University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.
THE TRYSTING-TREE.

Within a gunshot, or less, of the lake's brink, at a
point where the open ground meets the water without
any intervening fringe of wood or coppice, there stands
a gigantic pin oak, alone and older far than any of its
neighbours, and so immense in the spread of its
branches that it is commonly said by the foresters and
woodmen of that region to overshadow more than an
acre of land. Its limbs do not, however, sweep so low
to earthward as to prevent the growth of a soft and
mossy greensward even to its roots, or to exclude entirely
the play of the sunbeams, or the currents of air
which are ever vocal among its branches.

To this delightful canopy it was, that Harry Archer
and his comrade now bent their way, down the long
declivity of the burnt pasture, taking it easy indeed, as
the former had proposed to do, but still clearing the

ground at a very respectable rate, favoured as they were
by the descending surface.

The consequence was that they reached it, as Pierson
had predicted, long enough before Frank Forester and
Fat Tom had made their appearance; and had already
set about their culinary preparations, while the jolly
Boniface, sorely overdone and discomfited, was plunging
and crashing through the thickets of wild raspberry
and cat-briars, and stumbling over the burnt logs, barking
his shins, and stubbing his toes at every step,
among oaths, imprecations, and obscenities which
might have been heard at half a mile's distance.

“I swon!” said Pierson suddenly, stopping short in
the act of transfixing a fat venison collop with a thin
stick of red cedar, which was destined to supply the
place of a spit, as an appalling burst of execrations came
down the wind from the eastward, “that 'ere Tom
Draw's a buster inyhow! I'd as lieve take a steam
ingyne a still-huntin' with me as that chap. Why,
Lord a'massy, he'd skear ivery buck 'twixt here and
the beech-woods with his cursin'.”

“You don't catch him cursing, as you call it, Master
Dolph,” replied Harry coolly, exposing the third steak
he had spitted to the fire, which was beginning to burn
up brisk and clear, “when there's the least likelihood
of getting a shot. The old man knows, as well as you
do, that we are down here on the shore, and that we
have swept the whole of the burnt pasture ahead.”

“ 'Taint no ways, nohow,” muttered Dolph, “to be
amakin' sich a racket in the woods; I'm eenamost
ashamed to be seen companyin' with sich an awkerd
squad.”

“Tush! tush! shut up, we have done well enough,
I should think, to satisfy you for one day. Look to that
steak, too; it wants turning, if I'm not mistaken.
You've let it burn, Dolph, while you have been scolding
about nothing.”

“Hilloah! hilloah!” at this moment, there arose a
clear cheery halloo from the wood, at some hundred
yards' distance, through which the new comers were
advancing.

“Who-whoop!” responded Archer; and thereupon
a merry laugh succeeded, and a loud exclamation in
Frank Forester's blithest tones: “Come, come on,
you old villain! I told you I'd back my nose against
your eyes and ears, any day. Don't I smell the fat of
venison dripping down on the brown crisp biscuits?
Come along, do!”

“Nose—I'll be sworn you do; nose out anything to
eat, or to drink either, you little gormandizin' cuss, a
mile off and better—but I'll fix you, boy, I'll fix you
torights.”

And therewith, bursting through the green boughs,
the two worthies made their appearance, neither of
them, to tell truth, looking a great deal the better or
the livelier for their tramp; for Forester's gay verdant

toggery was sorely besmirched, and the fine broadcloth
of his jacket torn into ribbons by the thorns and jagged
branches: while poor Tom, sweating beneath his load
of lesh, literally “larded the lean earth,” as he shook
it with his ponderous strides, and blew, as Forester
said, who in spite of all his disasters was in tip-top
spirits, like a grampus in shoal water.

“How be you, boys?” exclaimed the fat man, as
soon as he could recover breath enough to speak.
“Which on you'll do a good thing jest for oncet like,
and give a chap a drop o' suthin'? That little cuss
has bin and drinkt up the hull of his own liquor, and
then hooked mine and drinkt it dry. He got so darned
drunk, Archer, now I tell you, that he missed the etarnal
biggest, fattest, nicest, first-rate, six-year old buck,
in the brush thereaways, not ten yards off on him, the
most all-fired easiest shot I iver did see.”

