 | DAY THE SECOND. The Warwick woodlands, or, Things as they were there, ten years ago |  |
2. DAY THE SECOND.
Much as I had heard of Tom Draw, I was, I must confess,
taken altogether aback when I, for the first time, set eyes upon
him. I had heard Harry Archer talk of him fifty times as a crack
shot; as a top sawyer at a long day's fag; as the man of all others
he would choose as his mate, if he were to shoot a match, two
against two—what then was my astonishment at beholding this
worthy, as he reared himself slowly from his recumbent position?
It is true, I had heard his sobriquet “Fat Tom,” but, Heaven and
Earth! such a mass of beef and brandy as stood before me, I had
never even dreamed of. About five feet six inches at the very utmost
in the perpendicular, by six or—“by'r lady”—nearer seven,
in circumference, weighing, at the least computation, two hundred
and fifty pounds, with a broad jolly face, its every feature—well-formed
and handsome, rather than otherwise,—mantling with an
expression of the most perfect excellence of heart and temper, and
overshadowed by a vast mass of brown hair, sprinkled pretty well
with gray!—Down he plumped from the counter with a thud that
made the whole floor shake, and with a hand outstretched, that
might have done for a Goliah, out he strode to meet us.
“Why, hulloa! hulloa! Mr. Archer,” shaking his hand till I
thought he would have dragged the arm clean out of the socket—
“How be you, boy? How be you?”
“Right well, Tom, can't you see? Why confound you, you've
grown twenty pound heavier since July!—but here, I'm losing all
my manners!—this is Frank Forester, whom you have heard me
talk about so often! He dropped down here out of the moon,
Tom, I believe! at least I thought about as much of seeing the man
in the moon, as of meeting him in this wooden country—but here
he is—as you see—come all the way to take a look at the natives.
And so, you see, as you're about the greatest curiosity I know of
in these parts, I brought him straight up here to take a peep!
Look at him, Frank—look at him well! Now, did you ever see,
in all your life, so extraordinary an old devil?—and yet, Frank,
which no man could possibly believe, the old fat animal has some
good points about him—he can walk some!—shoot, as he says,
first best!—and drink—good Lord—how he can drink!
“And that reminds me,” exclaimed Tom, who with a ludicrous
mixture of pleasure, bushfulness, and mock anger, had been listening
to what he evidently deemed a high encomium—“that we
hav'nt drinked yet—have you quit drink, Archer, since I was to
York?—What'll you take, Mr. Forester? Gin?—yes, I have got
some prime gin! You never sent me up them groceries though,
Archer—well, then, here's luck! What, Yorkshire, is that you?
I should ha' thought now, Archer, you'd have cleared that lazy
Injun out afore this time!”
“Whoy, measter Draa—what 'na loike's that kind o' talk?—coom
coom now, where 'll Ay tak t' things tull?”
“Put Mr. Forester's box in the bed-room off the parlor—mine
up stairs, as usual,” cried Archer. “Look sharp and get the traps
out. Now, Tom, I suppose you have got no supper for us!”
“Cooper, Cooper!—you snooping little devil,” yelled Tom, addressing
his second hope, a fine dark-eyed, bright-looking lad of ten
or twelve years—“Don't you see Mr. Archer's come?—away with
you and light the parlor fire, look smart now, or I'll cure you!
Supper—you're always eat! eat! eat! or, drink! drink!—drunk?
Yes! supper—we've got pork! and chickens—”
“Oh! d—n your pork,” said I, “salt as the ocean I suppose!”
“And double d—n your chickens,” chimed in Harry, “old super-annuated
cocks which must be caught now, and then beheaded, and
then soused into hot water to fetch off the feathers; and save you
lazy devils the trouble of picking them. No, no, Tom! get us
some fresh meat for to-morrow; and for to-night let us have some
hot potatoes, and some bread and butter, and we'll find beef—eh,
Frank.? and now look sharp, for we must be up in good time to-morrow,
and, to be so, we must to bed betimes. And now, Tom,
are there any cock?”
“Cock!—yes, I guess there be—and quail, too, pretty plenty!—
quite a smart chance of them, and not a shot fired among them this
fall, any how!”
“Well, which way must we beat to-morrow? I calculate to
shoot three days with you here; and, on Wednesday night, when
we get in, to hitch up and drive into Sullivan, and see if we can't
get a deer or two! You'll go, Tom?”
“Well, well, we'll see any how; but for to-morrow, why, I
guess we must beat the 'Squire's swamp-hole first—there's ten or
twelve cock there, I know—I see them there myself last Sunday;
and then acrost them buck-wheat stubbles, and the big bog meadow,
there's a drove of quail there—two or three bevys got in one,
I reckon; least wise I counted thirty-three last Friday was a week—
and through Seer's big swamp, over to the great spring!”
