University of Virginia Library

1. THE SPORTSMAN'S SPREAD.

The long cold winter had passed away and been succeeded by
the usual alternations of damp sloppy thaws, and piercing eastern
gales, which constitute a North American Spring; and now the
croaking of the bull-frogs, heard from every pool and puddle, the
bursting buds of the young willows, and, above all, the appearance
of the Shad in market, announced to the experienced sportsman,
the arrival of the English Snipe upon the marshes. For some
days Harry Archer had been busily employed in overhauling his
shooting apparatus, exercising his setters, watching every change
of wind, and threatening a speedy expedition into the meadows of
New Jersey, so soon as three days of easterly rain should be followed
by mild weather from the southward. Anxiously looked
for, and long desired, at last the eastern storm set in, cold, chilling,
misty, with showers of smoky driving rain, and Harry for two entire
days had rubbed his hands in ecstasy; while Timothy stood
ever in the stable door—his fists plunged deep in the recesses of
his breeches' pockets, and a queer smile illuminating the honest
ugliness of his bluff visage—patiently watching for a break in the
dull clouds—his harness hanging the while in readiness for instant
use, with every crest and turret as bright as burnished gold; his
wagon all prepared, with bear-skins and top-coats displayed; and
his own kit packed up in prompt anticipation of the first auspicious
moment. The third dark morning had dawned dingily; the rain
still drifted noiselessly against the windows, while gutters over-flowed,
and kennels swollen into torrents announced its volume and
duration. There was not then the least temptation to stir out of
doors, and, sulky myself, I was employed in coaxing a sulky cigar
beside a yet more sulky fire, with an empty coffee cup and a large
quarto volume of Froissart upon the table at my elbow, when a
quick cheery triple rap at the street door announced a visitor, and
was succeeded instantly by a firm rapid footstep on the stairs, accompanied
by the multitudinous pattering and whimpering of spaniels.
Without the ceremony of a knock the door flew open; and
in marched, with his hat on one side, a dirty looking letter in his
hand, and Messrs. Dan and Flash at his heel, the renowned Harry
Archer.

“Here's a lark, Frank,” exclaimed that worthy, pitching the

billet down upon the table, and casting himself into an arm-chair;
“Old Tom is to be here to-day to dinner, and wants to go with us
to the Snipe Meadow. So we will dine, if it so please you, at my
hose at three—I have invited Mac to join us—and start directly
after for Pine Brook.”

“The devil!” I responded, somewhat energetically; “what, in
this rain?”

“Rain—yes, indeed. The wind has hauled already to the westward
of the south, and we shall have a starlight night, and a clear
day to-morrow, and grand sport I'll warrant you! Rain—yes!
I'm glad it does rain; it will keep cockney gunners off the meadows.”

“But will Tom really be here? How do you know it? Have
you seen him?”

“Read—read, man!” he responded, lighting the while a dark
cheroot, and lugging out my gun-case to inspect its traps. And I
in due obedience took up the billet-doux, which had produced this
notable combustion. It was a thin, dirty, oblong letter, written
across the lines upon ruled paper, with a pencil, wafered, and
stamped with a key, and bearing in round school-boy characters the
following direction:—

Internally it ran—

“Well! that matter seems to be settled,” answered I, when I
had finished the perusal of this most notable epistle. “I suppose
he will be here to the fore!”

“Sartain!” responded Archer, grinning; “and do you for once,
if possible—which I suppose it is not—be in time for dinner; I
will not wait five minutes, and I shall give you a good feed; pack
up your traps, and Tim shall call for them at two. We dine at
three, mind! Start from my door at half-past five, so as to get
across in the six o'clock boat. Hard will be looking out for us,
I know, about this time, at Pine Brook; and we shall do it easy in
three hours, for the roads will be heavy. Come along, dogs. Good
bye, Frank. Three o'clock! now don't be late, there's a good lad.
Here Flash! here Dan!” and gathering his Macintosh about him,
exit Harry.

Thereupon to work I went with a will; rummaged up gun,
cleaning-rod, copper caps, powder horns, shot-pouch, and all the

et ceteras of shooting, which—being always stowed away with so
much care at the end of one season, that they are undiscoverable
at the beginning of the next—are sources of eternal discomfiture to
those most all-accomplished geniuses, hight sportsmen's servants:
got out and greased my fen boots with the fit admixture of tallow,
tar, beeswax, and Venice turpentine; hunted up shooting jacket,
corduroys, plaid waistcoat, and check shirts; and, in fact, perpetrated
the detested task of packing, barely in time for Timothy,
who, as he shouldered my portmantean, and hitched up the waisthand
of his own most voluminous unmentionables, made out in the
midst of grins and nods, and winks, to deliver himself to the following
effect—

“Please sur, measter says, if you ple-ase to moind three o't
clock—for he'll be dommed, he said, please Measter Forester, av
he waits haaf a minit—”

“Very well, Tim, very well—that'll do—I'll be ready.”

