University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.

“Bucks have at ye all.”

— Old Song.

At dawn the horns were sounding, and the beagles yelling all
around the premises. Major Bulmer had a noble pack of hounds,
thirty in number. This was one of his weaknesses—he was ambitious
of keeping up the old practice of his grandfather,—to say
nothing of his English authorities,—although circumstances had
quite changed. Ours are no longer the vast forests that they were
prior to '76. The swamps are no longer inaccessible, and the
population, greatly increased, give the deer no respite. Accordingly,
they are terribly thinned off, and it is quite an event when an
overseer or driver can say to the planter, “there's an old buck
about,”—or, “there's tracks of deer in the peafield.” What a
blowing of horns follows such an annunciation! What a chorus
of dogs! What a mustering of Mantons and full-bloods. There
is no slumbering thence, for the household, till we have “got the
meat!” “This day a deer must die!” cried Ned Bulmer, booming
into my room before the sun had fairly rubbed his eyes for a rising,
echoing the burthen which had sounded last in my ears, when I
lay down to sleep. I was upon my feet in the twinkling of an eye,
for, though a bookworm of late, and a city lawyer, I had been once
a famous fellow for the chase, was a free rider, a good shot, and
altogether a good deal of a hunter. It had been a passion with
me once, but—what has poverty to do with passion! Mine seemed
bent equally to interfere with me in my pursuit of deer and
dear. I thought of Beatrice, and the last night's conversation
with the Major, the moment I opened my eyes; and I confess I
looked at Ned Bulmer, born to fortune and having it forced upon
him, as it were, with a momentary feeling of envy. Thanks to
the Virgin, I soon dismissed the despicable feeling with scorn.

The frank, noble features of my friend, in which every secret feeling
of his soul was declared, soon set mine to rights; and I said to
myself—“Be it so! At all events, Beatrice, whether you get Ned
Bulmer or myself, you will be equally fortunate in the possession
of one of the best fellows in the world.” It might have made
Ned blush had I repeated this compliment in his ears, so I prudently
kept it to myself, satisfied that there was no sort of necessity
for my own blushes.

Adonization is not a difficult process with the hunter, when
the dogs are at the overture. I had soon made my toilet. Our
guns had been put in order the night before. By candlelight we
now loaded them. Then followed a bowl of coffee all round, and
the horn of the old Major sounded for the start. We were soon
off at an easy pace, having about two miles to ride before we reached
the stands. These were well known places, gaps and openings,
by certain favourite runs of water, or crossing places from wood to
wood. The simple secret of a hunter's stand, is to find out the
avenues which the deer lays out for himself. All animals are
creatures of habit, and, unless under good and sufficient reasons,
the herd usually adheres to its ordinary pathways. But these, in
a very large tract of forest, are apt to be numerous, and to require
a large number of hunters. Our present drives, however, were
small ones, and soon covered. There were no hunters in our present
party, but the Major, Ned, myself, and the overseer, a sprightly
and intelligent young fellow named Benbow. In all probability
the name was that originally of an old English archer, and was
corrupted and contracted from Jack, or Dick, Bend the Bow, to its
present narrow and unimpressive limits of two syllables short. We
had all of us stanas, each watching his avenue. Sam, the negro
driver, put in with the dogs, some three quarters of a mile above
us, eating his way through all the denser coppices of a thick mixed
wood of scrubby oak and pine, having a close underbrush, and
sundry good feeding places, from which the fire was carefully kept

out. But I must not linger on these details. Every body nearly
knows what is the usual deer hunting among the gentry of the
South. There is little about it that is complicated; its success depending
upon a knowledge of the drives, the stands, a cool head,
quick eye, sure shot, and occasionally a keen spur to the flanks of
a smoking courser; for it is no small accomplishment to know
how to head a deer, and to succeed, by a swift circuit, in doing it.
Let it suffice that we had not long to wait. The dogs soon gave
tongue—the cries thickened—anon I heard a shot from the Major,
who was just above me, and a few moments after, head forward,
tail up, streaking away for dear (deer) life, at about eighty yards
to the left, I got a glimpse of the victim, a buck in full feather, i.e.
with a noble pair of branches. It was instinct purely—a word
and a blow, and the blow first. I popt away at him, and saw him
describe a short turn, setting his head in the opposite direction. I
concluded he had got it, but could not afford a second glance, as I
caught sight of a couple of does following steadily his course,
though a little nearer to me than he had been when I first shot,
and almost in the same line. I had another barrel, and bestowed
it successfully. Down dropt one of the brown beauties, and I
sounded. The dogs, meanwhile, began to glimmer, on full foot,
through the leaves. My horse was hitched twenty feet behind
me. It took but a minute to unhitch and cross him, and I pushed
for my victims. In a few moments the Major came dashing up,
like a fiery boy of eighteen, shouting out—

“Well, Dick, what's the sport. I fancy you've wasted lead, for
I gave it to the old buck that passed you, and I never miss. But
you emptied both barrels.”

“Here's one of my birds,” I answered, pointing to the doe, from
which we drove off the dogs, setting them on the track of the
old buck, who had shed a gill of the purple fluid within fifteen
steps of the place where the dead doe lay.

“Do you see that, Major,” I said, pointing to the crimson droplets
still warm upon the yellow leaves of autumn.

“Yes,” said he, “a mortal hit! frothy; from the lungs! Push
on, Benbow, or the dogs will tear the meat. But I am sure that
he carries my lead also. I never missed him, Dick; couldn't do
such a thing at my time of life.”

“Well, sir, we'll see. I can tell you, when the buck was nearing
me, he didn't show signs of hurt! There may have been
two.”

“No! only one! I've surely hit him. I'll stake a cool hundred
on it.”

And we rode forward, Ned joining us meanwhile. The deer had
left him entirely to the right. He had seen nothing of either.
We soon found the old buck, just dead. The shot that killed him
was mine, given directly behind the right fore-quarter, as he pushed
obliquely from me. But the exulting Major discovered other
button holes in the jacket of the beast, to which he laid confident
claim. It was not a matter which could be proved, so, accordingly,
it was not exactly the matter to be discussed. We all readily
recognized the claim of the old man to have certainly made his
mark, if he had not exactly made his meat. It was admitted,
however, to be quite a feather in my cap, that, fresh from the
dingy chambers of the law, and the ponderous volumes of the frosty
wigs, I should still have had my nerves and senses in such good
training for the sports of the field.

“The law has not spoiled you for a gentleman and a hunter yet,”
quoth the Major encouragingly. “And that is saying something;
for many's the pretty fellow whom I've known it ruin for all proper
purposes.”

Our hunt was over by two o'clock, and our game bagged.
When we reached “the Barony,” we found it full of guests. Several
fine spirited fellows were there, the Porchers, Ravenels,
Cordes, and others, as guests to dinner; and they were all full-mouthed

in their reproaches that they had not been summoned
to the hunt. We made up a party for another day, and adjourned
to dinner. Night found us still at the table, for the Major's wines
had a proverbial smack of ancient magic. They were such as Mephistophiles
himself could scarcely have made to spout out from
the best timber in the Black Forest. Whist that night, and whiskey
punch in the library, kept us busy till twelve, when, by common
consent, we called in Morpheus to light us to our chambers.