“How is Seer's swamp? too wet, I fancy”—Archer interposed
—“at least I noticed, from the mountain, that all the leaves were
changed in it, and that the maples were quite bare.”
“Pretty fair, pretty fair, I guess,” replied stout Tom, “I harnt
been there myself though, but Jem was down with the hounds arter
an old fox t' other day, and sure enough he said the cock kept
flopping up quite thick afore him—but then the critter will lie,
Harry—he will lie like h—ll, you know; but somehow I concaits
there be cock there too; and then, as I was saying, we'll stop at
the great spring and get a bite of summat, and then beat Hell-hole;
you'll have sport there for sartin! What dogs have you got with
you, Harry?”
“Your old friends, Shot and Chase, and a couple of spaniels for
thick covert!”
“Now, gentlemen, your suppers are all ready.”
“Come, Tom,” cried Archer, “you must take a bite with us—
Tim, bring us in three bottles of champagne, and lots of ice, do you
hear?”
And the next moment we found ourselves installed in a snug
parlor, decorated with a dozen sporting prints, a blazing hickory
fire snapping and sputtering and roaring in a huge Franklin stove;
our luggage safely stowed in various corners, and Archer's double
gun-case propped on two chairs below the window.
An old-fashioned round table, covered with clean white linen of
domestic manufacture, displayed the noble round of beef which we
had brought up with us, flanked by a platter of magnificent potatoes,
pouring forth volumes of dense steam through the cracks in
their dusky skins; a lordly dish of butter, that might have pleased
the appetite of Sisera; while eggs and ham, and pies of apple,
mince-meat, cranberry and custard, occupied every vacant space,
save where two ponderous pitchers, mantling with ale and cider,
and two respectable square bottles, labelled “Old Rum” and
“Brandy—1817,” relieved the prospect. Before we had sat down,
Timothy entered, bearing a horse bucket filled to the brim with ice,
from whence protruded the long necks and split corks of three
champagne bottles.
“Now, Tim,” said Archer, “get your own supper, when you've
finished with the cattle; feed the dogs well to-night; and then to
bed. And hark you, call me at five in the morning; we shall want
you to carry the game bag and the drinkables; take care of yourself,
Tim, and good night!”
“No need to tell him that,” cried Tom, “he's something like
yourself; I tell you, Archer, if Tim ever dies of thirst, it must be
where there is nothing wet, but water?”
“Now hark to the old scoundrel, Frank,” said Archer, “hark to
him pray, and if he doesn't out-eat both of us, and out-drink any
thing you ever saw, may I miss my first bird to-morrow—that's
all! Give me a slice of beef, Frank; that old Goth would cut it an
inch thick if I let him touch it; out with a cork, Tom! Here's to
our sport to-morrow!”
“Uh; that goes good!” replied Tom with an eructation, which
might have preceded an eruption of Vesuvius, and which, by the
apparent gusto of the speaker, seemed to betoken that the wine
“had returned pleasant—“that goes good! that's different from
the damned red trash you left up here last time.”
“And of which you have left none, I'll be bound,” answered
Archer, laughing; “my best Latour, Frank, which the old infidel
calls trash.”
“It's all below, every bottle of it,” answered Tom: “I would n't
use such rot-gut stuff, no, not for vinegar. 'Taint half so good
as that red sherry you had up here oncet; that was poor weak stuff
too, but it did well to make milk punch of; it did well instead of
milk.”
“Now, Frank,” said Archer, “you won't believe me, that I
know; but it's true, all the same. A year ago, this autumn, I
brown sherry—draught wine you know!—and what did Tom do
here, but mix it, half and half, with brandy, nutmeg, and sugar, and
drink it for milk punch!”
“I did so, by the eternal,” replied Tom, bolting a huge lump of
beef, in order to enable himself to answer—“I did so, and good
milk punch it made too, but it was too weak! Come, Mr. Forester,
we harnt drinked yet, and I'm kind o' gittin dry!”
And now the mirth waxed fast and furious—the champagne
speedily was finished, the supper things cleared off, hot water and
Starke's Ferintosh succeeded, cheroots were lighted, we drew
closer in about the fire, and, during the circulation of two tumblers
—for to this did Harry limit us, having the prospect of unsteady
hands and aching heads before him for the morrow—never did I
hear more genuine and real humor, than went round our merry
trio.
Tom Draw, especially, though all his jokes were not such altogether
as I can venture to insert in my chaste paragraphs, and
though at times his oaths were too extravagantly rich to brook repetition,
shone forth resplendent. No longer did I wonder at what
I had before deemed Harry Archer's strange hallucination; Tom
Draw is a decided genius—rough as a pine knot in his native woods
—but full of mirth, of shrewdness, of keen mother wit, of hard horse
sense, and last, not least, of the most genuine milk of human kindness.
