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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Warwick Woodlands, by 
+Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Warwick Woodlands
+       Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago
+
+Author: Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
+
+Release Date: November 6, 2006 [EBook #19730]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WARWICK WOODLANDS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jerry Kuntz
+
+
+
+
+THE WARWICK WOODLANDS; or Things as They Were Twenty Years Ago
+
+By Frank Forester
+
+MY FIRST VISIT, DAY THE FIRST
+
+It was a fine October evening when I was sitting on the back stoop of
+his cheerful little bachelor's establishment in Mercer street, with my
+old friend and comrade, Henry Archer. Many a frown of fortune had we two
+weathered out together; in many of her brightest smiles had we two
+reveled--never was there a stauncher friend, a merrier companion, a
+keener sportsman, or a better fellow, than this said Harry; and here had
+we two met, three thousand miles from home, after almost ten years of
+separation, just the same careless, happy, dare-all do-no-goods that we
+were when we parted in St. James's street,--he for the West, I for the
+Eastern World--he to fell trees, and build log huts in the backwoods of
+Canada,--I to shoot tigers and drink arrack punch in the Carnatic. The
+world had wagged with us as with most others: now up, now down, and laid
+us to, at last, far enough from the goal for which we started--so that,
+as I have said already, on landing in New York, having heard nothing of
+him for ten years, whom the deuce should I tumble on but that same
+worthy, snugly housed, with a neat bachelor's menage, and every thing
+ship-shape about him?--So, in the natural course of things, we were at
+once inseparables.
+
+Well--as I said before, it was a bright October evening, with the clear
+sky, rich sunshine, and brisk breezy freshness, which indicate that
+loveliest of the American months,--dinner was over, and with a pitcher
+of the liquid ruby of Latour, a brace of half-pint beakers, and a score
+--my contribution--of those most exquisite of smokables, the true old
+Manila cheroots, we were consoling the inward man in a way that would
+have opened the eyes, with abhorrent admiration, of any advocate of that
+coldest of comforts--cold water--who should have got a chance peep at
+our snuggery.
+
+Suddenly, after a long pause, during which he had been stimulating his
+ideas by assiduous fumigation, blowing off his steam in a long vapory
+cloud that curled a minute afterward about his temples,--"What say you,
+Frank, to a start tomorrow?" exclaimed Harry,--"and a week's right good
+shooting?"
+
+"Why, as for that," said I, "I wish for nothing better--but where the
+deuce would you go to get shooting?"
+
+"Never fash your beard, man," he replied, "I'll find the ground and the
+game too, so you'll find share of the shooting!--Holloa! there--Tim, Tim
+Matlock."
+
+And in brief space that worthy minister of mine host's pleasures made
+his appearance, smoothing down his short black hair, clipped in the
+orthodox bowl fashion, over his bluff good-natured visage with one hand,
+while he employed its fellow in hitching up a pair of most voluminous
+unmentionables, of thick Yorkshire cord.
+
+A character was Tim--and now I think of it, worthy of brief description.
+Born, I believe--bred, certainly, in a hunting stable, far more of his
+life passed in the saddle than elsewhere, it was not a little
+characteristic of my friend Harry to have selected this piece of
+Yorkshire oddity as his especial body servant; but if the choice were
+queer, it was at least successful, for an honester, more faithful,
+hard-working, and withal, better hearted, and more humorous varlet never
+drew curry-comb over horse-hide, or clothes-brush over broad-cloth.
+
+His visage was, as I have said already, bluff and good-natured, with a
+pair of hazel eyes, of the smallest--but, at the same time, of the very
+merriest--twinkling from under the thick black eyebrows, which were the
+only hairs suffered to grace his clean-shaved countenance. An
+indescribable pug nose, and a good clean cut mouth, with a continual
+dimple at the left corner, made up his phiz. For the rest, four feet ten
+inches did Tim stand in his stockings, about two-ten of which were
+monopolized by his back, the shoulders of which would have done honor to
+a six foot pugilist,--his legs, though short and bowed a little outward,
+by continual horse exercise, were right tough serviceable members, and I
+have seen them bearing their owner on through mud and mire, when
+straighter, longer, and more fair proportioned limbs were at an awful
+discount.
+
+Depositing his hat then on the floor, smoothing his hair, and hitching
+up his smalls, and striving most laboriously not to grin till he should
+have cause, stood Tim, like "Giafar awaiting his master's award!"
+
+"Tim!" said Harry Archer.
+
+"Sur!" said Tim.
+
+"Tim! Mr. Forester and I are talking of going up to-morrow--what do you
+say to it?"
+
+"Oop yonner?" queried Tim, in the most extraordinary West-Riding
+Yorkshire, indicating the direction, by pointing his right thumb over
+his left shoulder--"Weel, Ay'se nought to say aboot it--not Ay!"
+
+"Soh! the cattle are all right, and the wagon in good trim, and the dogs
+in exercise, are they?"
+
+"Ay'se warrant um!"
+
+"Well, then, have all ready for a start at six to-morrow,--put Mr.
+Forester's Manton alongside my Joe Spurling in the top tray of the case,
+my single gun and my double rifle in the lower, and see the magazine
+well filled--the Diamond gunpowder, you know, from Mr. Brough's. You'll
+put up what Mr. Forester will want, for a week, you know--he does not
+know the country yet, Tim;--and, hark you, what wine have I at Tom
+Draw's?"
+
+"No but a case of claret."
+
+"I thought so, then away with you! down to the Baron's and get two
+baskets of the Star, and stop at Fulton Market, and get the best half
+hundred round of spiced beef you can find--and then go up to Starke's at
+the Octagon, and get a gallon of his old Ferintosh--that's all, Tim--off
+with you!--No! stop a minute!" and he filled up a beaker and handed it
+to the original, who, shutting both his eyes, suffered the fragrant
+claret to roll down his gullet in the most scientific fashion, and then,
+with what he called a bow, turned right about, and exit.
+
+The sun rose bright on the next morning, and half an hour before the
+appointed time, Tim entered my bed-chamber, with a cup of mocha, and the
+intelligence that "Measter had been oop this hour and better, and did na
+like to be kept waiting!"--so up I jumped, and scarcely had got through
+the business of rigging myself, before the rattle of wheels announced
+the arrival of the wagon.
+
+And a model was that shooting wagon--a long, light-bodied box, with a
+low rail--a high seat and dash in front, and a low servant's seat
+behind, with lots of room for four men and as many dogs, with guns and
+luggage, and all appliances to boot, enough to last a month, stowed away
+out of sight, and out of reach of weather. The nags, both nearly
+thorough-bred, fifteen two inches high, stout, clean-limbed, active
+animals--the off-side horse a gray, almost snow-white--the near, a dark
+chestnut, nearly black--with square docks setting admirably off their
+beautiful round quarters, high crests, small blood-like heads, and long
+thin manes--spoke volumes for Tim's stable science; for though their
+ribs were slightly visible, their muscles were well filled, and hard as
+granite. Their coats glanced in the sunshine--the white's like statuary
+marble; the chestnut's like high polished copper--in short the whole
+turn-out was perfect.
+
+The neat black harness, relieved merely by a crest, with every strap
+that could be needed, in its place, and not one buckle or one thong
+superfluous; the bright steel curbs, with the chains jingling as the
+horses tossed and pawed impatient for a start; the tapering holly whip;
+the bear-skins covering the seats; the top-coats spread above them--
+every thing, in a word, without bordering on the slang, was perfectly
+correct and gnostic.
+
+Four dogs--a brace of setters of the light active breed, one of which
+will out-work a brace of the large, lumpy, heavy-headed dogs,--one red,
+the other white and liver, both with black noses, their legs and sterns
+beautifully feathered, and their hair, glossy and smooth as silk,
+showing their excellent condition--and a brace of short-legged, bony,
+liver-colored spaniels--with their heads thrust one above the other,
+over or through the railings, and their tails waving with impatient joy
+--occupied the after portion of the wagon.
+
+Tim, rigged in plain gray frock, with leathers and white tops, stood, in
+true tiger fashion, at the horses' heads, with the forefinger of his
+right hand resting upon the curb of the gray horse, as with his left he
+rubbed the nose of the chestnut; while Harry, cigar in mouth, was
+standing at the wheel, reviewing with a steady and experienced eye the
+gear, which seemed to give him perfect satisfaction. The moment I
+appeared on the steps,
+
+"In with you, Frank--in with you," he exclaimed, disengaging the
+hand-reins from the terrets into which they had been thrust, "I have been
+waiting here these five minutes. Jump up, Tim!"
+
+And, gathering the reins up firmly, he mounted by the wheel, tucked the
+top-coat about his legs, shook out the long lash of his tandem whip, and
+lapped it up in good style.
+
+"I always drive with one of these"--he said, half apologetically, as I
+thought--"they are so handy on the road for the cur dogs, when you have
+setters with you--they plague your life out else. Have you the
+pistol-case in, Tim, for I don't see it?"
+
+"All raight, sur," answered he, not over well pleased, as it seemed,
+that it should even be suspected that he could have forgotten any thing
+--"All raight!"
+
+"Go along, then," cried Harry, and at the word the high bred nags went
+off; and though my friend was too good and too old a hand to worry his
+cattle at the beginning of a long day's journey--many minutes had not
+passed before we found ourselves on board the ferry-boat, steaming it
+merrily towards the Jersey shore.
+
+"A quarter past six to the minute," said Harry, as we landed at Hoboken.
+
+"Let Shot and Chase run, Tim, but keep the spaniels in till we pass
+Hackensack."
+
+"Awa wi ye, ye rascals," exclaimed Tim, and out went the high blooded
+dogs upon the instant, yelling and jumping in delight about the horses--
+and off we went, through the long sandy street of Hoboken, leaving the
+private race-course of that stanch sportsman, Mr. Stevens, on the left,
+with several powerful horses taking their walking exercise in their neat
+body clothes.
+
+"That puts me in mind, Frank," said Harry, as he called my attention to
+the thorough-breds, "we must be back next Tuesday for the Beacon Races--
+the new course up there on the hill; you can see the steps that lead to
+it--and now is not this lovely?" he continued, as we mounted the first
+ridge of Weehawken, and looked back over the beautiful broad Hudson,
+gemmed with a thousand snowy sails of craft or shipping--"Is not this
+lovely, Frank? and, by the by, you will say, when we get to our
+journey's end, you never drove through prettier scenery in your life.