“And Measter Draw be coom'd tew—nay but Ay do think 'at
he's fatter noo than iver—ecod Ayse laff to see him doon i' t' mossy
meadows laike—he'll swear, Ayse warrant him.”

And with a burst of merriment, that no one pair of mortal lips
save Timothy's alone could ever have accomplished, he withdrew,
leaving me to complete my toilet; in which, believe me, gentle
reader, mindful of a good feed and of short law, I made no needless
tarrying.

The last stroke of the hour appointed had not yet stricken when
I was on the steps of Harry's well-known snug two-storied domicile;
in half a minute more I was at my ease in his study, where,
to my no small wonder, I found myself alone, with no other employment
than to survey, for the nine hundredth time, the adornments
of that exquisite model for that most snug of all things, a
cozy bachelor's peculiar snuggery. It was a small back room,
with two large windows looking out upon a neatly trimmed grassplat
bordered with lilacs and laburnums; its area, of sixteen feet
by fourteen, was strewn with a rick Turkey carpet, and covered
with every appurtenance for luxury and comfort that could be
brought into its limits without encumbering its brief dimensions.
A bright steel grate, with a brilliant fire of Cannel coal, occupied
the centre of the south side, facing the entrance, while a superb
book-case and secretaire of exquisite mahogany filled the recess
on either hand of it, their glass doors showing an assortment, handsomely
bound, of some eight hundred volumes, classics, and history,
and the gems of modern poesie and old romance. Above
the mantel-piece, where should have hung the mirror, was a wide
case, covering the whole front of the pier, with doors of plate glass,
through which might be discovered, supported on a rack of ebony,
and set off by a back-ground of rich crimson velvet, the select
armory, prized above all his earthly goods by their enthusiastic
owner—consisting of a choice pair of twin London-made double-barrels,
a short splendidly finished ounce-ball rifle, a heavy single
pigeon gun, a pair of genuine Kuchenreuter's nine-inch duelling

pistols, and a smaller pair by Joe Manton for the belt or pocket—
all in the most perfect order, and ready for immediate use. Facing
this case upon the opposite wall, along the whole length of which
ran a divan, or wide low sofa, of crimson damask, hung two oil
paintings, originals by Edward Landseer, of dogs—hounds, terriers,
and all, in fact, of canine race, mongrels of low degree alone excepted—under
these were suspended, upon brackets, two long duck
guns, and an array of tandem and four-house whips, besides two
fly-rods, and a cherry-stick Persian pipe, ten feet at least in length.
The space between the windows was occupiedby two fine engravings,
one of the Duke of Wellington, the other of Sir Walter in
his study—Harry's political and literary idols; a library centre
table, with an inkstand of costly buhl, covered with periodicals and
papers, and no less than four sumptuous arm-chairs of divers forms
and patterns, completed the appointments of the room; but the
picture still would be incomplete, were I to pass over a huge tortoise-shell
Tom Cat, which dozed upon the rug in amicable vicinity
to our old friends the spaniels Dan and Flash. It did not occupy
me quite so long to take a survey of these well-remembered articles,
as it has done to describe them; nor, in fact, had that been
the case, should I have found the time to reconnoitre them; for
scarcely was I seated by the fire, before the ponderous trampling of
Old Tom might be heard on the stair-case, as in vociferous converse
with our host he came down from the chamber, wherein, by
some strange process of persuasion assuredly peculiar to himself,
Harry had forced him to go through the ceremony of ablution, previous
to his attack upon the viands, which were in truth not likely
to be dealt with more mercifully in consequence of this delay. Another
moment, and they entered—“Arcades ambo” duly rigged for
the occasion—Harry in his neat claret-colored jocky-coat, white
waiscoat, corduroys and gaiters—Tom in Canary-colored vest, sky-blue
dress coat with huge brass buttons, gray kerseymere unmentionables,
with his hair positively brushed, and his broad jolly face
clean shaved, and wonderfully redolent of soap and water. The
good old soul's face beamed with unfeigned delight, and grasping
me affectionately by the hand—

“How be you?” he exclaimed—“How be you, Forester—you
looks well, anyways.”