He is a rough block; but, as Harry says, there is solid timber
under the uncouth bark enough to make five hundred men, as men
go now-a-days in cities!
At ten o'clock, thanks to the excellent precautions of my friend
Harry, we were all snugly berthed, before the whiskey, which had
well justified the high praise I had heard lavished on it, had made
any serious inroads on our understandings, but not before we had
laid in a quantum to ensure a good night's rest.
Bright and early was I on foot the next day, but before I had half
dressed myself I was assured, by the clatter of the breakfast things,
that Archer had again stolen a march upon me; and the next moment
my bed-room door, driven open by the thick boot of that worthy,
gave me a full view of his person—arrayed in a stout fustian
jacket—with half a dozen pockets in full view, and Heaven only
knows how many more lying perdu in the broad skirts. Knee
breeches of the same material, with laced half-boots and leather
leggins, set off his stout calf and well turned ankle.
“Up! up! Frank,” he exclaimed, “it is a morning of ten thousand;
there has been quite a heavy dew, and by the time we are
afoot it will be well evaporated; and then the scent will lie, I promise
you! make haste, I tell you, breakfast is ready!”
Stimulated by his hurrying voice, I soon completed my toilet, and
entering the parlor found Harry busily employed in stirring to and
fro a pound of powder on one heated dinner plate, while a second
was undergoing the process of preparation on the hearth-stone under
a glowing pile of hickory ashes.
At the side-table, covered with guns, dog-whips, nipple-wrenches,
and the like, Tim, rigged like his master, in half boots and leggins,
but with a short roundabout of velveteen, in place of the full-skirted
jacket, was filling our shot-pouches by aid of a capacious funnel,
more used, as its odor betokened, to facilitate the passage of gin or
Jamaica spirits than of so sober a material as cold lead.
At the same moment entered mine host, togged for the field in a
huge pair of cow-hide boots reaching almost to the knee, into the
tops of which were tucked the lower ends of a pair of trowsers,
containing yards enough of buffalo-cloth to have eked out the mainsail
of a North River sloop; a waistcoat and single-breasted jacket
of the same material, with a fur cap, completed his attire; but in
his hand he bore a large decanter filled with a pale yellowish
liquor, embalming a dense mass of fine and worm-like threads, not
very different in appearance from the best vermicelli.
“Come, boys, come—here's your bitters,” he exclaimed; and, as
if to set us the example, filled a big tumbler to the brim, gulped it
down as if it had been water, smacked his lips, and incontinently
tendered it to Archer, who, to my great amazement, filled himself
likewise a more moderate draught, and quaffed it without hesitation.
“That's good, Tom,” he said, pausing after the first sip; “that's
the best I ever tasted here—how old's that?”
“Five years!” Tom replied; “five years last fall! Daddy Tom
made it me out of my own best apples—take a horn, Mr. Forester,”
he added, turning to me—“it's first best cider sperrits—better a
d—n sight than that Scotch stuff you make such an etarnal fuss
about, toting it up here every time, as if we'd nothing fit to drink
in the country!”
And to my sorrow I did taste it—old apple whiskey, with Lord
knows how much snake-root soaked in it for five years! They may
talk about gall being bitter—but, by all that's wonderful, there was
enough of the amari aliquid in this fonte, to me by no means of
leporum, to have given an extra touch of bitterness to all the gall
beneath the canopy; and with my mouth puckered up, till it was
like any thing on earth but a mouth, I set the glass down on the
table; and for the next five minutes could do nothing but shake my
head to and fro like a Chinese mandarin, amidst the loud and prolonged
roars of laughter that burst like thunder claps from the huge
jaws of Thomas Draw, and the subdued and half respectful cachinnations
of Tim Matlock.
By the time I had got a little better, the black tea was ready, and
with thick cream, hot buck-wheat cakes, beautiful honey, and—as
a stand-by—the still venerable round, we made out a very tolerable
meal.
This done, with due deliberation Archer supplied his several
pockets with their accustomed load—the clean-punched wads in
this—in that the Westley Richards' caps—here a pound horn of
powder—there a shot-pouch on Syke's lever principle, with double
mouth-piece—in another, screw-driver, nipple-wrench, and the spare
handkerchief in the sixth and last.
“Nothing like method in this world,” said Harry, clapping his
low-crowned broad-brimmed mohair cap upon his head—“take my
word for it. Now, Tim, what have you got in the bag?”
“A bottle of champagne, sur,” answered Tim, who was now employed
slinging a huge fustian game-bag, with a net-work front,
over his right shoulder, to counterbalance two full shot-belts which
were already thrown across the other—“a bottle of champagne,
sur—a cold roast chicken—t' Cheshire cheese—and t' pilot biscuits.