+Get away, Bob, you villain--nibbling, nibbling at your curb! get away,
+lads!"
+
+And away we went at a right rattling pace over the hills, and through
+the cedar swamp; and, passing through a toll-gate, stopped with a sudden
+jerk at a long low tavern on the left-hand side.
+
+"We must stop here, Frank. My old friend, Ingliss, a brother trigger,
+too, would think the world was coming to an end if I drove by--
+twenty-nine minutes these six miles," he added, looking at his watch, "that
+will do! Now, Tim, look sharp--just a sup of water! Good day--good day
+to you, Mr. Ingliss; now for a glass of your milk punch"--and mine host
+disappeared, and in a moment came forth with two rummers of the
+delicious compound, a big bright lump of ice bobbing about in each among
+the nutmeg.
+
+"What, off again for Orange county, Mr. Archer? I was telling the old
+woman yesterday that we should have you by before long; well, you'll
+find cock pretty plenty, I expect; there was a chap by here from Ulster
+--let me see, what day was it--Friday, I guess--with produce, and he was
+telling, they have had no cold snap yet up there! Thank you, sir, good
+luck to you!"
+
+And off we went again, along a level road, crossing the broad, slow
+river from whence it takes its name, into the town of Hackensack.
+
+"We breakfast here, Frank"--as he pulled up beneath the low Dutch shed
+projecting over half the road in front of the neat tavern--"How are you,
+Mr. Vanderbeck--we want a beefsteak, and a cup of tea, as quick as you
+can give it us; we'll make the tea ourselves; bring in the black tea,
+Tim--the nags as usual."
+
+"Aye! aye! sur"--"tak them out--leave t' harness on, all but their
+bridles"--to an old gray-headed hostler. "Whisp off their legs a bit; Ay
+will be oot enoo!"
+
+After as good a breakfast as fresh eggs, good country bread--worth ten
+times the poor trash of city bakers--prime butter, cream, and a fat
+steak could furnish, at a cheap rate, and with a civil and obliging
+landlord, away we went again over the red-hills--an infernal ugly road,
+sandy, and rough, and stony--for ten miles farther to New Prospect.
+
+"Now you shall see some scenery worth looking at," said Harry, as we
+started again, after watering the horses, and taking in a bag with a
+peck of oats--"to feed at three o'clock, Frank, when we stop to grub,
+which must do al fresco--" my friend explained--"for the landlord, who
+kept the only tavern on the road, went West this summer, bit by the land
+mania, and there is now no stopping place 'twixt this and Warwick,"
+naming the village for which we were bound. "You got that beef boiled,
+Tim?"
+
+"Ay'd been a fouil else, and aye so often oop t' road too," answered he
+with a grin, "and t' moostard is mixed, and t' pilot biscuit in, and a
+good bit o' Cheshire cheese! wee's doo, Ay reckon. Ha! ha! ha!"
+
+And now my friend's boast was indeed fulfilled; for when we had driven a
+few miles farther, the country became undulating, with many and bright
+streams of water; the hill sides clothed with luxuriant woodlands, now
+in their many-colored garb of autumn beauty; the meadow-land rich in
+unchanged fresh greenery--for the summer had been mild and rainy--with
+here and there a buckwheat stubble showing its ruddy face, replete with
+promise of quail in the present, and of hot cakes in future; and the
+bold chain of mountains, which, under many names, but always beautiful
+and wild, sweeps from the Highlands of the Hudson, west and southwardly,
+quite through New Jersey, forming a link between the White and Green
+Mountains of New Hampshire and Vermont, and the more famous Alleghenies
+of the South.
+
+A few miles farther yet, the road wheeled round the base of the Tourne
+Mountain, a magnificent bold hill, with a bare craggy head, its sides
+and skirts thick set with cedars and hickory--entering a defile through
+which the Ramapo, one of the loveliest streams eye ever looked upon,
+comes rippling with its crystal waters over bright pebbles, on its way
+to join the two kindred rivulets which form the fair Passaic. Throughout
+the whole of that defile, nothing can possibly surpass the loveliness of
+nature; the road hard, and smooth, and level, winding and wheeling
+parallel to the gurgling river, crossing it two or three times in each
+mile, now on one side, and now on the other--the valley now barely broad
+enough to permit the highway and the stream to pass between the abrupt
+masses of rock and forest, and now expanding into rich basins of green
+meadow-land, the deepest and most fertile possible--the hills of every
+shape and size--here bold, and bare, and rocky--there swelling up in
+grand round masses, pile above pile of verdure, to the blue firmament of
+autumn. By and by we drove through a thriving little village, nestling
+in a hollow of the hills, beside a broad bright pond, whose waters keep
+a dozen manufactories of cotton and of iron--with which mineral these
+hills abound--in constant operation; and passing by the tavern, the
+departure of whose owner Harry had so pathetically mourned, we wheeled
+again round a projecting spur of hill into a narrower defile, and
+reached another hamlet, far different in its aspect from the busy
+bustling place we had left some five miles behind.
+
+There were some twenty houses, with two large mills of solid masonry;
+but of these not one building was now tenanted; the roof-trees broken,
+the doors and shutters either torn from their hinges, or flapping wildly
+to and fro; the mill wheels cumbering the stream with masses of decaying
+timber, and the whole presenting a most desolate and mournful aspect.
+
+"Its story is soon told," Harry said, catching my inquiring glance--"a
+speculating, clever New York merchant--a waterpower--a failure--and a
+consequent desertion of the project; but we must find a birth among the
+ruins!"
+
+And as he spoke, turning a little off the road, he pulled up on the
+green sward; "there's an old stable here that has a manger in it yet!
+Now, Tim, look sharp!" And in a twinkling the horses were loosed from
+the wagon, the harness taken off and hanging on the corners of the
+ruined hovels, and Tim hissing and rubbing away at the gray horse, while
+Harry did like duty on the chestnut, in a style that would have done no
+shame to Melton Mowbray!
+
+"Come, Frank, make yourself useful! Get out the round of beef, and all
+the rest of the provant--it's on the rack behind; you'll find all right
+there. Spread our table-cloth on that flat stone by the waterfall, under
+the willow; clap a couple of bottles of the Baron's champagne into the
+pool there underneath the fall; let's see whether your Indian
+campaigning has taught you anything worth knowing!"
+
+To work I went at once, and by the time I had got through--"Come, Tim,"
+I heard him say, "I've got the rough dirt off this fellow, you must
+polish him, while I take a wash, and get a bit of dinner. Holloa! Frank,
+are you ready!"
+
+And he came bounding down to the water's edge, with his Newmarket coat
+in hand, and sleeves rolled up to the elbows, plunged his face into the
+cool stream, and took a good wash of his soiled hands in the same
+natural basin. Five minutes afterward we were employed most pleasantly
+with the spiced beef, white biscuit, and good wine, which came out of
+the waterfall as cool as Gunter could have made it with all his icing.
+When we had pretty well got through, and were engaged with our cheroots,
+up came Tim Matlock.
+
+"T' horses have got through wi' t' corn--they have fed rarely so I
+harnessed them, sur, all to the bridles--we can start when you will."
+
+"Sit down, and get your dinner then, sir--there's a heel tap in that
+bottle we have left for you--and when you have done, put up the things,
+and we'll be off. I say, Frank, let us try a shot with the pistols--I'll
+get the case--stick up that fellow-commoner upon the fence there, and
+mark off a twenty paces."
+
+The marking irons were produced, and loaded--"Fire--one--two--three"--
+bang! and the shivering of the glass announced that never more would
+that chap hold the generous liquor; the ball had struck it plump in the
+centre, and broken off the whole above the shoulder, for it was fixed
+neck downward on the stake.
+
+"It is my turn now," said I; and more by luck, I fancy, than by skill, I
+took the neck off, leaving nothing but the thick ring of the mouth still
+sticking on the summit of the fence.
+
+"I'll hold you a dozen of my best Regalias against as many of Manillas,
+that I break the ring."
+
+"Done, Harry!"
+
+"Done!"
+
+Again the pistol cracked, and the unerring ball drove the small fragment
+into a thousand splinters.
+
+"That fotched 'um!" exclaimed Tim, who had come up to announce all
+ready. "Ecod, measter Frank, you munna wager i' that gate* [*Gate--
+Yorkshire; Anglice, way.] wi' master, or my name beant Tim, but thou'lt
+be clean bamboozled."
+
+Well, not to make a short story long, we got under way again, and, with
+speed unabated, spanked along at full twelve miles an hour for five
+miles farther. There, down a wild looking glen, on the left hand, comes
+brawling, over stump and stone, a tributary streamlet, by the side of
+which a rough track, made by the charcoal burners and the iron miners,
+intersects the main road; and up this miserable looking path, for it was
+little more, Harry wheeled at full trot. "Now for twelve miles of
+mountain, the roughest road and wildest country you ever saw crossed in
+a phaeton, good master Frank."
+
+And wild it was, indeed, and rough enough in all conscience; narrow,
+unfenced in many places, winding along the brow of precipices without
+rail or breast-work, encumbered with huge blocks of stone, and broken by
+the summer rains! An English stage coachman would have stared aghast at
+the steep zigzags up the hills, the awkward turns on the descents, the
+sudden pitches, with now an unsafe bridge, and now a stony ford at the
+bottom; but through all this, the delicate quick finger, keen eye, and
+cool head of Harry, assisted by the rare mouths of his exquisitely
+bitted cattle, piloted us at the rate of full ten miles the hour; the
+scenery, through which the wild track ran, being entirely of the most
+wild and savage character of woodland; the bottom filled with gigantic
+timber trees, cedar, and pine, and hemlock, with a dense undergrowth of
+rhododendron, calmia, and azalia, which, as my friend informed me, made
+the whole mountains in the summer season one rich bed of bloom. About
+six miles from the point where we had entered them we scaled the highest
+ridge of the hills, by three almost precipitous zigzags, the topmost
+ledge paved by a stratum of broken shaley limestone; and, passing at
+once from the forest into well cultivated fields, came on a new and
+lovelier prospect--a narrow deep vale scarce a mile in breadth--scooped,
+as it were, out of the mighty mountains which embosomed it on every
+side--in the highest state of culture, with rich orchards, and deep
+meadows, and brown stubbles, whereon the shocks of maize stood fair and
+frequent; and westward of the road, which, diving down obliquely to the
+bottom, loses itself in the woods of the opposite hill-side, and only
+becomes visible again when it emerges to cross over the next summit--the
+loveliest sheet of water my eyes has ever seen, varying from half a mile
+to a mile in breadth, and about five miles long, with shores indented
+deeply with the capes and promontories of the wood-clothed hills, which
+sink abruptly to its very margin.