“No! did he, though?” said Archer, winking to
Dolph to hold his tongue, as he handed the big flask
of Ferintosh to old Draw, who incontinently applied
the neck to his mouth, in utter contempt of the silver
cup which covered the bottom—“What do you say to
that, Frank? I can hardly believe such things of you.
We heard the shot; did you not fetch him?”

“I can't lie, Harry,” replied Frank, with a sort of
bashful grin. “I believe I did miss him clean; and
he gave me a pretty fair shot, too; though not at ten
yards, as that most mendacious of all mankind, if he

should not rather be called devillcind, says; but at some
thirty or forty. Yes, I did miss him clean. I looked
out sharp enough, but the deuce a drop of blood, or bit
of cut hair could I find; nor could I even trace where
the ball had barked the bushes.”

“We saw you, Frank! we saw you,” said Harry,
laughing heartily. “It is well for you that you stuck
to the truth, for if you'd told the least bit of a story,
we'd have fined you champagne for a dozen. But what
sport have you had? what have you done?”

“Torn my new jacket into ribbons; scratched my
hands so that I shall be obliged to wear gloves for the
next three months; and got a most furious appetite!”

“No doubt about the last item,” said Harry, laughing,
“but what in the shooting line?—How many pair
of antlers?”

“I'll trouble you, Mr. Pierson, for that steak nearest
to you. Exactly! Upon the biscuit, if you please, with
a pinch of the salt, and just one dash of the red pepper,”
said Master Frank, turning a resolutely deaf ear
to all questions in relation to vert or venison.

“Well, Tom, what have you got to say for yourself?”

“Nauthen much, nohow,” responded the fat man,
scratching his head, doubtfully; “that 'ere darned little
Wax-skin, atween his peagreen jacket and his silver
rifle, and his etarnal awkard ways, and his hollering,
wheniver he got a little ways off in the woods, for all the
world like a peacock in rainy weather, skeart all the

deer clean off the range. We might have had ten nicest
kind of good fair shots, for we've seen more nor that,
but he got jest one shot, and that, as you sced, he missed
shameful, and I—I—”

“Well, you?—what next? out with it, or it'll choke
you—what did you do?”

“I kilt one, as he skeart, and it comed kind o' quarterin'
acrost my track. It war a plaguy long shot, tew,
but I downed it.”

“One! ah! that was the first, you mean. Well, and
how many since?”

“Why one, I tells you—darn your etarnal stupid
head! earn't you so much as understand a chap, when
he speaks right down English?”

“Oh! one more. Well, how did you kill him? was
it since you struck the burnt pasture?”

“I telled you afore. It was one as he skeart, and it
comed kind o' quarterin' like acrost my track. It was
a plaguy long shot, tew, but I downed it—”

“Confound you! that is the same you told us about
first of all. The second, I mean—how did you get the
second?”

“There ar'n't no second.”

“No second! why you said one; and when I asked
you how many since, you said one; that makes two, as
I learned when I went to school.”

“One's one; and you knows it, darn you! You
carn't make two out of one, nohow.”

“And you, I think, can scarce beat us two, with
one buck between you. We'll treat all the town tonight,
and Dolph, here, will have to get drunk, wolves
or no wolves!”

“How many have you got, Aircher? More nor one?
say!”

“Tell him, Dolph. He's such a Turk, he won't believe
me, if I tell him the truth.”

“Well! we've got six, I reckon. And if I'd only
a' had two barrels, it might jest as well a' been siven!
But it's a good day as it is, inyhow; and so,” he
added gravely, “we'll be thankful, and not swear none,
if you please, Mr. Draw.”

“Sartin?” replied Tom interrogatively, his eyes
glistening eagerly, between envy and admiration; for,
having in view the Dutch hunter's well known veracity,
he did not for a moment question his assertion. “Six!
Did you for sartin, though? and how many on 'em did
that plaguy critter git?”—and he pointed to Harry as
he spoke.

“Pretty nigh all on 'em, for that,” responded the
Dutchman. “He's too much for me, Mr. Draw, iny-ways;
and I guess that means for you too—we're
gittin' old and stiff, and you're gittin' fat—”

“Getting fat!” shrieked Frank, who, by aid of the
fat juicy venison steak, and two or three deep libations
of the Ferintosh, had recovered his impudence at least,

if not his equanimity—“I wonder what the devil he
will be, when he has got fat!”

