archer, to tell Heaven's truth,
now, I doos know it; but it's an etarnal all-fired shame of me to
be tellin' it, bein' as how I knows it in the way of busines like. It's
got to be selled by vandoo[6]
in April.
“Then, by Jove! I will buy it,” said Harry; “and down I'll go
to-morrow. But that need not take you away, boys; you can stay
and finish out the week here, and go home in the Ianthe; Tom will
send you down to Nyack.”
“Sartain,” responded Tom; “but now I'm most darned glad, I
told you that, Archer. I meant to a told you on 't afore, but it clean
slipped out of my head; but all 's right, now. Hark! hark! do n't
you hear, boys? The quails has n't all got together yit—better
luck! Hush, A—, and you'll hear them callin'—whew-wheet!
whew-wheet! whe-whe-whe;” and the old Turk began to call most
scientifically; and in ten minutes the birds were answering him
from all quarters, through the circular space of bog meadow, and
through the thorny brake beyond it, and some from a large ragwort
field further yet.
“How is this, Frank—did they scatter so much when they dropped?”
asked Harry.
“Yes; part of them 'lighted in the little bank on this edge, by
the spring, you know; and some, a dozen or so, right in the middle
of the bog, by the single hickory; and five or six went into the
swamp, and a few over it.”
“That's it! that's it! and the 've been running to try to get together,”
said the Commodore.
“But was too skeart to call, till we'd quit shootin'!” said Tom.
“But come, boys, let's be stirrin', else they'll git together like;
they keeps drawin', drawin', into one place now, I can hear.”
No sooner said than done; we were all on foot in an instant, and
ten minutes brought us to the edge of the first thicket; and here
was the truth of Harry's precepts tested by practice in a moment;
for they had not yet entered the thin bushes, on which now the red
leaves hung few and sere, before old Shot threw his nose high into
the air, straightened his neck and his stern, and struck out at a high
trot; the other setter evidently knowing what he meant, though as
yet he had not caught the wind of them. In a moment they both
stood steady; and, almost at the same instant, Tom Draw's Dash,
and A—'s Grouse came to the point, all on different birds, in a bit
of very open ground, covered with wintergreen about knee deep,
and interspersed with only a few scattered bushes.
Whir-r-r-r—up they got all at once! what a jostle—what a hubbub!
Bang! bang! crack! bang! crack! bang! Four barrels
exploded in an instant, almost simultaneously; and two sharp unmeaning
cracks announced that, by some means or other, Frank
Forester's gun had missed fire with both barrels.
“What the deuce is the matter, boys?” cried Harry, laughing,
as he threw up his gun, after the hubbub had subsided, and dropped
two birds—the only two that fell, for all that waste of shot and
powder.
“What the deuce ails you?” he repeated, no one replying, and
all hands looking bashful and crest-fallen. “Are you all drunk?
or what is the matter? I ask merely for information.”
“Upon my life! I believe I am!” said Frank Forester. “For I
have not loaded my gun at all, since I killed those two last snipe.
And, when we got up from luncheon, I put on the caps just as if all
was right—but all is right now,” he added, for he had repaired his
fault, and loaded, before A— or fat Tom had done staring, each
in the other's face, in blank astonishment.
“Step up to Grouse, then,” said Archer, who had never taken his
eye off the old brown pointer, while he was loading as fast as he
could. “He has got a bird, close under his nose; and it will get
up, and steal away directly. That's a trick they will play very
often.”
“He haint got no bird,” said Tom, sulkily. And Frank paused
doubtful.
“Step up, I tell you, Frank,” said Harry, “the old Turk's
savage; that's all.”
And Frank did step up, close to the dog's nose; and sent his foot
through the grass close under it. Still the dog stood perfectly stiff;
but no bird rose.
“I telled you there war n't no quails there;” growled Tom.
“And I tell you there are!” answered Archer, more sharply than
he often spoke to his old ally; for, in truth, he was annoyed at his
obstinate pertinacity.
“What do you say, Commodore? Is Grouse lying? Kick that
tussock—kick it hard, Frank.”
“Not he,” replied A—; “I'll bet fifty to one, there's a bird
there.”
“It's devilish odd, then, that he won't get up!” said Frank.