+
+"That is the Greenwood Lake, Frank, called by the monsters here Long
+Pond!--'the fiends receive their souls therefor,' as Walter Scott says--
+in my mind prettier than Lake George by far, though known to few except
+chance sportsmen like myself! Full of fish, perch of a pound in weight,
+and yellow bass in the deep waters, and a good sprinkling of trout,
+towards this end! Ellis Ketchum killed a five-pounder there this spring!
+and heaps of summer-duck, the loveliest in plumage of the genus, and the
+best too, me judice, excepting only the inimitable canvass-back. There
+are a few deer, too, in the hills, though they are getting scarce of
+late years. There, from that headland, I killed one, three summers
+since; I was placed at a stand by the lake's edge, and the dogs drove
+him right down to me; but I got too eager, and he heard or saw me, and
+so fetched a turn; but they were close upon him, and the day was hot,
+and he was forced to soil. I never saw him till he was in the act of
+leaping from a bluff of ten or twelve feet into the deep lake, but I
+pitched up my rifle at him, a snap shot! as I would my gun at a cock in
+a summer brake, and by good luck sent my ball through his heart. There
+is a finer view yet when we cross this hill, the Bellevale mountain;
+look out, for we are just upon it; there! Now admire!"
+
+And on the summit he pulled up, and never did I see a landscape more
+extensively magnificent. Ridge after ridge the mountain sloped down from
+our feet into a vast rich basin ten miles at least in breadth, by
+thirty, if not more, in length, girdled on every side by mountains--the
+whole diversified with wood and water, meadow, and pasture-land, and
+corn-field--studded with small white villages--with more than one bright
+lakelet glittering like beaten gold in the declining sun, and several
+isolated hills standing up boldly from the vale!
+
+"Glorious indeed! Most glorious!" I exclaimed.
+
+"Right, Frank," he said; "a man may travel many a day, and not see any
+thing to beat the vale of Sugar-loaf--so named from that cone-like hill,
+over the pond there--that peak is eight hundred feet above tide water.
+Those blue hills, to the far right, are the Hudson Highlands; that bold
+bluff is the far-famed Anthony's Nose; that ridge across the vale, the
+second ridge I mean, is the Shawangunks; and those three rounded
+summits, farther yet--those are the Kaatskills! But now a truce with the
+romantic, for there lies Warwick, and this keen mountain air has found
+me a fresh appetite!"
+
+Away we went again, rattling down the hills, nothing daunted at their
+steep pitches, with the nags just as fresh as when they started,
+champing and snapping at their curbs, till on a table-land above the
+brook, with the tin steeple of its church peering from out the massy
+foliage of sycamore and locust, the haven of our journey lay before us.
+
+"Hilloa, hill-oa ho! whoop! who-whoop!" and with a cheery shout, as we
+clattered across the wooden bridge, he roused out half the population of
+the village.
+
+"Ya ha ha!--ya yah!" yelled a great woolly-headed coal-black negro.
+"Here 'm massa Archer back again--massa ben well, I spect--"
+
+"Well--to be sure I have, Sam," cried Harry. "How's old Poll? Bid her
+come up to Draw's to-morrow night--I've got a red and yellow frock for
+her--a deuce of a concern!"
+
+"Ya ha! yah ha ha yaah!" and amid a most discordant chorus of African
+merriment, we passed by a neat farm-house shaded by two glorious locusts
+on the right, and a new red brick mansion, the pride of the village,
+with a flourishing store on the left--and wheeled up to the famous Tom
+Draw's tavern--a long white house with a piazza six feet wide, at the
+top of eight steep steps, and a one-story kitchen at the end of it; a
+pump with a gilt pineapple at the top of it, and horse-trough, a wagon
+shed and stable sixty feet long; a sign-post with an indescribable
+female figure swinging upon it, and an ice house over the way!
+
+Such was the house, before which we pulled up just as the sun was
+setting, amid a gabbling of ducks, a barking of terriers, mixed with the
+deep bay of two or three large heavy fox-hounds which had been lounging
+about in the shade, and a peal of joyous welcome from all beings,
+quadruped or biped, within hearing.
+
+"Hulloa! boys!" cried a deep hearty voice from within the barroom.
+"Hulloa! boys! Walk in! walk in! What the eternal h-ll are you about
+there?"
+
+Well, we did walk into a large neat bar-room, with a bright hickory log
+crackling upon the hearth-stone, a large round table in one corner,
+covered with draught-boards, and old newspapers, among which showed
+preeminent the "Spirit of the Times;" a range of pegs well stored with
+great-coats, fishing-rods, whips, game-bags, spurs, and every other
+stray appurtenance of sporting, gracing one end; while the other was
+more gaily decorated by the well furnished bar, in the right-hand angle
+of which my eye detected in an instant a handsome nine pound double
+barrel, an old six foot Queen Ann's tower-musket, and a long
+smooth-bored rifle; and last, not least, outstretched at easy length
+upon the counter of his bar, to the left-hand of the gang-way--the right
+side being more suitably decorated with tumblers, and decanters of strange
+compounds--supine, with fair round belly towering upward, and head
+voluptuously pillowed on a heap of wagon cushions--lay in his glory--but
+no! hold!--the end of a chapter is no place to introduce--Tom Draw!*
+[*It is almost a painful task to read over and revise this chapter. The
+"twenty years ago" is too keenly visible to the mind's eye in every
+line. Of the persons mentioned in its pages, more than one have passed
+away from our world forever; and even the natural features of rock,
+wood, and river, in other countries so vastly more enduring than their
+perishable owners, have been so much altered by the march of
+improvement, Heaven save the mark! that the traveler up the Erie
+railroad, will certainly not recognize in the description of the vale of
+Ramapo, the hill-sides all denuded of their leafy honors, the bright
+streams dammed by unsightly mounds and changed into foul stagnant pools,
+the snug country tavern deserted for a huge hideous barn-like depot, and
+all the lovely sights and sweet harmonies of nature defaced and drowned
+by the deformities consequent on a railroad, by the disgusting roar and
+screech of the steam-engine. One word to the wise! Let no man be deluded
+by the following pages, into the setting forth for Warwick now in search
+of sporting. These things are strictly as they were twenty years ago! Mr.
+Seward, in his zeal for the improvement of Chatauque and Cattaraugus, has
+certainly destroyed the cock-shooting of Orange county. A sportsman's
+benison to him therefor.]
+
+
+DAY THE 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 dreamt 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, bashfulness, 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 superannuated
+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 tomorrow, 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; leastwise 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
+thunder, 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 Hellhole; 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 spluttering 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 anything 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 oath, which, by the apparent
+gusto of the speaker, seemed to betoken that the wine had tickled his
+palate--"that goes good! that's different from the darned 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 wouldn'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 brought up five gallons
+of exceedingly stout, rather fiery, young 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 harn't 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 understanding, 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 hearthstone 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 main-sail 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
+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 out
+my own best apples--take a horn, Mr. Forester," he added, turning to me
+--"it's first best cider sperrits--better a darned 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 anything 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 buckwheat 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 cones; and, to make up the tale,
+dog-whip, dram-bottle, and silk 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, isn't it?" with a good slap on Tom's broad shoulder.
+
+"Shot! Shot--why Shot! don'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.
+
+"Avast! 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 stubbles, and rich pastures dotted
+with sleek and comely cattle, were rendered yet more lovely and
+romantic, by here and there a woody gorge, or rocky chasm, channeling
+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 under-wood. Along the left-hand fence ran a
+thick belt of underwood, sumac 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 overshadowed 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, consarn you!" exclaimed Tom;
+"at your old work already, hey? trying to shirk at first!"
+
+"Don'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; and keep your eyes skinned, do! there'll be a cock up
+before you're 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 Torn 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, and dodged out of
+sight, and off--"Mark! mark!--Tim!" I shouted.
+
+"Ey! ey! sur--Ay see's urn!"
+
+"Why, how's that, Frank?" cried Harry. "Couldn'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 woodcock, 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 towered bird! After a little pause, again we
+started, and, hailing 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 woodcocks, 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 stump alder!"
+
+"And I, three woodcock and one quail!" I chimed in, naught abashed.
+
+"And Ay'se marked doon three woodcock--two more beside yon big un, that
+measter Draa made siccan a bungle of--and all t' quail--every feather on
+um--doon t' bog meadow 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-glassfull 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 brachens, 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 an easy
+shot! and so our work's clean done for this place, at the least!"
+
+"The boy can shoot some," observed Tom Draw, who loved to bother
+Timothy; "the boy can shoot some, though he does come from Yorkshire!"
+
+"Gad! 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 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 t' bog meadow yonner! joost t' slack,* [*Slack--Yorkshire.
+Anglice, Moist hollow] 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
+tussockky 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, only one 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 tussockks. 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 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 anything, 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; then up went Harry's piece--the bevy being now twenty 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 grouse, 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 woodcocks,
+with ten brace and a half of quail beside 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 marvelously 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 THIRD
+
+So thoroughly was I tired out by the effects of the first day's fagging
+I had undergone in many months, and so sound was the slumber into which
+I sank the moment my head touched the pillow, that it scarcely seemed as
+if five minutes had elapsed between my falling into sweet forgetfulness,
+and my starting bolt upright in bed, aroused by the vociferous shout,
+and ponderous tramping, equal to nothing less than that of a full-grown
+rhinoceros, with which Tom Draw rushed, long before the sun was up, into
+my chamber.