“Fat be darned!” replied the Falstaff. “Fat niver
hinderad no one of doin' nauthen yit, as I knows on;
and I can tell you, I can outwalk, outdrink, outshoot,
outrun, out—”

“Lie!” interposed Frank.

“Out-do—” continued Tom, “these cussed Yorkers
at iverything; let alone lying, which iverybody knows
Forester here whips creashun at. Didn't you niver
hear, Dolph, how he was brought up to give evidence
at Newark, in the Jarseys, and he swore right stret up
and down, and sticked to what he swore uncommon
hard; and the more the lawyers they tried to bother
him, why the more little Wax-skin couldn't be bothered
nohow; but kind o' bothered them back wust kind, so
as they couldn't make nauthen on him; nor nauthen on
the case nohow! For you see jest this time, kind o' for
fun like and to make folks wonder, Frank he wor tellin'
pretty nigh the truth—'s nigh as he could tell't, inyhow
—and his ividence was a raal stumper; there warn't no
gittin' over it, and the defendant's attorney seed that
too—a darned etarnal 'cutest kind o' small chap he
was—a leetle mite of a chap to have sich an ungodly
sight of brains—I'll stand treats twenty times for him,
if iver we comes togither—well, he upped, and he
summed up to the jury; and he made an all-fired long
talk on the other witnesses, and showed as all they said

warn't nauthen; and so it warn't nauthen, inyhow; and
the jury they didn't want tellin' that, I reckon. Well,
when he got to Frank here, he says, `Now, gentlemen,
we come to Mister Forester's ividence, gentlemen; and
mighty darned strong ividence it is tew; if only so be as
one could believe one word on it.'—Then Forester here,
he beginned to twist up thim darned long moustaches,
and tried kind o' not to laugh, and to look savage tew;
and the jury they beginned to stare, and to wonder,
likely, what was acomin' next. Then torights he
went on agin, and says he—`But the trouble is, one
carn't believe a word on it; and nobody won't nor nobody
don't believe a word on't—bekase how's they
agoin' to believe, or how's you agoin' to believe, gentle
men, intelligent and enlightened and idicated men as
you be, as a man what makes his livin', what airns his
daily bread, gentlemen, and his daily brandy tew—and
a darned lot of the last, I reckon—by doin' no one thing
but writin' G—d d—n lies, kin tell the truth if he wants
to? Gentlemen may say what they pleases about
oaths, and the sanctity of oaths; but I tell you that habit
are stronger and more sancterfied than oaths allus, and
if a man airns his bread by writin' lies, why it stands
to reason as he carn't help tellin' lies tew, and the more
he'll try not to lie, why in course the more he will lie,
gentlemen” And so he sot down; and the jury they riz
up; and gave a vardict for the defendant stret away.
You harn't got nauthen' to say agin' that, Forester, no-how.”

“Nothing whatever,” replied Forester, gravely.
“Nothing. It is quite true, upon my honour. And
the foreman of the jury said afterwards, I believe, that
it didn't matter so much for Pet—that was the lawyer's
name—showin' as Mr. Forester wrote lies—for his part,
he thought no one shouldn't be believed on his oath, as
could write at all, leastways more nor to keep a set o'
books, or make out a bill of sale.”

“Be that true though?”—asked Dolph, who had
been listening very attentively, and who in his plain
untutored common-sense had been able to discover no
fun in such petty low-minded iniquity—“be that true,
sure enough?”

“True that the lawyer made those remarks, and that
the jury gave that verdict? perfectly true, upon my
honour!” replied Archer. “I was staying with Frank,
at the Cedars, at the time, and heard it.”

“And what did the Newark chaps dew to that ar'
jury? We'd a' ridden 'ern on rails, I guess, here, iny-ways;
and gin 'em a lick o' tar, and a dash of feathers.”

“They did not. `They werry much applauded wot
they had done,'—because Mr. Forester is something
of a gentleman, and gentlemen are not popular in those
diggings; and because he can read and write, which
is esteemed very vulgar by the rich would-be's, who for
the most part cannot.”

“It's a darned shame, inyhow,” said Dolph.