“Why, I am well, Tom,” responded I, “but I shall be better
after I've had that drink that Archer's getting ready—you're dry,
I fancy—”

“Sartain!” was the expected answer; and in a moment the pale
Amontillado sherry and the bitters were paraded—but no such d—d
washy stuff, as he termed it, would the old Trojan look at, much
less taste; and Harry was compelled to produce the liquor stand,
well stored with potent waters, when at the nick of time McTavish
entered in full fig for a regular slap-up party, not knowing at all
whom he had been asked to meet. Not the least discomposed,
however, that capital fellow was instantly at home, and as usual
up to every sort of fun.

“What, Draw,” said he, “who the devil thought of seeing you
here—when did you come down? Oh! the dew, certainly,” he
continued, in reply to Archer, who was pressing a drink on him—
“the mountain dew for me—catch a Highlander at any other dram,
when Whasky's to the fore—aye, Tom?”

“Catch you at any dram, exceptin' that what's strongest. See
to him now!” as Mac tossed off his modicum, and smacked his
lips approvingly; “see to him now! I'd jist as lief drink down so
much fire, and he pours it in—pours it in, jist like as one it was
mother's milk to the d—d critter.”

“Ple-ase Sur, t' dinner's re-ady”—announced Timothy, throwing
open the folding doors, and displaying the front room, with a beautiful
fire blazing, and a good old fashioned round table covered with
exquisite white damask-linen, and laid with four covers, each
flanked by a most unusual display of glasses—a mighty bell-mouthed
rummer, namely, on a tall slender stock with a white spiral line
running up through the centre, an apt substitute for that most
awkward of all contrivances, the ordinary champagne glass—a
beautiful green hock goblet, with a wreath of grapes and vine
leaves wrought in relief about the rim—a massy water tumber
elaborately diamond-cut—and a capacious sherry-glass so delicate
and thin that the slender crystal actually seemed to bend under
the pressure of your lip; nor were the liquors wanting in proportion—two
silver wine-coolers, all frosted over with the exudations
from the ice within, displayed the long necks of a champagne flask
and a bottle of Johannisbergher, and four decanters hung out their
labels of Port, Madeira, brown Sherry, and Amontillado—while
two or three black, copper-wired bottles, in the chimney-corner, announced
a stock of heavy-wet, for such as should incline to malt.
I had expected from Tom's lips some preternatural burst of wonder,
at this display of preparation, the like of which, as I conceived, had
never met his eyes before—but, whether he had been indoctrinated
by previous feeds at Harry's hospitable board, or had learned by his
own native wit the difficult lesson of nil admirari, he sat down
without any comment, though he stared a little wildly, when he
saw nothing eatable upon the table, except a large dish of raw oysters,
flanked by a lemon and a cruet of cayenne. With most ineffable
disdain he waved off the plate which Tim presented to him,
with a G—d d—n you, I arnt a goin to give my belly cold with no
such chillin' stuff as that. I'd like to know now, Archer, if this
bees all that you're a goin to give us—for if so be it is, I'll go
stret down to the nigger's yonder, and git me a beef steak and
onions?”

“Why not exactly, Tom,” responded Archer, when he could
speak for laughing—“these are merely for a whet to give us an
appetite.”

“A d—d queer sort of wet, I think—why I'd have thought that
ere rum, what McTavish took, would have been wet enough, till
what time as you got at the champagne—and, as for appetite, I
reckon now a man whose guts is always cravin—cravin—like yours

be, had better a taken somethin dry to keep it down like, than a
wet to moisten it up more.”

By this time the natives, which had so moved Tom's indignation,
were succeeded by a tureen of superb mutton broth, to which
the old man did devote himself most assiduously, while Mac was
loud in approbation of the brouse, saying it only wanted bannocks
to be perfection.

“D—n you, you're niver satisfied—you aint”—Tom had commenced,
when he was cut short by “The Sherry round—Tim”—
from our host—“you 'd better take the brown, Tom, it's the strongest!”
The old man thrust his rummer forth, as being infinitely the
biggest, and—Timothy persisting in pouring out the strong and
fruity sherry into the proper glass—burst out again indignantly—

“I 'd be pleased to know, Archer, now, why you puts big glasses
on the table' if you don't mean they should be drinked out of—to
tantalize a chap, I reckon”—down went the wine at one gulp, and
the exquisite aroma conquered—he licked his lips, sighed audibly,
smiled, grinned, then laughed aloud. “I see—I see”—he said at
last—“you reckon it's too prime to be drinked out of big ones—and
I dunknow but what you're right too—but what on airthe is we to
drink out of these—not water, that I know! leastways, I niver see
none in this house, no how.”