+
+"What's this, what's this now?" he exclaimed; "why the plague arn't you
+up and ready?--why here's the bitters mixed, and Archer in the stable
+this half hour past, and Jem's here with the hounds--and you, you lazy
+snorting Injun, wasting the morning here in bed!"
+
+My only reply to this most characteristic salutation, was to hurl my
+pillow slap in his face, and--threatening to follow up the missile with
+the contents of the water pitcher, which stood temptingly within my
+reach, if he did not get out incontinently--to jump up and array myself
+with all due speed; for, when I had collected my bewildered thoughts, I
+well remembered that we had settled on a fox-hunt before breakfast, as a
+preliminary to a fresh skirmish with the quail.
+
+In a few minutes I was on foot and in the parlor, where I found a bright
+crackling fire, a mighty pitcher of milk punch, and a plate of biscuit,
+an apt substitute for breakfast before starting; while, however, I was
+discussing these, Archer arrived, dressed just as I have described him
+on the preceding day, with the addition of a pair of heavy hunting
+spurs, buckled on over his half-boots, and a large iron-hammered whip in
+his right hand.
+
+"That's right, Frank," he exclaimed, after the ordinary salutations of
+the morning.
+
+"Why that old porpoise told me you would not be ready these two hours;
+he's grumbling out yonder by the stable door, like a hog stuck in a
+farm-yard gate. But come, we may as well be moving, for the hounds are
+all uncoupled, and the nags saddled--put on a pair of straps to your
+fustian trowsers and take these racing spurs, though Peacock does not
+want them--and now, hurrah!"
+
+This was soon done, and going out upon the stoop, a scene--it is true,
+widely different from the kennel door at Melton, or the covert side at
+Billesdon Coplow, yet not by any means devoid of interest or animation--
+presented itself to my eyes. About six couple of large heavy hounds,
+with deep and pendant ears, heavy well-feathered sterns, broad chests,
+and muscular strong limbs, were gathered round their feeder, the
+renowned Jem Lyn; on whom it may not be impertinent to waste a word or
+two, before proceeding to the mountain, which, as I learned, to my no
+little wonder, was destined to be our hunting ground.
+
+Picture to yourself, then, gentle reader, a small but actively formed
+man, with a face of most unusual and portentous ugliness, an uncouth
+grin doing the part of a smile; a pair of eyes so small that they would
+have been invisible, but for the serpent-like vivacity and brightness
+with which they sparkled from their deep sockets, and a profusion of
+long hair, coal-black, but lank and uncurled as an Indian's, combed
+smoothly down with a degree of care entirely out of keeping with the
+other details, whether of dress or countenance, on either cheek. Above
+these sleek and cherished tresses he wore a thing which might have
+passed for either cap or castor, at the wearer's pleasure; for it was
+wholly destitute of brim except for a space some three or four inches
+wide over the eye-rows; and the crown had been so pertinaciously and
+completely eaten in, that the sides sloped inward at the top, as if to
+personate a bishop's mitre; a fishing line was wound about this graceful
+and, if its appearance belied it not most foully, odoriferous headdress;
+and into the fishing line was stuck the bowl and some two inches of the
+shank of a well-sooted pipe. An old red handkerchief was twisted
+rope-wise about his lean and scraggy neck, but it by no means sufficed
+to hide the scar of what had evidently been a most appalling gash,
+extending right across his throat, almost from ear to ear, the great
+cicatrix clearly visible like a white line through the thick stubble of
+some ten days' standing that graced his chin and neck.
+
+An old green coat, the skirts of which had long since been docked by the
+encroachment of thorn-bushes and cat-briers, with the mouth-piece of a
+powder-horn peeping from its breast pocket, and a full shot-belt
+crossing his right shoulder; a pair of fustian trowsers, patched at the
+knees with corduroy, and heavy cowhide boots completed his attire. This,
+as it seemed, was to be our huntsman; and Booth to say, although he did
+not look the character, he played the part, when he got to work, right
+handsomely. At a more fitting season, Harry in a few words let me into
+this worthy's history and disposition. "He is," he said, "the most
+incorrigible rascal I ever met with--an unredeemed and utter vagabond;
+he started life as a stallion-leader, a business which he understands--
+as in fact he does almost every thing else within his scope--thoroughly
+well. He got on prodigiously!--was employed by the first breeders in the
+country!--took to drinking, and then, in due rotation, to gambling,
+pilfering, lying, every vice, in short, which is compatible with utter
+want of any thing like moral sense, deep shrewdness, and uncommon
+cowardice.
+
+"He cut his throat once--you may see the scar now--in a fit of delirium
+tremens, and Tom Draw, who, though he is perpetually cursing him for the
+most lying critter under heaven, has, I believe, a sort of fellow
+feeling for him--nursed him and got him well; and ever since he has hung
+about here, getting at times a country stallion to look after, at others
+hunting, or fishing, or doing little jobs about the stable, for which
+Tom gives him plenty of abuse, plenty to eat, and as little rum as
+possible, for if he gets a second glass it is all up with Jem Lyn for a
+week at least.
+
+"He came to see me once in New York, when I was down upon my back with a
+broken leg--I was lying in the parlor, about three weeks after the
+accident had happened. Tim Matlock had gone out for something, and the
+cook let him in; and, after he had sat there about half an hour, telling
+me all the news of the races, and making me laugh more than was good for
+my broken leg, he gave me such a hint, that I was compelled to direct
+him to the cupboard, wherein I kept the liquor-stand; and unluckily
+enough, as I had not for some time been in drinking tune, all three of
+the bottles were brimful; and, as I am a Christian man, he drank in
+spite of all I could say--I could not leave the couch to get at him--two
+of them to the dregs; and, after frightening me almost to death, fell
+flat upon the floor, and lay there fast asleep when Tim came in again.
+He dragged him instantly, by my directions, under the pump in the
+garden, and soused him for about two hours, but without producing the
+least effect, except eliciting a grunt or two from this most seasoned
+cask.
+
+"Such is Jem Lyn, and yet, absurd to say, I have tried the fellow, and
+believe him perfectly trustworthy--at least to me!
+
+"He is a coward, yet I have seen him fight like a hero more than once,
+and against heavy odds, to save me from a threshing, which I got after
+all, though not without some damage to our foes, whose name might have
+been legion.
+
+"He is the greatest liar I ever met with; and yet I never caught him in
+a falsehood, for he believes it is no use to tell me one.
+
+"He is most utterly dishonest, yet I have trusted him with sums that
+would, in his opinion, have made him a rich man for life, and he
+accounted to the utmost shilling; but I advise you not try the same, for
+if you do he most assuredly will cheat you!"
+
+Among the heavy looking hounds, which clustered round this hopeful
+gentleman, I quickly singled out two couple of widely different breed
+and character from the rest; your thorough high-bred racing fox-hounds,
+with ears rounded, thin shining coats, clean limbs, and all the marks of
+the best class of English hounds.
+
+"Aye! Frank," said Archer, as he caught my eye fixed on them, "you have
+found out my favorites. Why, Bonny Belle, good lass, why Bonny Belle!--
+here Blossom, Blossom, come up and show your pretty figures to your
+countryman! Poor Hanbury--do you remember, Frank, how many a merry day
+we've had with him by Thorley Church, and Takely forest?--poor Hanbury
+sent them to me with such a letter, only the year before he died; and
+those, Dauntless and Dangerous, I had from Will, Lord Harewood's
+huntsman, the same season!"
+
+"There never was sich dogs--there never was afore in Orange," said Tom.
+"I will say that, though they be English; and though they be too fast
+for fox, entirely, there never was sich dogs for deer"
+
+"But how the deuce," I interrupted, "can hounds be too fast, if they
+have bone and stanchness!"
+
+"Stanchness be darned; they holes them!"
+
+"No earthstoppers in these parts, Frank," cried Harry; "and as the
+object of these gentlemen is not to hunt solely for the fun of the
+thing, but to destroy a noxious varmint, they prefer a slow, sure,
+deep-mouthed dog, that does not press too closely on Pug, but lets him
+take his time about the coverts, till he comes into fair gunshot of
+these hunters, who are lying perdu as he runs to get a crack at him."
+
+"And pray," said I, "is this your method of proceeding?"
+
+"You shall see, you shall see; come get to horse, or it will be late
+before we get our breakfast, and I assure you I don't wish to lose
+either that, or my day's quail-shooting. This hunt is merely for a
+change, and to get something of an appetite for breakfast. Now, Tim, be
+sure that every thing is ready by eight o'clock at the latest--we shall
+be in by that time with a furious appetite."
+
+Thus saying he mounted, without more delay, his favorite, the gray;
+while I backed, nothing loth, the chestnut horse; and at the same time
+to my vast astonishment, from under the long shed out rode the mighty
+Tom, bestriding a tall powerful brown mare, showing a monstrous deal of
+blood combined with no slight bone--equipped with a cavalry bridle, and
+strange to say, without the universal martingal; he was rigged just as
+usual, with the exception of a broad-brimmed hat in place of his fur
+cap, and grasped in his right hand a heavy smooth-bored rifle, while
+with the left he wheeled his mare, with a degree of active skill, which
+I should certainly have looked for any where rather than in so vast a
+mass of flesh as that which was exhibited by our worthy host.
+
+Two other sportsmen, grave, sober-looking farmers, whom Harry greeted
+cheerily by name, and to whom in all due form I was next introduced,
+well-mounted, and armed with long single-barreled guns, completed our
+party; and away we went at a rattling trot, the hounds following at
+Archer's heels, as steadily as though he hunted them three times a week.
+
+"Now arn't it a strange thing," said Tom, "arn't it a strange thing, Mr.
+Forester, that every critter under Heaven takes somehow nat'rally to
+that are Archer--the very hounds--old Whino there! that I have had these
+eight years, and fed with my own hands, and hunted steady every winter,
+quits me the very moment he claps sight on him; by the eternal, I
+believe he is half dog himself."
+
+"You hunted them indeed," interrupted Harry, "you old rhinoceros, why
+hang your hide, you never so much as heard a good view-holloa till I
+came up here--you hunted them--a man talk of hunting, that carries a
+cannon about with him on horseback; but come, where are we to try first,
+on Rocky Hill, or in the Spring Swamps?"