Whack! whack! and he gave the hard tussock two kicks with
his heavy boot, that fairly made it shake. Nothing stirred. Grouse
still kept his point, but seemed half inclined to dash in. Whack!
a third kick that absolutely loosened the tough hassock from the
ground, and then, whirr-r, from within six inches of the spot where
all three blows had been delivered, up got the bird, in a desperate
hurry; and in quite as desperate a hurry, Forester covered it—
covered it before it was six yards off! His finger was on the
trigger, when Harry quietly said, “Steady, Frank!” and the word
acted like magic.
He took the gun quite down from his shoulder, nodded to his
friend, brought it up again, and turned the bird over very handsomely,
at twenty yards, or a little further.
“Beautifully done, indeed, Frank,” said Harry. “So much for
coolness!”
“What do you say to that, Tom?” said the Commodore, laughing.
But there was no laugh in Tom; he only uttered a savage
growl, and an awful imprecation; and Harry's quick glance warned
A— not to plague the old Trojan further.
All this passed in a moment; and then was seen one of those
singular things that will at times happen; but with regard to quail
only, so far as I have ever seen or heard tell. For as Forester was
putting down the card upon the powder in the barrel which he had
just fired, a second bird rose, almost from the identical spot whence
the first had been so difficultly flushed, and went off in the same
direction. But not in the least was Frank flurried now. He dropped
his ramrod quietly upon the grass, brought up his piece deliberately
to his eye, and killed his bird again.
“Excellent—excellent! Frank,” said Harry again. “I never
saw two prettier shots in all my life. Nor did I ever see birds lie
harder.”
During all this time, amidst all the kicking of tussocks, threshing
of bog-grass, and banging of guns, and, worst of all, bouncing up of
fresh birds, from the instant when they dropped at the first shot,
neither one of Harry's dogs, nor Tom's little Dash, had budged
from their down charge. Now, however, they got up quickly; and
soon retrieved all the dead birds.
“Now then we will divide into two parties,” said Harry.
“Frank, you go with Tom; and you come with me, Commodore.
It will never do to have you two jealous fellows together, you wont
kill a bird all day,” he added, in a lower voice. “That is the worst
of old Tom, when he gets jealous, he's the very devil. Frank is
the only fellow that can get along with him at all. He puts me out
of temper, and if we both got angry, it would be very disagreeable.
For, though he is the best fellow in the world, when he is in a rage
he is untameable. I cannot think what has put him out, now; for
he has shot very well to-day. It is only when he gets behind-hand,
that he is usually jealous in his shooting; but he has got the deuce
into him now.”
By this time, the two parties were perhaps forty yards apart,
when Dash came to a point again. Up got a single bird, the old
cock, and flew directly away from Tom, across Frank's face; but not
for that did the old chap pause. Up went his cannon to his
shoulder, there was a flash and a roar, and the quail, which was
literally not twelve feet from him, disappeared as if it had been
resolved into thin air. The whole of Tom's concentrated charge
had struck the bird endwise, as it flew from him; and, except the
extreme tips of his wings, and one foot, no part of him could be
found.
“The devil!” cried Harry, “that is too bad!”
“Never mind,” said the Commodore, “Frank will manage him.”
As he spoke, a second bird got up, and crossed Forester in the
same manner; Draw doing precisely as he had done before; but,
this time, missing the quail clear, which Forester turned over.
“Load quick! and step up to that fellow. He will run, I think!”
said Archer.
“Ay! ay!” responded Frank, and, having rammed down his
charge like lightning, moved forward, before he had put the cap on
the barrel he had fired.
Just as he took the cap out of his pocket between his finger and
thumb, a second quail rose. As cool and self-possessed, as it is
possible to conceive, Frank cocked the left hand barrel with his
little finger, still holding the cap between his forefinger and thumb,
and actually contrived to bring up the gun, some how or other,[7]
and
to kill the bird, pulling the trigger with his middle finger.
At the report a third quail sprang, close under his feet; and, still
unshaken, he capped the right hand barrel, fired, and the bird
towered!
“Mark! mark! Tom—Ma-ark Timothy!” shouted Harry and
A— in a breath.