“You must remember that small countryfied cities
are not the country—the free open honest independent
country, Dolph; and that pedlars, and traders, and
petty manufacturers are not yeoman and landholders,
any more than they are merchants, or gentlemen.”

“They think they is, I guess,” responded Dolph.
“At least to judge from the airs they take on with us
countrymen.”

“Who could buy and sell the whole of them—both
for means and for manners—both for intelligence and
uprightness! but away with them! give me a cup of
Ferintosh, I must wash the taste of hats and sole-leather
out of my mouth, before I shall be worth a farthing for
the rest of the day.”

“That's all quite right, as you says, Harry,” put in
old Tom; “but how many o' them six deer did you kill,
Harry, I'd be pleased to larn?”

“I killed five, Tom. Two double shots—and one
single. And what's better yet, I fetched the big
crooked-horned mouse-coloured hart, that they talk
about so much here; the old fellow, I mean, which
they say has been known on this range, these hundred
years.”

“These hundred and fawty years,” said Dolph,
quietly. “I wish you hadn't killed him, Mr. Aircher,
though. There'll be blood come on't afore the year's
through—I knows.”

“Tush! tush! Dolph. Take a drop of Ferintosh,
man, and drive such nonsense out of your noddle.
We've done stalking, for this day, I fancy. For Tom
and Frank, here, seem to be pretty thoroughly done
over, and I don't know whither we should go, to look
after more game.”

“Nor I nuther; leastwise, onless we was to cross
for the range beyond the black crick; and that's ten
mile away.”

“And if it were not one, I would not meddle with it,
for it is to be our to-morrow's beat, is it not, Dolph?”

“I reckon so.”

“Well, then, we'll cook another round of steaks and
biscuits, and take another pull at the flasks, and then
we'll have a smoke; and by that time it will be none
too early that we should think of starting on the homeward
track.”

“But whar's the boys, Tom?” inquired Dolph. “I
hopes you harn't left them down at the mill, like.
Leastways, if you have, I don't know how the plague
we'll get the deer home as we've killed; and I wouldn't
like to let them be out hereaways all night, I tell you.”

“No, no. They'll be here torights; black Jake he's
a bringin' one o' them ponics along the skirt o' the
wood where the ground is the smoothest, and your boy's
fetchin' the big batteau from the mill, and a canoe at
the tail on't. They'll be here torights; I swon. Look!
here's black Jake acomin' now!”

“So he be, so he be,” returned Dolph. “Well, I'll
stop and give him his orders, for I guess he won't
understand you so slick as he will me; and then, while
he's bringin' the deer, what we've killed and cleaned,
down from the hill, I'll away down to the cedar crick
and bring up our canoe what we came in, Mr. Aircher.”

“And how are we to work our cards after that,
Dolph?” inquired Frank, who, having partaken heartily
of the second steak, had lighted his pipe, and stretched
kimself out in the full autumnal sunshine, with a cup
of delicately tempered Ferintosh at his hand, a picture
of the dolce far niente.

“Why, Mr. Forester, I've bin athinkin' that this fat
man, what doos iverything better nor no one else, is
pretty much used up; and you, I guess, would jest as
leeves set still upon your hinder eend, as walk another
five miles through them pine woods—”

“What you say right is perfectly true, Dolph. I
honour you for the acuteness and correctness of your
views.”

“There's nauthen so very cute's I see, in knowin'
when two chaps is nigh dead beat. But 's I was sayin',
I've bin athinkin' that the best way'll be to let Jake
ride the pony back, arter he's brought all the deer
down from the hill, to the road at the mill; and Ben 'll
take the batteau with the four bucks we've got hereaways
down the inlet, and I'll tell him whar' he'll find the
other two 's Mr. Aircher shot at the fust go to. And

then I'll paddle one on you and Mr. Aircher paddle the
t'other along the lake to Cobus's mill; and then you
and Tom 'll take the ponies, and I and Mr. Aircher,
why we'll foot it.”

“A capital plan, Dolph,” said Harry, “all but one
thing. Ben will never get the batteau up the inlet to
the bridge, while the world lasts, with those six deer in
it. No, no. Put two of the four we've got here into
the batteau, and let him pick up the other two on the
way; he will have work enough, I'll take my oath of
it, to pole them up, and he won't get through so without
touching. Jake can load the last two I shot on the
pony, as he goes home, take it through the woods to
the main road, and so to Dutch Jake's tavern. For the
rest, Tom can ride, and Master Frank must foot it down
with the rest of us!”