+
+"Why now I reckon, Archer, we'd best stop down to Sam Blain's--by the
+blacksmith's--he was telling t'other morning of an eternal sight of them
+he'd seen down hereaway--and we'll be there to rights!--Jem, cus you,
+out of my way, you dumb nigger--out of my way, or I'll ride over you"--
+for, traveling along at a strange shambling run, that worthy had
+contrived to keep up with us, though we were going fully at the rate of
+eight or nine miles in the hour.
+
+"Hurrah!" cried Tom, suddenly pulling up at the door of a neat
+farm-house on the brow of a hill, with a clear streamlet sweeping round
+its base, and a fine piece of woodland at the farther side. "Hurrah! Sam
+Blain, we've come to make them foxes, you were telling of a Sunday,
+smell h-ll right straight away. Here's Archer, and another Yorker with
+him--leastwise an Englisher I should say--and Squire Conklin, and Bill
+Speers, and that white nigger Jem! Look sharp, I say! Look sharp, cuss
+you, else we'll pull off the ruff of the old humstead."
+
+In a few minutes Sam made his appearance, armed, like the rest, with a
+Queen Ann's tower-musket.
+
+"Well! well!" he said, "I'm ready. Quit making such a clatter! Lend me a
+load of powder, one of you; my horn's leaked dry, I reckon!"
+
+Tom forthwith handed him his own, and the next thing I heard was Blain
+exclaiming that it was "desperate pretty powder," and wondered if it
+shot strong.
+
+"Shoot strong? I guess you'll find it strong enough to sew you up, if
+you go charging your old musket that ways!" answered Tom. "By the Lord,
+Archer, he's put in three full charges!"
+
+"Well, it will kill him, that's all!" answered Harry, very coolly; "and
+there'll be one less of you. But come! come! let's be bustling; the
+sun's going to get up already. You'll leave your horses here, I suppose,
+gentlemen, and get to the old stands. Tom Draw, put Mr. Forester at my
+old post down by the big pin-oak at the creek side; and you stand there,
+Frank, still as a church-mouse. It's ten to one, if some of those
+fellows don't shoot him first, that he'll break covert close by you, and
+run the meadows for a mile or two, up to the turnpike road, and over it
+to Rocky hill--that black knob yonder, covered with pine and hemlock.
+There are some queer snake fences in the flat, and a big brook or two,
+but Peacock has been over every inch of it before, and you may trust in
+him implicitly. Good bye! I'm going up the road with Jem to drive it
+from the upper end."
+
+And off he went at a merry trot, with the hounds gamboling about his
+stirrups, and Jem Lyn running at his best pace to keep up with him. In a
+few minutes they were lost behind a swell of woodland, round which the
+road wheeled suddenly. At the same moment Tom and his companions
+reappeared from the stables where they had been securing their
+four-footed friends; and, after a few seconds, spent in running ramrods
+down the barrels to see that all was right, inspecting primings, knapping
+flints, or putting on fresh copper caps, it was announced that all was
+ready; and passing through the farm-yard, we entered, through a set of
+bars, a broad bright buckwheat stubble. Scarcely an hundred yards had we
+proceeded, before we sprung the finest bevy of the largest quail I had
+yet seen, and flying high and wild crossed half-a-dozen fields in the
+direction of the village, whence we had started, and pitched at length
+into an alder brake beside the stream.
+
+"Them chaps has gone the right way," Tom exclaimed, with a deep sigh,
+who had with wondrous difficulty refrained from firing into them, though
+he was loaded with buckshot; "right in the course we count to take this
+forenoon. Now, Squire, keep to the left here, take your station by the
+old earths there away, under the tall dead pine; and you, Bill, make
+tracks there, straight through the middle cart-way, down to the other
+meadow, and sit you down right where the two streams fork; there'll be
+an old red snooping down that side afore long, I reckon. We'll go on,
+Mr. Forester; here's a big rail fence now; I'll throw off the top rail,
+for be darned if I climb any day when I can creep--there, that'll do, I
+reckon; leastwise if you can ride like Archer--he d--ns me always if I
+so much as shakes a fence afore he jumps it--you've got the best horse,
+too, for lepping. Now let's see! Well done! well done!" he continued,
+with a most boisterous burst of laughter--"well done, horse, any how!"--
+as Peacock, who had been chafing ever since he parted from his comrade
+Bob, went at the fence as though he were about to take it in his stroke
+--stopped short when within a yard of it, and then bucked over it,
+without touching a splinter, although it was at least five feet, and
+shaking me so much, that, greatly to Tom's joy, I showed no little
+glimpse of day-light.
+
+"I reckon if they run the meadows, you'll hardly ride them, Forester,"
+he grinned; "but now away with you. You see the tall dark pin oak, it
+hasn't lost one leaf yet; right in the nook there of the bars you'll
+find a quiet shady spot, where you can see clear up the rail fence to
+this knob, where I'll be. Off with you, boy--and mind you now, you keep
+as dumb as the old woman when her husband cut her tongue out, 'cause she
+had too much jaw."
+
+Finishing his discourse, he squatted himself down on the stool of a
+large hemlock, which, being recently cut down, cumbered the woodside
+with its giant stem, and secured him, with its evergreen top now lowly
+laid and withering, from the most narrow scrutiny; while I, giving the
+gallant horse his head, went at a brisk hand-gallop across the firm
+short turf of the fair sloping hill-side, taking a moderate fence in my
+stroke, which Peacock cleared in a style that satisfied me Harry had by
+no means exaggerated his capacity to act as hunter, in lieu of the less
+glorious occupation, to which in general he was doomed.
+
+In half a minute more I reached my post, and though an hour passed
+before I heard the slightest sound betokening the chase, never did I
+more thoroughly enjoy an hour.
+
+The loveliness of the whole scene before me--the broad rich sweep of
+meadowland lying, all bathed in dew, under the pale gray light of an
+autumnal morning, with groups of cattle couched still between the trees
+where they had passed the night; the distant hills, veiled partially in
+mist, partially rearing their round leafy heads toward the brightening
+sky; and then the various changes of the landscape, as slowly the day
+broke behind the eastern hill; and all the various sounds of bird, and
+beast, and insect, which each succeeding variation of the morning served
+to call into life as if by magic. First a faint rosy flush stole up the
+eastern sky, and nearly at the self-same moment, two or three vagrant
+crows came flapping heavily along, at a height so immeasurable that
+their harsh voices were by distance modified into a pleasing murmur. And
+now a little fish jumped in the streamlet; and the splash, trifling as
+it was, with which he fell back on the quiet surface, half startled me.
+
+A moment afterward an acorn plumped down on my head, and as I looked up,
+there sat, on a limb not ten feet above me, an impudent rogue of a gray
+squirrel, half as big as a rabbit, erect upon his haunches, working away
+at the twin brother of the acorn he had dropped upon my hat to break my
+reverie, rasping it audibly with his chisel-shaped teeth, and grinning
+at me just as coolly as though I were a harmless scare-crow.
+
+When I grew tired of observing him, and looked toward the sky again,
+behold the western ridge, which is far higher than the eastern hills,
+had caught upon its summits the first bright rays of the yet unseen
+day-god; while the rosy flush of the east had brightened into a blaze of
+living gold, exceeded only by the glorious hues with which a few bright
+specks of misty cloud glowed out against the azure firmament, like coals
+of actual fire. Again a louder splash aroused me; and, as I turned,
+there floated on a glassy basin, into which the ripples of a tiny fall
+subsided, three wood-ducks, with a noble drake, that loveliest in
+plumage of all aquatic fowl, perfectly undisturbed and fearless,
+although within ten yards of their most dreaded enemy.
+
+How beautiful are all their motions! There! one has reared herself half
+way out of the water; another stretches forth a delicate web foot to
+scratch her ear, as handily as a dog on dry land; and now the drake
+reflects his purple neck to preen his ruffled wing, and now--bad luck to
+you, Peacock, why did you snort and stamp?--they are off like a bullet,
+and out of sight in an instant.
+
+And now out comes the sun himself, and with him the accursed hum of a
+musquitoe--and hark! hush!--what was that?--was it? By Heavens! it was
+the deep note of a fox-hound! Aye! there comes Harry's cheer, faintly
+heard, swelling up the breeze.
+
+"Have at him, there! Ha-a-ve at him, good lads!"
+
+Again! again! those are the musical deep voices of the slow hounds! They
+have a dash in them of the old Southern breed! And now! there goes the
+yell! the quick sharp yelping rally of those two high-bred bitches. By
+heaven! they must be viewing him! How the woods ring and crash!
+
+"Together hark! Together hark! Together! For-ra-ard, good lads, get
+for-a-ard! Hya-a-araway!"
+
+Well halloaed, Harry! I could swear to that last screech, out of ten
+thousand, though it is near ten years since I last heard it! But
+heavens! how they press him! Hang it! there goes a shot--the squire has
+fired at him, as he tried the earths! Now, if he have but missed him,
+and Pan, the god of hunters, send it so, he has no chance but to try the
+open.
+
+By Jove he has! he must have missed! for Bonny Belle and Blossom are
+raving half a mile this side of him already. And now Tom sees him--how
+quietly he steals up to the fence. There! he has fired! and all our
+sport is up! No! no! he waves his hat and points this way! Can he have
+missed? No! he has got a fox!--he lifts it out by the brush--there must
+have been two, then, on foot together. He has done it well to get that
+he has killed away, or they would have stopped on him!
+
+Hush! the leaves rustle here beside me, with a quick patter--the twigs
+crackle--it is he! Move not! not for your life, Peacock! There! he has
+broken cover fairly! Now he is half across the field! he stops to
+listen! Ah! he will head again. No! no! that crash, when they came upon
+the warm blood, has decided him--away he goes, with his brush high, and
+its white tag brandished in the sunshine--now I may halloa him away.
+
+"Whoop! gone awa-ay! whoop!"
+
+I was answered on the instant by Harry's quick--"Hark holloa! get
+awa-ay! to him hark! to him hark! hark holloa!"