Is your dram bottle filled wi' t' whiskey, please, sur?”
“Aye, aye, Tim! Now let loose the dogs—carry a pair of
couples and a leash along with you; and mind you, gentlemen,
Tim carries shot for all hands; and luncheon—but each one finds
his own powder, caps, &c.; and any one who wants a dram, carries
his own—the devil-a-one of you gets a sup out of my bottle, or a
charge out of my flask! That's right, old Trojan, is n't it?” with
a good slap on Tom's broad shoulders.
“Shot! Shot—why Shot! do n't you know me, old dog?” cried
Tom, as the two setters bounded into the room, joyful at their release—“good
dog! good Chase!” feeding them with great lumps
of beef.
“A vast! there Tom—have done with that,” cried Harry;
“you'll have the dogs so full that they can't run!”
“Why, how'd you like to hunt all day without your breakfast—
hey?”
“Here, lads! here, lads! wh-e-ew!” and followed by his setters,
with his gun under his arm, away went Harry; and catching up
our pieces likewise, we followed, nothing loth, Tim bringing up the
rear with the two spaniels fretting in their couples, and a huge black
thorn cudgel, which he had brought, as he informed me, “all t' way
from bonny Cawoods.”
It was as beautiful a morning as ever lighted sportsmen to their
labors. The dew, exhaled already from the long grass, still glittered
here and there upon the shrubs and trees, though a soft fresh
south-western breeze was shaking it thence momently in bright and
rustling showers; the sun, but newly risen, and as yet partially enveloped
in the thin gauze-like mists so frequent at that season, was
casting shadows, seemingly endless, from every object that intercepted
his low rays, and chequering the whole landscape with that
play of light and shade, which is the loveliest accessory to a lovely
scene; and lovely was the scene, indeed, as e'er was looked upon
by painter's or by poet's eye—how then should humble prose do
justice to it?
Seated upon the first slope of a gentle hill, midway of the great
valley heretofore described, the village looked due south, toward the
chains of mountains, which we had crossed on the preceding evening,
and which in that direction bounded the landscape. These
ridges, cultivated half-way up their swelling sides, which lay mapped
out before our eyes in all the various beauty of orchards, yellow
were rendered yet more lovely and romantic, by here and there a
woody gorge, or rocky chasm, channelling their smooth flanks, and
carrying down their tributary rills, to swell the main stream at their
base. Toward these we took our way by the same road which we
had followed in an opposite direction on the previous night—but
for a short space only—for having crossed the stream, by the same
bridge which we had passed on entering the village, Tom Draw
pulled down a set of bars to the left, and strode out manfully into
the stubble.
“Hold up, good lads!—whe-ew—whewt!” and away went the
setters through the moist stubble, heads up and sterns down, like
fox-hounds on a breast-high scent, yet under the most perfect discipline;
for at the very first note of Harry's whistle, even when
racing at the top of their pace, they would turn simultaneously,
alter their course, cross each other at right angles, and quarter the
whole field, leaving no foot of ground unbeaten.
No game, however, in this instance, rewarded their exertions;
and on we went across a meadow, and two other stubbles, with the
like result. But now we crossed a gentle hill, and, at its base,
came on a level tract, containing at the most ten acres of marsh
land, overgrown with high coarse grass and flags. Beyond this, on
the right, was a steep rocky hillock, covered with tall and thrifty
timber of some thirty years' growth, but wholly free from underwood.
Along the left-hand fence ran a thick belt of underwood,
sumach and birch, with a few young oak trees interspersed; but in
the middle of the swampy level, covering at most some five or six
acres, was a dense circular thicket composed of every sort of thorny
bush and shrub, matted with cat-briers and wild vines, and over-shadowed
by a clump of tall and leafy ashes, which had not as yet
lost one atom of their foliage, although the underwood beneath
them was quite sere and leafless.
“Now then,” cried Harry, “this is the `Squire's swamp-hole!'
Now for a dozen cock! hey, Tom? Here, couple up the setters,
Tim; and let the spaniels loose. Now Flash! now Dan! down
charge, you little villains!” and the well broke brutes dropped on
the instant. “How must we beat this cursed hole?”
“You must go through the very thick of it, concarn you!” exclaimed
Tom; “at your old work already, hey? trying to shirk at
first!”
“Do n't swear so! you old reprobate! I know my place, depend
on it,” cried Archer; “but what to do with the rest of you!—
there's the rub!”