“The green one is for brandy—Tom!” McTavish answered.

“Ey, ey!”—Tom interrupted him—“and they makes them green
I guess, so as no one shall see how much a body takes—now that's
what I does call genteel!”

“And this large plain one”—added Mac, looking as grave as a
judge, and lifting one of the huge champagne glasses—“is a dram
glass for drinking Scotch whiskey—what they call in the Highlands
a thimblefull—”

“They take it as a medicine there, you see, Tom”—continued
Archer—a preventive to a disease well known in those parts, called
the Scotch fiddle—did you ever hear of it?”

“Carnt say”—responded Tom “what like is 't?”

“Oh, Mac will tell you, he suffers from it sadly—didn't you see
him tuck in the specific—it was in compliment to him I had the
thimbles set out to-day.”

“Oh! that's it, aye?—the fat man answered—“well I don't care
if I do”—in answer to Harry's inquiry whether he would take some
boiled shad, which, with caper sauce, had replaced the soup—“I
don't care if I do—Shads isn't got to Newburgh yet, leastways I
harnt seen none—”

Well might he say that, by the way, for they had scarce appeared
in New York, and were attainable now only at the moderate rate
of something near their weight in silver. After the fish, a dram of
Ferintosh was circulated in one small glass, exquisitely carved into
the semblance of a thistle, which Draw disposed of with no comment
save a passing wonder that when men could get apple-jack,
they should be willing to take up with such smoky trash as
that.

A saddle of roast mutton, which had been hanging, Harry said,
six weeks, a present from that excellent good fellow, the Captain
of the Swallow, followed, and with it came the split-corks—“By
heavens,” I cried, almost involuntarily—“what a superb champagne”—suffering,
after the interjection, something exceeding half
a pint of that delicious, dry, high-flavored, and rich-bodied nectar,
to glide down my gullet.

“Yes”—answered Harry—“yes—alack! that it should be the
last! This is the last but one of the first importation of the Crown
—no such wine ever came before into this country, no such has followed
it. We shall discuss the brace to-day—what better opportudity?
Here is McTavish, its originator, the best judge in the land!
Frank Forester, who has sipped of the like at Crockie's, and a place
or two beside, which we could mention—myself, who am not slow
at any decent tipple, and Thomas Draw, who knows it, I suppose,
from Jarsey Cider!”

“Yes, and I knows it from the Jarsey champagne tew—which
you stick into poor chaps, what you fancies doosn't know no better—give
me some more of that ere mutton and some jelly—you
are most d—d sparin of your jelly now—and Timothy, you snoopin
rascal, fill this ere thimblefull agin with that Creawn wine!”

Wild fowl succeeded, cooked to a turn, hot claret duly qualified
with cayenne in a sauce-boat by their side—washed down by the
last flask of Mac's champagne, of which the last round we quaffed
sorrowfully, as in duty bound, to the importer's health, and to the
memory of the crowned head departed—the only crown, as Harry
in his funeral oration, truly and pithily observed, which gives the
lie to the assertion that “uneasy lies the head that wears a
crown.”

No womanish display of pastry marred the unity of this most
solemn masculine repast, a Stilton cheese, a red herring, with Goshen
butter, pilot bread, and porter, concluded the rare banquet. A
plate of devilled biscuit, and a magnum of Latour, furnished forth
the dessert, which we discussed right jovially; while Timothy,
after removing Harry's guns from their post of honor above the
mantel-piece to their appropriate cases, stole away to the stable to
prepare his cattle.

“Now, boys,” said Harry, “make the most of your time. There
is the claret, the best in my opinion going—for I have always prized
Mac's black-sealed Latour far above Lynch's Margaux—yes even
above that of '25. For Lynch's wine, though exquisitely delicate,
was perilous thin; I never tasted it without assenting to Serjeant
Bothwell's objection, `Claret's ower cauld for my stamach,' and
desiring like him to qualify it `wi a tass of eau di vie.' Now this
wine has no such fault, it has a body—”

“I don't know, Archer,” interrupted Tom, “what that ere
sarjeant meant with his d—d o di vee, but I know now that I'd a
d—d sight rayther have a drink o' brandy, or the least mite of apple-jack,
than a whole keg of this red rot-gut!”

“You've hit the nail on the head, Tom,” answered I, while Harry,

knowing the old man's propensities, marched off in search of the
liquor stand—“It was brandy that the serjeant meant!”

“Then why in h—l did d't he say brandy, like a man—instead of
coming out with his d—d snivelling o di vee?”

“Why, Tom,” said I, in explanation, “he admired your favorite
drink so much, that he used the Frendh name as most complimentary;
it means water of life!”