+
+Most glorious Artemis, what heaven-stirring music! And yet there are but
+poor six couple; the scent must be as hot as fire, for every hound seems
+to have twenty tongues, and every leaf an hundred echoes! How the boughs
+crash again! Lo! they are here! Bonny Belle leading--head and stern up,
+with a quick panting yelp! Blossom, and Dangerous, and Dauntless
+scarcely a length behind her, striving together, neck and neck; and, by
+St. Hubert, it must be a scent of twenty thousand, for here these heavy
+Southrons are scarcely two rods behind them.
+
+But fidget not, good Peacock! fret not, most excellent Pythagoras! one
+moment more, and I am not the boy to baulk you. And here comes Harry on
+the gray; by George! he makes the brushwood crackle! Now for a nasty
+leap out of the tangled swamp! a high six-barred fence of rough trees,
+leaning toward him, and up hill! surely he will not try it!
+
+Will he not though?
+
+See!--his rein is tight yet easy! his seat, how beautiful, how firm, yet
+how relaxed and graceful! Well done, indeed! He slacks his rein one
+instant as the gray rises! the rugged rails are cleared, and the firm
+pull supports him! but Harry moves not in the saddle--no! not one hair's
+breadth! A five foot fence to him is nothing! You shall not see the
+slightest variation between his attitude in that strong effort, and in
+the easy gallop. If Tom Draw saw him now, he could have some excuse for
+calling him "half horse"--and he does see him! hark to that most
+unearthly knell! like unto nothing, either heavenly or human! He waves
+his hat and hurries back as fast as he is able to the horses, well
+knowing that for pedestrians at least, the morning's sport is ended.
+
+Harry and I were now almost abreast, riding in parallel lines, down the
+rich valley, very nearly at the top speed of our horses; taking fence
+after fence in our stroke, and keeping well up with the hounds, which
+were running almost mute, such was the furious speed to which the
+blazing scent excited them.
+
+We had already passed above two-thirds of the whole distance that
+divides the range of woods, wherein we found him, and the pretty village
+which we had constituted our head quarters, a distance of at least three
+miles; and now a very difficult and awkward obstacle presented itself to
+our farther progress, in the shape of a wide yawning brook between sheer
+banks of several feet in height, broken, with rough and pointed stones,
+the whole being at least five yards across. The gallant hounds dashed
+over it; and, when we reached it, were half way across the grass field
+next beyond it.
+
+"Hold him hard, Frank," Harry shouted; "hold him hard, man, and cram him
+at it!"
+
+And so I did, though I had little hope of clearing it. I lifted him a
+little on the snaffle, gave him the spur just as he reached the brink,
+and with a long and swinging leap, so easy that its motion was in truth
+scarce perceptible, he swept across it; before I had the time to think,
+we were again going at our best pace almost among the hounds.
+
+Over myself, I cast a quick glance back toward Harry, who, by a short
+turn of the chase had been thrown a few yards behind me. He charged it
+gallantly; but on the very verge, cowed by the brightness of the
+rippling water, the gray made a half stop, but leaped immediately,
+beneath the application of the galling spur; he made a noble effort, but
+it was scarce a thing to be effected by a standing leap, and it was with
+far less pleasure than surprise, that I saw him drop his hind legs down
+the steep bank, having just landed with fore-feet in the meadow.
+
+I was afraid, indeed, he must have had an ugly fall, but, picked up
+quickly by the delicate and steady finger of his rider, the good horse
+found some slight projection of the bank, whereby to make a second
+spring. After a heavy flounder, however, which must have dismounted any
+less perfect horseman, he recovered himself well, and before many
+minutes was again abreast of me.
+
+Thus far the course of the hunted fox had lain directly homeward, down
+the valley; but now the turnpike road making a sudden turn crossed his
+line at right angles, while another narrower road coming in at a
+tangent, went off to the south-westward in the direction of the bold
+projection, which I had learned to recognize as Rocky Hill; over the
+high fence into the road; well performed, gallant horses! And now they
+check for a moment, puzzling about on the dry sandy turnpike.
+
+"Dangerous feathers on it now! Speak to it! speak to it, good hound!"
+
+How beautiful that flourish of the stern with which he darts away on the
+recovered scent; with what a yell they open it once again! Harry was
+right, he makes for Rocky Hill, but up this plaguey lane, where the
+scent lies but faintly. Now! now! the road turns off again far westward
+of his point! He may, by Jove! And he has left it!
+
+"Have at him then, lads; he is ours!"
+
+And lo! the pace increases. Ha! what a sudden turn, and in the middle
+too of a clear pasture.
+
+"Has he been headed, Harry?"
+
+"No, no; his strength is failing."
+
+And see! he makes his point again toward the hill; it is within a
+quarter of a mile, and if he gain it we can do nothing with him, for it
+is full of earths. But he will never reach it. See! he turns once again;
+how exquisitely well those bitches run it; three times he has doubled,
+now almost as short as a hare, and they, running breast-high, have
+turned with him each time, not over-running it a yard.
+
+See how the sheep have drawn together into phalanx yonder, in that bare
+pasture to the eastward; he has crossed that field for a thousand! Yes,
+I am right. See! they turn once again. What a delicious rally! An
+outspread towel would cover those four leading hounds--now Dauntless has
+it; has it by half a neck.
+
+"He always goes up when a fox is sinking," Harry exclaimed, pointing
+toward him with his hunting whip.
+
+Aye! he has given up his point entirely; he knew he could not face the
+hill. Look! look at those carrion crows! how low they stoop over that
+woody bank. That is his line. Here is the road again. Over it once more
+merrily! and now we view him.
+
+"Whoop! Forra-ard, lads, forra-ard!"
+
+He cannot hold five minutes; and see, there comes fat Tom pounding that
+mare along the road as if her fore-feet were of hammered iron; he has
+come up along the turnpike, at an infernal pace, while that turn favored
+him; but he will only see us kill him, and that, too, at a respectful
+distance.
+
+Another brook stretches across our course, hurrying to join the greater
+stream along the banks of which we have so long been speeding; but this
+is a little one; there! we have cleared it cleverly. Now! now! the
+hounds are viewing him. Poor brute! his day is come. See how he twists
+and doubles, Ah! now they have him! No! that short turn has saved him,
+and he gains the fence--he will lie down there! No! he stretches
+gallantly across the next field--game to the last, poor devil! There!
+
+"Who-whoop! Dead! dead! who-whoop!"
+
+And in another instant Harry had snatched him from the hounds, and
+holding him aloft displayed him to the rest, as they came up along the
+road.
+
+"A pretty burst," he said to me, "a pretty burst, Frank, and a good
+kill; but they can't stand before the hounds, the foxes here, like our
+stout islanders; they are not forced to work so hard to gain their
+living. But now let us get homeward; I want my breakfast, I can tell
+you, and then a rattle at the quail. I mean to get full forty brace
+to-day, I promise you."
+
+"And we," said I, "have marked down fifteen brace already toward it;
+right in the line of our beat, Tom says."
+
+"That's right; well, let us go on."
+
+And in a short half hour we were all once again assembled about Tom's
+hospitable board, and making such a breakfast, on every sort of eatable
+that can be crowded on a breakfast table, as sportsmen only have a right
+to make; nor they, unless they have walked ten, or galloped half as many
+miles, before it.
+
+Before we had been in an hour, Harry once again roused us out. All had
+been, during our absence, fully prepared by the indefatigable Tim; who,
+as the day before, accoutered with spare shot and lots of provender,
+seemed to grudge us each morsel that we ate, so eager was he to see us
+take the field in season.
+
+Off we went then; but what boots it to repeat a thrice told tale;
+suffice it, that the dogs worked as well as dogs can work; that birds
+were plentiful, and lying good; that we fagged hard, and shot on the
+whole passably, so that by sunset we had exceeded Harry's forty brace by
+fifteen birds, and got beside nine couple and a half of woodcock; which
+we found, most unexpectedly, basking themselves in the open meadow,
+along the grassy banks of a small rill, without a bush or tree within
+five hundred yards of them.
+
+Evening had closed before we reached the well known tavern-stand, and
+the merry blaze of the fire, and many candles, showed us, while yet far
+distant, that due preparations were in course for our entertainment.
+
+"What have we here?" cried Harry, as we reached the door--"Race horses?
+Why, Tom, by heaven! we've got the Flying Dutchman here again; now for a
+night of it."
+
+And so in truth it was, a most wet, and most jovial one, seasoned with
+no small wit; but of that, more anon.
+
+
+DAY THE FOURTH
+
+When we had entered Tom's hospitable dwelling, and delivered over our
+guns to be duly cleaned, and the dogs to be suppered, by Tim Matlock, I
+passed through the parlor, on my way to my own crib, where I found
+Archer in close confabulation with a tall rawboned Dutchman, with a keen
+freckled face, small 'cute gray eyes, looking suspiciously about from
+under the shade of a pair of straggling sandy eyebrows, small reddish
+whiskers, and a head of carroty hair as rough and tangled as a fox's
+back.
+
+His aspect was a wondrous mixture of sneakingness and smartness, and his
+expression did most villainously belie him, if he were not as sharp a
+customer as ever wagged an elbow, or betted on a horse-race.
+
+"Frank," exclaimed Harry, as I entered, "I make you know Mr. McTaggart,
+better known hereabouts as the Flying Dutchman, though how he came by a
+Scotch name I can't pretend to say; he keeps the best quarter horses,
+and plays the best hand of whist in the country; and now, get yourself
+clean as quick as possible, for Tom never gives one five minutes wherein
+to dress himself; so bustle."
+
+And off he went as he had finished speaking, and I shaking my new friend
+cordially by an exceeding bony unwashed paw, incontinently followed his
+example--and in good time I did so; for I had scarcely changed my
+shooting boots and wet worsteds for slippers and silk socks, before my
+door, as usual, was lounged open by Tom's massy foot, and I was thus
+exhorted.
+
+"Come, come, your supper's gittin' cold; I never see such men as you and
+Archer is; you're wash, wash, wash--all day. It's little water enough
+that you use any other ways."
+
+"Why, is there any other use for water, Tom?" I asked, simply enough.