“Not a bit of it,” cried Tom—“here, Yorkshire—Ducklegs—
here, what's your name—get away you with those big dogs—
atwixt the swamp hole, and the brush there by the fence, and look
out that you mark every bird to an inch! You, Mr. Forester, go
in there, under that butter-nut; you'll find a blind track there,
right through the brush—keep that 'twixt Tim and Mr. Archer;
ten yards in. Archer, you'll go right through, and I'll—”
“You'll keep well forward on the right—and mind that no bird
crosses to the hill; we never get them, if they once get over. All
right! In with you now! Steady, Flash! steady! hie up, Dan!”
and in a moment Harry was out of sight among the brush-wood,
though his progress might be traced by the continual crackling of
the thick underwood.
Scarce had I passed the butter-nut, when, even as Tom had said,
up flapped a woodcock scarcely ten yards before me, in the open
path, and rising heavily to clear the branches of a tall thorn bush,
showed me his full black eye, and tawny breast, as fair a shot as
could be fancied.
“Mark!” holloaed Harry to my right, his quick ear having
caught the flap of the bird's wing, as he rose. “Mark cock—
Frank!”
Well—steadily enough, as I thought, I pitched my gun up!
covered my bird fairly! pulled!—the trigger gave not to my finger.
I tried the other. “Devil's in it, I had forgot to cock my
gun!” and ere I could retrieve my error, the bird had topped the
bush, dodged out of sight, and off—“mark! mark!—Tim!” I
shouted.
“Ey! ey! sur—Ay see's um!”
“Why, how's that, Frank?” cried Harry. “Could n't you get a
shot?”
“Forgot to cock my gun!” I cried; but at the self same moment
the quick sharp yelping of the spaniels came on my ear. “Steady,
Flash! steady, sir! Mark!” But close upon the word came the
full round report of Harry's gun. “Mark! again!” shouted Harry,
and again his own piece sent its loud ringing voice abroad. “Mark!
now a third! mark, Frank!”
And as he spoke I caught the quick rush of his wing, and saw
him dart across a space, a few yards to my right. I felt my hand
shake; I had not pulled a trigger in ten months, but in a second's
space I rallied. There was an opening just before me between a
stumpy thick thorn-bush which had saved the last bird, and a dwarf
cedar—it was not two yards over—he glanced across it!—he was
gone—just as my barrel sent its charge into the splintered branches.
“Beautiful!” shouted Harry, who, looking through a cross glade,
saw the bird fall, which I could not. “Beautiful shot, Frank! Do
all your work like that, and we'll get twenty couple before night!”
“Have I killed him!” answered I, half doubting if he were not
quizzing me.
“Killed him? of course you have; doubled him up completely!
But look sharp! there are more birds before me! I can hardly keep
the dogs down, now! There! there goes one—clean out of shot of
me, though! Mark! mark, Tom! Gad, how the fat dog's running!”
he continued. “He sees him! Ten to one he gets him!
There he goes—bang! A long shot, and killed clean!”
“Ready!” cried I. “I'm ready, Archer!”
“Bag your bird then. He lies under that dock leaf, at the foot
of yon red maple! That's it—you've got him. Steady now, till
Tom gets loaded!”
“What did you do?” asked I. “You fired twice, I think!”
“Killed two!” he answered. “Ready, now!” and on he went,
smashing away the boughs before him, while ever and anon I heard
his cheery voice, calling or whistling to his dogs, or rousing up the
tenants of some thickets into which even he could not force his
way; and I, creeping, as best I might, among the tangled brush,
now plunging half thigh deep in holes full of tenacious mire, now
blundering over the moss-covered stubs, pressed forward, fancying
every instant that the rustling of the briers against my jacket was
the flip-flap of a rising woodcock. Suddenly, after bursting through
a mass of thorns and wild-vine, which was in truth almost impassable,
I came upon a little grassy spot quite clear of trees, and covered
with the tenderest verdure, through which a narrow rill stole silently;
and as I set my first foot on it, up jumped, with his beautiful variegated
back all reddened by the sunbeams, a fine and full-fed wood-cock,
with the peculiar twitter which he utters when surprised. He
had not gone ten yards, however, before my gun was at my shoulder
and the trigger drawn—before I heard the crack I saw him
cringe; and, as the white smoke drifted off to leeward, he fell
heavily, completely riddled by the shot, into the brake before me—
while at the same moment, whir-r-r! up sprung a bevy of twenty
quail, at least, startling me for the moment by the thick whirring
of their wings, and skirring over the underwood right toward
Archer. “Mark, quail!” I shouted, and, recovering instantly my
nerves, fired my one remaining barrel after the last bird! It was
a long shot, yet I struck him fairly, and he rose instantly right upward,
towering high! high! into the clear blue sky, and soaring
still, till his life left him in the air, and he fell like a stone, plump
downward!
“Mark him! Tim!”
“Ey! ey! sur. He's a de-ad un, that's a sure thing!”