“That bird is as dead as Hannibal now!” added Archer, as,
having spun up three hundred feet into the air, and flown twice
as many hundred yards, it turned over, and fell plumb, like a stone,
through the clear atmosphere.
“Ayse gotten that chap marked doon roight, ayse warrant un!”
shouted Timothy, from the hill side, where, with some trouble, he
was holding in the obstreperous spaniels. “He's doon in a roight
laine atwixt 't muckle gray stean, and you hoigh ashen tree.”
“Did you ever see such admirable shooting, though?” asked
A—, in a low voice. “I did not know Forester shot like that.”
“Sometimes he does. When he's cool. He is not certain; that
is his only fault. One day he is the coolest man I ever saw in a
field; and, the next, the most impetuous; but when he is cool, he
shoots splendidly. As you say, A—, I never saw any thing better
done in my life. It was the perfection of coolness and quickness
combined.”
“I cannot conceive how it was done atall. How he brought up
and fired that first barrel with a cap between his thumb and fore-finger!
Why, I could not fire a gun so, in cold blood!”
“Nor could he, probably. Deliberate promptitude is the thing!
Well, Tom, what do you think of that? Was n't that pretty shooting?”
“It was so, pretty shootin',” responded the fat man, quite delighted
out of his crusty mood. “I guess the darned little critter's
got three barrels to his gun somehow; leastwise it seems to me, I
swon, 'at he fired her off three times without loadin'! I guess I'll
quit tryin' to shoot agin Frank, to-day.”
“I told you so!” said Harry to the Commodore, with a low
laugh, and then added aloud—“ I think you may as well, Tom—for
I don't believe the fellow will miss another bird to-day.”
And in truth, strange to say, it fell out, in reality, nearly as
Areher had spoken in jest. The whole party shot exceedingly
well. The four birds, which Tom and the Commodore had missed
at the first start, were found again in an old ragwort field, and
brought to bay; and of the twenty-three quail which Forester had
marked down into the bog meadow, not one bird escaped, and of
that bevy not one bird did Frank miss, killing twelve, all of them
double shots, to his own share, and beating Archer in a canter.
But that sterling sportsman cared not a stiver; too many times
by far had he had the field, too sure was he of doing the same many
a time again, to dislike being beaten once. Besides this, he was
always the least jealous shot in the world, for a very quick one;
and, in this instance, he was perhaps better pleased to see his
friend “go in and win,” than he would have been to do the like
himself.
Exactly at two o'clock, by A—'s repeater, the last bird was
bagged; making twenty-seven quail, forty-nine snipe, two ruffed
grouse, and one woodcock, bagged in about five hours.
“So far, this is the very best day's sport I ever saw,” said Archer;
“and two things I have seen which I never saw before; a whole
bevy of quail killed without the escape of one bird, and a whole
bevy killed entirely by double shots, except the odd bird. You,
A—, have killed three double shots—I have killed three—Tom
Draw one double shot, and the odd bird; and Master Frank there,
confound him, six double shots running—the cleverest thing I ever
heard of, and, in Forester's case, the best shooting possible. I have
missed one bird, you two, and Tom three.”
“But Tom beant a goin' to miss no more birds, I can tell you,
boy. Tom's drinked agin, and feels kind o' righter than he did—
kind o' first best! You'd best all drink, boys—the spring's handy,
close by here; and after we gits down acrost the road into the big
swamp, and Hell-Hole, there arn't a drop o' water fit to drink, till
we gits way down to Aunt Sally's big spring-hole, jest to home.”
“I second the motion,” said Harry; “and then let us be quick,
for the day is wearing away, and we have got a long beat yet before
us. I wish it were a sure one. But it is not. Once in three
one good day we have ten bad ones. However, we are sure to find
a dozen birds or so in Hell-Hole; and a bevy of quail in the Captain's
swamp, shan't we, Tom?”
“Yes, if we gits so far; but somehow or other I rather guess
we'll find quite a smart chance o' clock. Captain Read was down
there a' Satterday, and he saw heaps on 'em.”
“That's no sure sign. They move very quickly now. Here
to-day and there to-morrow,” said Archer. “In the large woods,
especially. In the small places there are plenty of sure finds.”