+
+"It's lucky if there aint, any how--leastwise, where you and Archer is--
+else you'd leave none for the rest of us. It's a good thing you han't
+thought of washing your darned stinking hides in rum--you will be at it
+some of these odd days, I warrant me--why now, McTaggart, it's only
+yesterday I caught Archer up stairs, a fiddling away up there at his
+teeth with a little ivory brush; brushing them with cold water--cleaning
+them he calls it. Cuss all such trash, says I."
+
+While I was listening in mute astonishment, wondering whether in truth
+the old savage never cleaned his teeth, Archer made his appearance, and
+to a better supper never did I sit down, than was spread at the old
+round table, in such profusion as might have well sufficed to feed a
+troop of horse.
+
+"What have we got here, Tom?" cried Harry, as he took the head of the
+social board; "quail-pie, by George--are there any peppers in it, Tom?"
+
+"Sartain there is," replied that worthy, "and a prime rump-steak in the
+bottom, and some first-best salt pork, chopped fine, and three small
+onions; like little Wax-skin used to fix them, when he was up here last
+fall."
+
+"Take some of this pie, Frank;" said Archer, as he handed me a huge
+plate of leafy reeking pie-crust, with a slice of fat steak, and a plump
+hen quail, and gravy, and etceteras, that might have made an alderman's
+mouth water; "and if you don't say it's the very best thing you ever
+tasted, you are not half so good a judge as I used to hold you. It took
+little Johnny and myself three wet days to concoct it. Pie, Tom, or
+roast pig?" he continued; "or broiled woodcock? Here they are, all of
+them?"
+
+"Why, I reckon I'll take cock; briled meat wants to be ate right stret
+away as soon as it comes off the griddle; and of all darned nice ways of
+cooking, to brile a thing, quick now, over hot hickory ashes, is the
+best for me!"
+
+"I believe you're right about eating the cock first, for they will not
+be worth a farthing if they get cold. So you stick to the pig, do you--
+hey, McTaggart? Well, there is no reckoning on taste--holloa, Tim, look
+sharp! the champagne all 'round--I'm choking!"
+
+And for some time no sound was heard, but the continuous clatter of
+knives and forks, the occasional popping of a cork succeeded by the
+gurgling of the generous wine as it flowed into the tall rummers; and
+every now and then a loud and rattling eructation from Tom Draw, who, as
+he said, could never half enjoy a meal if he could not stop now and then
+to blow off steam.
+
+At last, however--for supper, alas! like all other earthly pleasures,
+must come to an end--"The fairest still the fleetest"--our appetites
+waned gradually; and notwithstanding Harry's earnest exhortations, and
+the production of a broiled ham-bone, devilled to the very utmost pitch
+of English mustard, soy, oil of Aix, and cayenne pepper, by no hands, as
+may be guessed, but those of that universal genius, Timothy; one by one,
+we gave over our labors edacious, to betake us to potations of no small
+depth or frequency.
+
+"It is directly contrary to my rule, Frank, to drink before a good day's
+shooting--and a good day I mean to have to-morrow!--but I am thirsty,
+and the least thought chilly; so here goes for a debauch! Tim, look in
+my box with the clothes, and you will find two flasks of Curacao; bring
+them down, and a dozen lemons, and some lump sugar--look alive! and you,
+Tom, out with your best brandy; I'll make a jorum that will open your
+eyes tight before you've done with it. That's right, Tim; now get the
+soup-tureen, the biggest one, and see that it's clean. The old villain
+has got a punch-bowl--bring half a dozen of champagne, a bucket full of
+ice, and then go down into the kitchen, and make two quarts of green
+tea, as strong as possible; and when it's made, set it to cool in the
+ice-house!"
+
+In a few minutes all the ingredients were at hand; the rind, peeled
+carefully from all the lemons, was deposited with two tumblers full of
+finely powdered sugar in the bottom of the tureen; thereupon were poured
+instantly three pints of pale old Cognac; and these were left to steep,
+without admixture, until Tim Matlock made his entrance with the cold,
+strong, green tea; two quarts of this, strained clear, were added to the
+brandy, and then two flasks of curacoa!
+
+Into this mixture a dozen lumps of clear ice were thrown, and the whole
+stirred up 'till the sugar was entirely suspended; then pop! pop! went
+the long necks, and their creaming nectar was discharged into the bowl;
+and by the body of Bacchus--as the Italians swear--and by his soul, too,
+which he never steeped in such delicious nectar, what a drink that was,
+when it was completed.
+
+Even Tom Draw, who ever was much disposed to look upon strange potables
+as trash, and who had eyed the whole proceedings with ill-concealed
+suspicion and disdain, when he had quaffed off a pint-beaker full, which
+he did without once moving the vessel from his head, smacked his lips
+with a report which might have been heard half a mile off, and which
+resembled very nearly the crack of a first-rate huntsman's whip.
+
+"That's not slow, now!" he said, half dubiously, "to tell the truth now,
+that's first rate; I reckon, though, it would be better if there wasn't
+that tea into it--it makes it weak and trashy-like!"
+
+"You be hanged!" answered Harry, "that's mere affectation--that smack of
+your lips told the story; did you ever hear such an infernal sound? I
+never did, by George!"
+
+"Begging your pardon, Measter Archer," interposed Timothy, pulling his
+forelock, with an expression of profound respect, mingled with a
+ludicrous air of regret, at being forced to differ in the least degree
+from his master; "begging your pardon, Measter Archer, that was a
+roommer noise, and by a vary gre-at de-al too, when Measter McTavish
+sneezed me clean oot o' t' wagon!"
+
+"What's that?--what the devil's that?" cried I; "this McTavish must be a
+queer genius; one day I hear of his frightening a bull out of a meadow,
+and the next of his sneezing a man out of a phaeton."
+
+"It's simply true! both are simply true! We were driving very slowly on
+an immensely hot day in the middle of August, between Lebanon Springs
+and Claverack; McTavish and I on the front seat, and Tim behind. Well!
+we were creeping at a foot's pace, upon a long, steep hill, just at the
+very hottest time of day; not a word had been spoken for above an hour,
+for we were all tired and languid--except once, when McTavish asked for
+his third tumbler, since breakfast, of Starke's Ferintosh, of which we
+had three two-quart bottles in the liquor case--when suddenly, without
+any sign or warning, McTavish gave a sneeze which, on my honor, was
+scarcely inferior in loudness to a pistol shot! The horses started
+almost off the road, I jumped about half a foot off my seat, and
+positively without exaggeration, Timothy tumbled slap out of the wagon
+into the road, and lay there sprawling in the dust, while Mac sat
+perfectly unmoved, without a smile upon his face, looking straight
+before him, exactly as if nothing had happened."
+
+"Nonsense, Harry," exclaimed I; "that positively won't go down."
+
+"That's an etarnal lie, now, Archer!" Tom chimed in; "leastwise I don't
+know why I should say so neither, for I never saw no deviltry goin' on
+yet, that didn't come as nat'ral to McTavish, as lying to a minister,
+or..."
+
+"Rum to Tom Draw!" responded Harry. "But it's as true as the gospel, ask
+Timothy there!"
+
+"Nay it's all true; only it's scarce so bad i' t' story, as it was i'
+right airnest! Ay cooped oot o' t' drag--loike ivry thing--my hinder
+eend was sair a moanth and better!"
+
+"Now then," said I, "it's Tom's turn; let us hear about the bull."
+
+"Oh, the bull!" answered Tom. "Well you see, Archer there, and little
+Waxskin--you know little Waxskin, I guess, Mister Forester--and old
+McTavish, had gone down to shoot to Hellhole--where we was yesterday,
+you see!--well now! it was hot--hot, worst kind; I tell you--and I was
+sort o' tired out--so Waxskin, in he goes into the thick, and Archer
+arter him, and up the old crick side--thinkin, you see, that we was goin
+up, where you and I walked yesterday--but not a bit of it; we never
+thought of no such thing, not we! We sot ourselves down underneath the
+haystacks, and made ourselves two good stiff horns of toddy; and cooled
+off there, all in the shade, as slick as silk.
+
+"Well, arter we'd been there quite a piece, bang! we hears, in the very
+thick of the swamp--bang! bang!--and then I heerd Harry Archer roar out
+'mark! mark!--Tom, mark!--you old fat rascal,'--and sure enough, right
+where I should have been, if I'd been a doin right, out came two
+woodcock--big ones--they looked like hens, and I kind o' thought it was
+a shame, so I got up to go to them, and called McTavish to go with me;
+but torights, jest as he was a gitting up, a heap of critters comes all
+chasin up, scart by a dog, I reckon, kickin their darned heels up, and
+bellowin like mad--and there was one young bull amongst them, quite a
+lump of a bull now I tell you; and the bull he came up pretty nigh to
+us, and stood, and stawmped, and sort o' snorted, as if he didn't know
+right what he would be arter, and McTavish, he gits up, and turns right
+round with his back to the critter; he got a bit of a round jacket on,
+and he stoops down till his head came right atween his legs, kind o'
+straddlin like, so that the bull could see nothing of him but his
+t'other eend, and his head right under it, chin uppermost, with his big
+black whiskers, lookin as fierce as all h-ll, and fiercer; well! the
+bull he stawmped agin, and pawed, and bellowed, and I was in hopes, I
+swon, that he would have hooked him; but just then McTavish, starts to
+run, going along as I have told you, hind eend foremost--bo-oo went the
+bull, a-boooo, and off he starts like a strick, with his tail stret on
+eend, and his eyes starin and all the critters arter him, and then they
+kind o' circled round--and all stood still and stared--and stawmped,
+'till he got nigh to them, and then they all stricks off agin; and so
+they went on--runnin and then standin still,--and so they went on the
+hull of an hour, I'll be bound; and I lay there upon my back laughin
+'till I was stiff and sore all over; and then came Waxskin and all
+Archer, wrathy as h-ll and swearin'--Lord how they did swear!