At my shot all the bevy rose a little, yet altered not their course
the least, wheeling across the thicket directly round the front of
Archer, whose whereabout I knew, though I could neither see nor
hear him. So high did they fly that I could observe them clearly,
every bird well defined against the sunny heavens. I watched
them eagerly. Suddenly one turned over; a cloud of feathers
streamed off down the wind; and then, before the sound of the first
shot had reached my ears, a second pitched a few yards upward,
and, after a heavy flutter, followed its hapless comrade.
Turned by the fall of the two leading birds, the bevy again
wheeled, still rising higher, and now flying very fast; so that, as I
saw by the direction which they took, they would probably give
Draw a chance of getting in both barrels. And so indeed it was;
for, as before, long ere I caught the booming echoes of his heavy
gun, I saw two birds keeled over, and, almost at the same instant,
the cheery shout of Tim announced to me that he had bagged my
one another now and then, gradually forced our way through brake
and brier toward the outward verge of the dense covert. Before
we met again, however, I had the luck to pick up a third woodcock,
and as I heard another double shot from Archer, and two single
bangs from Draw, I judged that my companions had not been less
successful than myself. At last, emerging from the thicket, we
all converged, as to a common point, toward Tim; who, with his
game-bag on the ground, with its capacious mouth wide open to
receive our game, sat on a stump with the two setters at a charge
beside him.
“What do we score?” cried I, as we drew near; “what do we
score?”
“I have four woodcock, and a brace of quail,” said Harry.
“And I, two cock and a brace,” cried Tom, “and missed another
cock; but he's down in the meadow here, behind that 'ere stums
alder!”
“And I, three woodcock and one quail!” I chimed in, naught
abashed.
“And Ay'se marked doon three woodcock—two more beside you
big un, that measter Draa made siccan a bungle of—and all t' quail
—every feather on um—doon i' t' bog meadows yonner—ooh! but
we'se mak grand sport o' t!” interposed Tim, now busily employed
stringing bird after bird up by the head, with loops and buttons in
the game-bag!
“Well done then, all!” said Harry. “Nine timber-doodles and
five quail, and only one shot missed! That's not bad shooting,
considering what a hole it is to shoot in. Gentlemen, here's your
health,” and filling himself out a fair sized wine-glass-full of Ferintosh,
into the silver cup of his dram-bottle, he tossed it off; and then
poured out a similar libation for Tim Matlock. Tom and myself,
nothing loth, obeyed the hint, and sipped our modicums of distilled
waters out of our private flasks.
“Now, then,” cried Archer, “let us pick up these scattering
birds. Tom Draw, you can get yours without a dog! And now,
Tim, where are yours?”
“T' first lies oop yonner in yon boonch of branchens, ahint t' big
scarlet maple; and t' other”—
“Well! I'll go to the first. You take Mr. Forester to the other,
and when we have bagged all three, we'll meet at the bog meadow
fence, and then hie at the bevy!”
This job was soon done, for Draw and Harry bagged their birds
cleverly at the first rise; and although mine got off at first without
a shot, by dodging round a birch tree straight in Tim's face,
and flew back slap toward the thicket, yet he pitched in its outer
skirt, and as he jumped up wild I cut him down with a broken
pinion and a shot through his bill at fifty yards, and Chase retrieved
him well.
“Cleverly stopped, indeed!” Frank halloaed; “and by no means
least!”
“The boy can shoot some,” observed Tom Draw, who loved to
bother Timothy; “the boy can shoot some, though he doos come
from Yorkshire!”
“God! and Ay wush Ay'd no but gotten thee i' Yorkshire, measter
Draa!” responded Tim.
“Why! what if you had got me there?”
“What? Whoy, Ay'd clap thee iv a cage, and hug thee round
to t' feasts and fairs loike; and shew thee to t' folks at so mooch a
head. Ay'se sure Ay'd mak a fortune o' t!”
“He has you there, Tom! Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Archer.
“Tim's down upon you there, by George! Now, Frank, do fancy
Tom Draw in a cage at Borough-bridge or Catterick fair! Lord!
how the folks would pay to look at him! Fancy the sign board
too! The Great American Man-mammoth! Ha! ha! ha! But
come, we must not stay here talking nonsense, or we shall do no
good. Show me, Tim, where are the quail?”
“Doon i' t' bog meadow yonner! joost i' t' slack,[3]
see thee,
there!” pointing with the stout black-thorn; “amang yon bits o'
bushes!”
“Very well—that's it; now let go the setters; take Flash and
Dan along with you, and cut across the country as straight as you
can go to the spring head, where we lunched last year; that day,
you know Tom, when McTavish frightened the bull out of the
meadow—under the pin-oak tree. Well! put the champagne into
the spring to cool, and rest yourself there till we come; we shan't
be long behind you.”