“Well, well, if he kin,” replied the Dutch hunter,
with a dubious shake of his head, “if he kin, I'll not
gainsay as it's the best plan. But I dun' know—”

“You don't know what? that I can walk six miles
this fine evening?” cried Frank, indignantly. “Let
me tell you, Mister Pierson, I can walk sixty of them,
if I take a fancy to it! Six miles! why, bless your heart,
I'll bet you five to four, I'll do it in an hour!”

“Don't you bet, Dolph; don't you bet!” cried
Harry, quickly. “He can do it like a shot. He's as
lazy as anything can be, when he's not driven to it, but
shove him, and he can put, I tell you.”

“The tallest kind, he can,” interrupted Tom. “I
won't hear no one sayin' nauthen' agin little Wax-skin,
for all I tucks it into him myself, a little. He'd walk
you into fits, you long Dutchman, any time. I'll go
you a single X on it.”

“For quickness he might, maybe, but not for hold
on, old as I be.”

“Speedy's a good dog, but Holdfast's a better,” said
Frank, merrily. “But I can hold on a few, for all
that, Mr. Pierson.”

“I've known him walk twelve miles, five minutes
within two hours; and a hundred, between five o'clock
on Saturday night and twelve on Monday night, without
training,” said Archer. “Don't bet with him, Dolph;
he's hard to beat, I tell you, any way that you take
him.”

“He's half hoss!” said Tom, clapping his protegé
on the back, “though he did skear all the deer with his
gimcrackery to-day.”

“Well, how does my plan suit?” asked Archer,
looking to Frank.

“Oh! I'm agreeable, provided only we go home the
same road we came,” said Frank; winking his eye
knowingly at Tom.

“Why? what the devil do you care, by which road
you go home?”

“I want to have another look at something I saw
this morning.”

“A woman, hey, Frank?—By George! you've got
ahead of me! I never heard of anything attractive in
this quarter.”

“Have you not? ah! what do you say, Tom?”,

“The prettiest piece of gal's flesh I've laid eyes on,
since I see that gal you was asparkin' down to York,
Aircher—that time as you wouldn't know old Tom in
Broadway.”

“It's false, you old thief! I never cut you at all!
Though, heaven knows, it is not for the want of your
deserving it oftentimes enough. But was the girl so
pretty, Frank?”

“Pretty, no! not at all! That's not the word. She
was beautiful—lovely—exquisite.—The loveliest thing
I ever saw, except Lady Ellenborough, Harry. A profusion
of golden hair, large soft dark-blue eyes, a Grecian
profile, a mouth that you would die, ten years
before your time, to kiss once—a complexion like snow;
and a figure not to be equalled by anything I ever saw
alive or in marble.”

“A lady, Frank?”

“Decidedly, not a lady!”

“Where did you see her?”

“At the door of a small but very pretty cottage, a
mile or so beyond the mill on the homeward side.”

“Ah! I don't know, indeed. A good hunter used
to live there, when I was up here last, two years ago;
but there were no womenfolk about the house then.

Holloa, Dolph,” he continued, turning to the hunter,
who was busy instructing his negro where he would
find the carcasses of the slaughtered deer—“who is this
beautiful girl, these two noodles are half mad about?”

“How should I know?” replied Dolph, rather shortly.
“Now then, Jake, you understand me, make tracks,
and keep the pony goin', for we've no time to be alosin'.
Now, Mr. Aircher”—he added, turning round to that
worthy, having seen the negro depart, “what's this
about gals? I niver knowed as you was a gal man.”

“Thunder!” exclaimed Tom. “I'd be pleased to
know who is, if so be Aircher isn't!”

“What gal is't, inyhow?” added Dolph. “I knows
o' no gal oncommon pretty. There's quite a chance
o' good-lookin' ones, but none 's I know oncommon.”

“They saw her at the door of the house, as far as I
can make out, that used to be Harry Barhyte's, but he
has got no sister, that ever I heard tell of. Who can
she be, Dolph?”