“What, he watered it too, did he? I thought he must be a d—d
poor drinkin' man, to call things out of their right names—precious
little of the raal stuff had he ever drinked, I reckon, watered or
not—o di vee! D—n all such Latin trash, says I. But here 't
comes. Take a drop, doo, McTavish, it's better fifty times, and
healthier tew, than that eternal d—d sour old vinegar, take a drop,
doo!”

“Thank you, no” answered McTavish, well contented with his
present beverage, and after a pause went on addressing Archer—
“I wish to heaven you 'd let me know what you were up to—I'd
have gone along.”

“What hinders you from going now?” said Harry. “I can rig
you out for the drive, and we can stop at the Carlton, and get
your gun, and the rest of your traps. I wish to the Lord you
would!”

“Oh! oh!” Tom burst out, on the instant, “oh, oh! I wont go,
sartain, less so be McTavish concludes on going tew—we carnt do
nothing without him.”

It was in vain, however, that we all united in entreating him to
go along—he had business to do to-morrow—he was afraid of getting
his feet wet, and fifty other equally valid excuses, till Harry exclaimed—“It's
no use, I can tell you Donald's bluid's up, and
there's an end of it—”

Whereat McTavish laughed, and saying that he did not think,
for a very short-sighted man, snipe-shooting up to his waist in water,
and up to his knees in mud, was the great thing it is cracked up
to be, filled himself a pretty sufficient dose of hot toddy, and drank
to our good luck. Just at this moment, up rattled, ready packed,
with the dogs in, the gun-cases stowed, and store of topcoats, capes,
and bear-skins, all displayed, the wagon to the door.

“I need not tell you, Mac,” cried Archer, as he wrung the gallant
Celt by the hand, to make yourself at home—we must be
off, you know;”—then opening the window, “hand in those coats,
Timothy, out of that drizzling rain—I thought you had more
sense.”

“Nay then, they're no but just coom fra under t' approns,” responded
Tim, not over and above delighted at the reflection on his
genius—“they're droy as booans, Ayse warrant um.”

“Well! hand them in then—hand them in—where's your coat,
Tom?—that's it; now look here, buckle on this crape of mine over
your shoulders, and take this India rubber hood, and tie it over
your hat, and you may laugh at four-and-twenty-hours' rain, let
alone two. You have got toggery enough, Frank, I conclude—so

here goes for myself.” Whereupon he indued, first a pea-jacket of
extra pilot-cloth, and a pair of English mud-boots, buttoning to the
mid thigh; and, above these, a regular box coat of stout blue
dreadnought, with half a dozen capes; an oil-skin covered hat,
with a curtain to protect his neck and ears, fastening with a hook
and eye under the chin, completing his attire. In we got, thereupon,
without more ado. Myself and Timothy, with the two setters,
in the box-seat behind, the leathern apron unrolled and buttoned
up, over a brace of buffalo robes, hairy side inward, to our middles
—Harry and Tom in front, with one superb black bearskin drawn
up by a ring and strap to the centre of the back rail between them,
and the patent water-proof apron hooked up to either end of the seat
—the effeminacy of umbrellas we despised—our cigars lighted, and
our bodies duly muffled up, off we went, at a single chirrup of our
driver, whose holly four-horse whip stood in the socket by his side
unheeded, as with his hands ungloved, and his beautiful, firm, upright
seat upon the box, he wheeled off at a gentle trot, the good
nags knowing their master's hand and voice, as well as if they had
been his children, and obeying them far better.

Our drive, it must be admitted, through the heavy rain was nothing
to brag of. Luckily, however, before we had got over much
more than half our journey, the storm gradually ceased, as the night
fell; and, by the time we reached the big swamp, it was clear all
over the firmament; with a dark, dark blue sky, and millions of
stars twinkling gayly—and the wind blowing freshly but pleasantly
out of the nor-norwest!

“Did I not tell you so, boys?” exclaimed Archer, joyously pointing
with his whip to the bright skies—“we'll have a glorious day
to-morrow.” Just as he spoke, we reached the little toll-gate by
the Morris Canal; and, as we paused to change a fifty cent piece,
what should we hear, high in air, rapidly passing over our heads,
but the well known “skeap! skeap?” the thin shrill squeak of
unnumbered snipe, busy in their nocturnal voyage; and within an
hour thereafter we arrived at our journey's end, where a glass all
round of tip-top champagne brandy—a neat snug supper of capital
veal cutlets, ham and eggs, and pork steaks and sausages, finished
the day, and tired enough we went to bed early and dreamed.