“There harn't been nothing of frosts yet, keen enough to stir
them,” said Tom. “I guess we'll find them. And there harn't
been a gun shot off this three weeks there. Hoel's wife's ben
down sick all the fall, and Halbert's gun busted in the critter's
hand.”
“Ah! did it hurt him?”
“Hurt him some—skeart him considerable, though. I guess
he's quit shootin' pretty much. But come—here we be, boys. I'll
keep along the outside, where the walkin's good. You git next
me, and Archer next with the dogs, and A— inside of all. Keep
right close to the cedars, A—; all the birds 'at you flushes will
come stret out this aways. They never flies into the cedar swamp.
Archer, how does the ground look?”
“I never saw it look so well, Tom. There is not near so much
water as usual, and yet the bottom is all quite moist and soft.”
“Then we'll get cock for sartain.”
“By George!” cried A—, “the ground is like a honeycomb,
with their boreings; and as white in places with their droppings,
as if there had been a snow fall!”
“Are they fresh droppings, A—?”
“Mark! Ah! Grouse! Grouse! for shame. There he is down.
Do you see him, Harry?”
“Ay! ay! Did Grouse flush him?”
“Deliberately, at fifty yards off. I must lick him.”
“Pray do; and that mercifully.”
“And that soundly,” suggested Frank, as an improvement.
“Soundly is mercifully,” said Harry, “because one good flogging
settles the business; whereas twenty slight ones only harass a
dog, and do nothing in the way of correction or prevention.”
“True, oh king!” said Frank, laughing. “Now let us go on
for, as the bellowing of that brute is over, I suppose `chastisement
has hidden her head.”'
And on they did go; and sweet shooting they had of it; all the
way down to the thick deep spot, known by the pleasing sobriquet
of Hell-Hole.
The birds were scattered everywhere throughout the swamp, so
excellent was the condition of the ground; scattered so much, that, in
no instance, did two rise at once; but one kept flapping up after
another, large and lazy, at every few paces; and the sportsmen
scored them fast, although scarcely aware how fast they were killing
the deep black mud-holes, and the tangled vines and leafy alders,
there was, as usual, a quick, sharp, and decisive rally. Before the
dogs were thrown into it, Frank was sent forward to the extreme
point, and the Commodore out into the open field, on the opposite
side from that occupied by fat Tom.
On the signal of a whistle, from each of the party, Harry drove
into the brake with the spaniels, the setters being now consigned
to the care of Timothy; and in a moment, his loud “Hie cock!
Hie cock! Pur-r-r—Hie cock! good dogs!” was succeeded by the
shrill yelping of the cockers, the flap of the fast rising birds, and
the continuous rattling of shots.
In twenty minutes the work was done; and it was well that it
was done; for, within a quarter of an hour afterward, it was too
dark to shoot at all.
In that last twenty minutes twenty-two cock were actually
brought to bag, by the eight barrels; twenty-eight had been picked
up, one by one, as they came down the long swamp, and one Harry
had killed in the morning. When Timothy met them, with the
horses, at the big oak tree, half an hour afterward—for he had gone
off across the fields, as hard as he could foot it to the farm, as soon
as he had received the setters—it was quite dark; and the friends
had counted their game out regularly, and hung it up secundum
artem in the loops of the new game bag.
It was a huge day's sport—a day's sport to talk about for years
afterward—Tom Draw does talk about it now!
Fifty-one woodcock, forty-nine English snipe, twenty-seven quail,
and a brace of ruffed grouse. A hundred and twenty-nine head in
all, on unpreserved ground, and in very wild walking. It is to be
feared it will never be done any more in the vale of Warwick. For
this, alas! was ten years ago.
When they reached Tom's it was decided that they should all
return home on the morrow; that Harry should attend to the procuring
his purchase money; and Tom to the cheapening of the
purchase.
In addition to this the old boy swore, by all his patron saints, that
he would come down in spring, and have a touch at the snipe he
had heerd Archer tell on at Pine Brook.
A capital supper followed; and of course lots of good liquor, and
the toast, to which the last cup was quaffed, was
LONG LIFE TO HARRY ARCHER, AND LUCK TO HIS SHOOTING BOX,
to which Frank Forester added
And so that party ended; all of its members hoping to enjoy
many more like it, and that very speedily.
| The Warwick woodlands, or, Things as they were there, ten years ago | |