Away went Tim, stopping from time to time to mark our progress,
and over the fence into the bog meadow we proceeded; a
rascally piece of broken tussocky ground, with black mud knee-deep
between the hags, all covered with long grass. The third
step I took, over I went upon my nose, but luckily avoided shoving
my gun-barrels into the filthy mire.
“Steady, Frank, steady! I'm ashamed of you!” said Harry;
“so hot and so impetuous; and your gun too at the full cock;
that's the reason, man, why you missed firing at your first bird,
this morning. I never cock either barrel till I see my bird; and,
if a bevy rises, one only at a time. The birds will lie like stones
here; and we cannot walk too slow. Steady, Shot, have a care,
sir!”
Never, in all my life, did I see any thing more perfect than the
style in which the setters drew those bogs. There was no more of
racing, no more of impetuous dash; it seemed as if they knew the
birds were close before them. At a slow trot, their sterns whipping
their flanks at every step, they threaded the high tussocks. See!
the red dog straightens his neck, and snuffs the air.
“Look to! look to, Frank! they are close before old Chase!”
Now he draws on again, crouching close to the earth. “Toho!
Shot!” Now he stands! no! no! not yet—at least he is not certain!
He turns his head to catch his master's eye! Now his stern
moves a little—he draws on again!
There! he is sure now! what a picture—his black full eye intently
glaring, though he cannot see any thing in that thick mass
of herbage; his nostril wide expanded, his lips slavering from intense
excitement; his whole form motionless, and sharply drawn,
and rigid, even to the straight stern and lifted foot, as a block
wrought to mimic life by some skilful sculptor's chisel; and, scarce
ten yards behind, his liver-colored comrade backs him—as firm, as
stationary, as immovable, but in his attitude, how different! Chase
feels the hot scent steaming up under his very nostril; feels it in
every nerve, and quivers with anxiety to dash on his prey, even
while perfectly restrained and steady. Shot, on the contrary,
though a few minutes since he too was drawing, knows nothing of
himself, perceives no indication of the game's near presence, although
improved by discipline, his instinct tells him that his mate
has found them. Hence the same rigid form, stiff tail, and constrained
attitude, but in his face—for dogs have faces—there is none
of that tense energy, that evident anxiety; there is no frown
upon his brow, no glare in his mild open eye, no slaver on
his lip!
“Come up, Tom; come up, Frank, they are all here; we must
get in six barrels; they will not move—come up, I say!”
“And on we came, deliberately prompt, and ready. Now we
were all in line: Harry the centre man, I on the right, and Tom
on the left hand! The attitude of Archer was superb; his legs,
set a little way apart, as firm as if they had been rooted in the
soil; his form drawn back a little, and his head erect, with his eye
fixed upon the dogs; his gun held in both hands, across his person,
the muzzle slightly elevated, his left grasping the trigger guard;
the thumb of the right resting upon the hammer, and the fore-finger
on the trigger of the left hand barrel; but, as he had said, neither
cocked! “Fall back, Tom, if you please, five yards or so,” he said,
as coolly as if he were completely unconcerned, “and you come forward,
Frank, as many; I want to drive them to the left, into those
low red bushes—that will do—now then, I'll flush them—never
mind me, boys, I'll reserve my fire.”
And, as he spoke, he moved a yard or two in front of us, and under
his very feet, positively startling me by their noisy flutter, up
sprang the gallant bevy—fifteen or sixteen well grown birds,
crowding and jostling one against the other. Tom Draw's gun, as
I well believe, was at his shoulder when they rose; at least his
first shot was discharged before they had flown half a rood, and of
course harmlessly—the charge must have been driven through
them like a single ball; his second barrel instantly succeeded, and
down came two birds, caught in the act of crossing. I am myself
a quick shot, too quick if any thing, yet my first barrel was exploded
a moment after Tom Draw's second; the other followed,
and I had the satisfaction of bringing both my birds down handsomely;
or twenty-five yards distant—cocking it as it rose, he pulled the
trigger almost before it touched his shoulder, so rapid was the
movement; and, though he lowered the stock a little to cock the
second barrel, a moment scarcely passed between the two reports,
and almost on the instant two quail were fluttering out their lives
among the bog grass.
Dropping his butt, without a word, or even a glance to the dogs,
he quietly went on to load; nor indeed was it needed! at the first
shot they dropped into the grass, and there they lay as motionless
as if they had been dead, with their heads crouched between their
paws; nor did they stir thence till the tick of the gun-locks announced
that we again were ready. Then lifting up their heads,
and rising on their fore-feet, they sat half erect, eagerly waiting
for the signal.
