 | Hunting Songs |  |
61
The Sawyer.
[_]
The imaginary catastrophe, which is the subject of the following lines, originated in the warning given by one of our party to the Factor at Abergeldie, that, if he persisted in felling timber during the term of our lease, he must hold himself responsible should any one “shoot a Sawyer.”
I
Now Abergeldie gillies, as they range our forest-ground,See sawing here, see sawing there, see sawpits all around;
In fear and dread, as on they tread no whisky dare they touch,
No! not a drop, lest, neck and crop, they take a drop too much.
II
“Aim straight to-day, my comrades, 'twill be truly a dear hitIf, shooting deer in the forest here, manslaughter you commit;
If feller, fell'd, should in the act of striking be down struck,
Or Sawyer kick the bucket here, mistaken for a Buck.”
62
III
Vain words! forth came a bounding stag, his antler'd head on high,And, caring not a whistle for the balls that whistled by,
Away, alive and kicking, to the distant mountain sped;—
Though de'il a bit the deer was hit, the deal-cutter was dead.
IV
His skull was crack'd, his only wage that day was half-a-crown,He was cutting up a billet when the bullet cut him down;
Many thousand feet of timber had that Sawyer rent in twain,
Now himself was split asunder, very much against the grain.
V
We needed not the Sexton with his pickaxe and his spadeIn the sawpit which himself had dug his grave was ready made;
Top Sawyer though he had been, to the bottom he was thrust,
And we binn'd him like a bottle of old Sherry in sawdust.
63
VI
Full many a railway sleeper had he made since peep of day,Ere night himself a sleeper in his narrow bed he lay;
No tear-drop unavailingly we shed upon the spot,
But we sprinkled him with whisky to preserve him from dry rot.
VII
Oh no! we never mention him, that shot we never own,We book'd him in the game book as an “animal unknown!”
We know not how the wife and bairns without his board subsist,
We only know we hit him, and he has not since been miss'd.
1844.
| Hunting Songs | |