 | THE WOODCOCK. The Warwick woodlands, or, Things as they were there, ten years ago |  |
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!”
| THE WOODCOCK. The Warwick woodlands, or, Things as they were there, ten years ago | |