“Other than a good 'un,” responded Dolph with a
sort of groan, his whole countenance changing as he
spoke.

“What! what! a naughty woman up in these wild
woods?” cried Forester, laughing, for he had not seen
the bold hunter's face, or noticed his expression, as he
spoke. “I had no idea such things were to be found
so far from cities.”

“They're to be found, Mister Forester, wherever

women are found!” replied Pierson very shortly. “And
it will be well for you, if you don't learn as much some
day.”

“Or rather,” interposed Archer, “wherever men are
found to make them evil. Before God, and on my
honour, I believe that the worst woman that ever lived
was better in many points, and those the finest of our
nature, than the best man. But who is this girl, Dolph
Pierson?”

“The wife of Harry Barhyte.”

“Indeed!”

“Ay! indeed; and she's half crazed, and hull ruined,
the finest lad in this quarter; and all for a mean,
cringin' cuss, as isn't to be talked of alongside of
Harry, more nor a shot-gun is alongside of a true-grooved
rifle.”

“Ah! I am sorry to hear this,” replied Harry,
thoughtfully. “Harry Barhyte was a fine fellow, and
did me a great service once. What is it? Taken to
rum, hey?”

“I'm afeard so. And she, as should hold him back,
eggs him on, hopin', I'm athinkin', as he'll drink himself
dead one of them houts, so's she can folly her own
wicked notions.”

“A very fiend! Who was she, Dolph?”

“Why, you've seen her fifty times, and more; and
held her on your knee in past days, Mr. Aircher. She's

barly seventeen now. You'll remember pretty Mary
Marten?”

“Great God! that sweet, merry, innocent little child!
How horrible! how horrible!—but sit down, sit down,
Dolph, and tell us all about it. You have said too much
to stop now.”

“I ar'n't got time now; look ye here, Ben's confin'
down the pond like a strick, and Jake's got the deer
from the cliffs, and the big mouse-colour, and 's makin'
tracks this away. I must be off arter the other canoe,
or we'll niver git started, nohow. But don't you be
afeard, I'm not agoin' to shirk off. I'll tell you all as I
knows on it, arter supper, at Dutch Jake's tavern. I
will, Mister Aircher. You knows what I says I'll do,
I doos.”

“I know it,” said Harry; and lighting a cheroot, he
too stretched himself out on the turf, and began to
smoke diligently. But a damp had been thrown over
the spirits of the party, even more by Pierson's manner
than by his words, and little more conversation passed
until Dolph returned, and almost simultaneously Ben
arrived with the batteau, and the negro, with the two
finest harts.

The rest of the arrangements were speedily made;
and in less than ten minutes the whole company was
afloat. Ben Pierson sweeping the big batteau, loaded
with the noble quarry, toward the inlet of the pond;
Dolph paddling Frank Forester, to carry whom Archer

had absolutely refused; and Harry piloting old Tom
toward Cobus Vanderbeck's mill, with the gallant
Smoker swimming along as staunchly and as fleetly in
the wake of the canoe, as if he had not run a mile since
daybreak.

The sun, now near its setting, poured a flood of intense
golden lustre over the transparent lakelet, among
which floated the clear shadows, purple and emerald
green, of the near woods and distant mountains. Not
a breath of air rippled the bosom of the serene water,
or waved one branch of the loftiest trees on its wood-girdled
shores. Not a sound was to be heard, but the
measured dash of the paddle, and the gurgling of the
foam heaped before the bows of the sharp, fleet vessel;
and now and then, the caw, mellowed by distance into
a pleasing murmur, of the homeward crows. It was an
evening in itself all peaceful, and such as would have
inspired thoughts of peace to any soul that could mark
its beauties, and be penetrated by its delicious influence.

But how many are there not, even of those whom the
world calls good and wise and great, who cannot spare
the time from their all-engrossing race after sublime
imaginations, which are in truth less than nothing, to
mark the beautiful sublimity of nature, and learn the
love of the Creator even from the loveliness of his created
things?

What wonder, then, that the rude and ignorant and

lowly, whose life is one fierce struggle against suffering
and sorrow, should dwell among such scenes unconscious,
and creep from their cradles to their graves,
unsoftened by the influences which move the poet's
soul even to tears—though not of sadness!