“Hold up, good lads!” and on they drew, and in an instant
pointed on two several birds. “Fetch!” and each brought his
burthen to our feet; six birds were bagged at that rise, and thus
before eleven o'clock we had picked up a dozen cock, and within
one of the same number of fine quail, with only two shots missed.
The poor remainder of the bevy had dropped, singly, and scattered,
in the red bushes, whither we instantly pursued them, and where
we got six more, making a total of seventeen birds bagged out of a
bevy, twenty strong at first.
One towered bird of Harry's, certainly killed dead, we could
not with all our efforts bring to bag!—one bird Tom Draw missed
clean, and the remaining one we could not find again—another
dram of whiskey, and into Seer's great swamp we started—a large
piece of woodland, with every kind of lying. At one end it was
open, with soft black loamy soil, covered with docks and colts-foot
leaves under the shade of large but leafless willows, and here we
picked up a good many scattered woodcock; afterward we got into the
heavy thicket with much tangled grass, wherein we flushed a bevy,
but they all took to tree, and we made very little of them—and
here Tom Draw began to blow and labor—the covert was too thick,
the bottom too deep and unsteady for him.
Archer perceiving this, sent him at once to the outside; and
three times, as we went along, ourselves moving nothing, we heard
the round reports of his large calibre. “A bird at every shot, I'd
stake my life,” said Harry, “he never misses cross shots in the
open!”—at the same instant, a tremendous rush of wings burst from
the heaviest thicket—“Mark! partridge! partridge!” and as I
caught a glimpse of a dozen large birds fluttering up, one close upon
the other, and darting away as straight and nearly as fast as bullets,
through the dense branches of a cedar brake, I saw the flashes of
both Harry's barrels, almost simultaneously discharged, and at the
same time over went the objects of his aim; but ere I could get
up my gun the rest were out of sight. “You must shoot, Frank,
like lightning to kill these beggars—they are the ruffed grouse,
though they call them partridge here—see! are they not fine
fellows?”
Another hour's beating, in which we still kept picking up, from
time to time, some scattering birds, brought us to the spring head,
where we found Tim with luncheon ready, and our fat friend reposing
at his side, with two more partridge, and a rabbit which he
had bagged along the covert's edge. Cool was the Star champagne;
and capital was the cold fowl and Cheshire cheese; and
most delicious was the repose that followed, enlivened with gay
wit and free good humor, soothed by the fragrance of the exquisite
cheroots, moistened by the last drops of the Ferintosh qualified by
the crystal waters of the spring. After an hour's rest, we counted
up our spoil; four ruffed grouse, nineteen woodcock, with ten
brace and a half of quail besides the bunny, made up our score—
done comfortably in four hours.
“Now we have finished for to-day with quail,” said Archer,
“but we'll get full ten couple more of woodcock; come, let us be
stirring—hang up your game-bag in the tree, and tie the setters to
the fence; I want you in with me to beat, Tim—you two chaps
must both keep the outside!—you all the time, Tom; you, Frank,
till you get to that tall thunder-shivered ash tree; turn in there,
and follow up the margin of a wide slank you will see; but be
careful, the mud is very deep, and dangerous in places!—now then,
here goes!”
And in he went, jumping a narrow streamlet into a point of
thicket, through which he drove by main force. Scarce had he got
six yards into the brake, before both spaniels quested; and, to my
no small wonder, the jungle seemed alive with woodcock—eight or
nine, at the least, flapped up at once, and skimmed along the tongue
of coppice toward the high wood, which ran along the valley, as I
learned afterward, for full three miles in length—while four or five
more wheeled off to the sides, giving myself and Draw fair shots,
by which we did not fail to profit; but I confess it was with absolute
astonishment that I saw two of those turned over, which flew inward,
killed by the marvellously quick and unerring aim of Archer,
where a less thorough sportsman would have been quite unable to
discharge a gun at all, so dense was the tangled jungle. Throughout
the whole length of that skirt of coppice, a hundred and fifty
yards, I should suppose at the utmost, the birds kept rising as it
were incessantly—thirty-five, or, I think, nearly forty, being flushed
in less than twenty minutes—although comparatively few were
killed, partly from the difficulty of the ground, and partly from their
getting up by fours and fives at once. Into the high wood, however,
at the last we drove them; and there, till daylight failed us, we did
our work like men! By the cold light of the full moon we wended
homeward, rejoicing in the possession of twenty-six couple and a
half of cock, twelve brace of quail—we found another bevy on
our way home and bagged three birds almost by moonlight—five
ruffed grouse, and a rabbit. Before our wet clothes were well
changed, supper was ready, and a good blow-out was followed by
sound slumbers and sweet dreams, fairly earned by nine hours of
incessant walking!
| DAY THE SECOND. The Warwick woodlands, or, Things as they were there, ten years ago | |