+
+"They'd been a slavin there through the darned thorns and briers, and
+the old stinkin mud holes, and flushed a most almighty sight of cock,
+where the brush was too thick to shoot them, and every one they flushed,
+he came stret out into the open field, where Archer knew we should have
+been, and where we should have killed a thunderin mess, and no mistake;
+and they went on dam-min, and wonderin, and sweatin through the brush,
+till they got out to the far eend, and there they had to make tracks
+back to us through the bog meadow, under a brilin sun, and when they did
+get back, the bull was jest a goin through the bars--and every d--d drop
+o' the rum was drinked up; and the sun was settin, and the day's
+shootin--that was spoiled!--and then McTavish tantalized them the worst
+sort. But I did laugh to kill; it was the best I ever did see, was that
+spree--Ha! ha! ha!"
+
+And, as he finished, he burst out into his first horse laugh, in which I
+chorused him most heartily, having in truth been in convulsions, between
+the queerness of his lingo, and the absurdly grotesque attitudes into
+which he threw himself, in imitating the persons concerning whom his
+story ran. After this, jest succeeded jest! and story, story! 'till, in
+good truth, the glass circling the while with most portentous speed, I
+began to feel bees in my head, and till in truth no one, I believe, of
+the party, was entirely collected in his thoughts, except Tom Draw, whom
+it is as impossible for liquor to affect, as it would be for brandy to
+make a hogshead drunk, and who stalked off to bed with an air of solemn
+gravity that would have well become a Spanish grandee of the olden time,
+telling us, as he left the room, that we were all as drunk as thunder,
+and that we should be stinkin in our beds till noon to-morrow.
+
+A prediction, by the way, which he took right good care to defeat in his
+own person; for in less than five hours after we retired, which was
+about the first of the small hours, he rushed into my room, and finding
+that the awful noises which he made, had no effect in waking me, dragged
+me bodily out of bed, and clapping my wet sponge in my face, walked off,
+as he said, to fetch the bitters, which were to make me as fine as silk
+upon the instant.
+
+This time, I must confess that I did not look with quite so much disgust
+on the old apple-jack; and in fact, after a moderate horn, I completed
+my ablutions, and found myself perfectly fresh and ready for the field.
+Breakfast was soon despatched, and on this occasion as soon as we had
+got through the broiled ham and eggs, the wagon made its appearance at
+the door.
+
+"What's this, Harry?" I exclaimed; "where are we bound for, now?"
+
+"Why, Master Frank," he answered, "to tell you the plain truth, while
+you were sleeping off the effects of the last night's regent's punch, I
+was on foot inquiring into the state of matters and things; and since we
+have pretty well exhausted our home beats, and I have heard that some
+ground, about ten miles distant, is in prime order, I have determined to
+take a try there; but we must look pretty lively, for it is seven now,
+and we have got a drive of ten stiff miles before us. Now, old Grampus,
+are you ready?"
+
+"Aye, aye!" responded Tom, and mounted up, a work of no small toil for
+him, into the back seat of the wagon, where I soon took my seat beside
+him, with the two well-broke setters crouching at our feet, and the
+three guns strapped neatly to the side rails of the wagons. Harry next
+mounted the box. Tim touched his hat and jumped up to his side, and off
+we rattled at a merry trot, wheeling around the rival tavern which stood
+in close propinquity to Tom's; then turning short again to the left
+hand, along a broken stony road, with several high and long hills, and
+very awkward bridges in the valleys, to the north-westward of the
+village.
+
+Five miles brought us into a pretty little village lying at the base of
+another ridge of what might almost be denominated mountains, save that
+they were cultivated to the very top. As we paused on the brow of this,
+another glorious valley spread out to our view, with the broad sluggish
+waters of the Wallkill winding away, with hardly any visible motion,
+toward the north-east, through a vast tract of meadow-land covered with
+high, rank grass, dotted with clumps of willows and alder brakes, and
+interspersed with large, deep swamps, thick-set with high grown timber;
+while far beyond these, to the west, lay the tall variegated chain of
+the Shawangunk mountains.
+
+Rattling briskly down the hill, we passed another thriving village,
+built on the mountain side; made two or three sharp ugly turns, still
+going at a smashing pace, and coming on the level ground, entered an
+extensive cedar swamp, impenetrable above with the dark boughs of the
+evergreen colossi, and below with half a dozen varieties of
+rhododendron, calmia, and azalia. Through this dark, dreary track, the
+road ran straight as the bird flies, supported on the trunks of trees,
+constituting what is here called a corduroy road; an article which,
+praise be to all the gods, is disappearing now so rapidly, that this is
+the only bit to be found in the civilized regions of New York--and
+bordered to the right and left by ditches of black tenacious mire.
+Beyond this we scaled another sandy hillock, and pulled up at a little
+wayside tavern, at the door of which Harry set himself lustily to
+halloa.
+
+"Why, John; hilloa, hillo; John Riker!"
+
+Whereon, out came, stooping low to pass under the lintel of a very fair
+sized door, one of the tallest men I ever looked upon; his height, too,
+was exaggerated by the narrowness of his chest and shoulders, which
+would have been rather small for a man of five foot seven; but to make
+up for this, his legs were monstrous, his arms muscular, and his whole
+frame evidently powerful and athletic, though his gait was slouching,
+and his air singularly awkward and unhandy.
+
+"Why, how do, Mr. Archer? I hadn't heerd you was in these pairts--arter
+woodcock, I reckon?"
+
+"Yes, John, as usual; and you must go along with us, and show us the
+best ground."
+
+"Well, you see, I carn't go to-day--for Squire Breawn, and Dan Faushea,
+and a whole grist of Goshen boys is comin' over to the island here to
+fish; but you carn't well go wrong."
+
+"Why not; are birds plenty?"
+
+"Well! I guess they be! Plentier than ever yet I see them here."
+
+"By Jove! that's good news," Harry answered; "where shall we find the
+first?"
+
+"Why, amost anywheres--but here, jist down by the first bridge, there's
+a hull heap--leastwise there was a Friday--and then you'd best go on to
+the second bridge, and keep the edge of the hill right up and down to
+Merrit's Island; and then beat down here home to the first bridge again.
+But won't you liquor?"
+
+"No, not this morning, John; we did our liquoring last night. Tom, do
+you hear what John says?"
+
+"I hear, I hear," growled out old Tom; "but the critter lies like
+nauthen. He always does lie, cuss him."
+
+"Well, here goes, and we'll soon see!"
+
+And away we went again, spinning down a little descent, to a flat space
+between the hill-foot and the river, having a thick tangled swamp on the
+right, and a small boggy meadow full of grass, breast-high, with a thin
+open alder grove beyond it on the left. Just as we reached the bridge
+Harry pulled up.
+
+"Jump out, boys, jump out! Here's the spot."
+
+"I tell you there aint none; darn you! There aint none never here, nor
+haint been these six years; you know that now, yourself, Archer."
+
+"We'll try it, all the same," said Harry, who was coolly loading his
+gun. "The season has been wetter than common, and this ground is
+generally too dry. Drive on, Tim, over the bridge, into the hollow;
+you'll be out of shot there; and wait till we come. Holloa! mark, Tom."
+
+For, as the wagon wheels rattled upon the bridge, up jumped a cock out
+of the ditch by the road side, from under a willow brush, and skimmed
+past all of us within five yards. Tom Draw and I, who had got out after
+Harry, were but in the act of ramming down our first barrels; but Harry,
+who had loaded one, and was at that moment putting down the wad upon the
+second, dropped his ramrod with the most perfect sang-froid I ever
+witnessed, took a cap out of his right-hand pocket, applied it to the
+cone, and pitching up his gun, knocked down the bird as it wheeled to
+cross the road behind us, by the cleverest shot possible.
+
+"That's pretty well for no birds, anyhow, Tom," he exclaimed, dropping
+his butt to load. "Go and gather that bird, Frank, to save time; he lies
+in the wagon rut, there. How now? down charge, you Chase, sir! what are
+you about?"
+
+The bird was quickly bagged, and Harry loaded. We stepped across a dry
+ditch, and both dogs made game at the same instant.
+
+"Follow the red dog, Frank!" cried Archer, "and go very slow; there are
+birds here!"
+
+And as he spoke, while the dogs were crawling along, cat-like, pointing
+at every step, and then again creeping onward, up skirred two birds
+under the very nose of the white setter, and crossed quite to the left
+of Harry. I saw him raise his gun, but that was all; for at the
+self-same moment one rose to me, and my ear caught the flap of yet
+another to my right; five barrels were discharged so quickly, that they
+made but three reports; I cut my bird well down, and looking quickly to
+the left, saw nothing but a stream of feathers drifting along the wind.
+At the same time, old Tom shouted on the right,
+
+"I have killed two, by George! What have you done, boys?"
+
+"Two, I!" said Archer. "Wait, Frank, don't you begin to load till one of
+us is ready; there'll be another cock up, like enough. Keep your barrel;
+I'll be ready in a jiffy!"
+
+And well it was that I obeyed him, for at the squeak of the card, in its
+descent down his barrel, another bird did rise, and was making off for
+the open alders, when my whole charge riddled him; and instantly at the
+report three more flapped up, and of course went off unharmed; but we
+marked them, one by one, down in the grass at the wood edge. Harry
+loaded again. We set off to pick up our dead birds. Shot drew, as I
+thought, on my first, and pointed dead within a yard of where he fell. I
+walked up carelessly, with my gun under my arm, and was actually
+stooping to bag him, as I thought, when whiz! one rose almost in my
+face; and, bothered by seeing us all around him, towered straight up
+into the air. Taken completely by surprise, I blazed away in a hurry,
+and missed clean; but not five yards did he go, before Tom cut him down.
+
+"Aha, boy! whose eye's wiped now?"
+
+"Mine, Tom, very fairly; but can that be the same cock I knocked down,
+Archer?"
+
+"Not a bit of it; I saw your's fall dead as a stone; he lies half a yard
+farther in that tussock."
+
+"How the deuce did you see him? Why, you were shooting your own at the
+same moment."
+
+"All knack, Frank; I marked both my own and yours, and one of Tom's
+besides. Are you ready? Hold up, Shot! There; he has got your dead bird.
+Was I not right? And look to! for, by Jove! he is standing on another,
+with the dead bird in his mouth! That's pretty, is it not?"
+
+Again two rose, and both were killed; one by Tom, and one by Archer; my
+gun hanging fire.
+
+"That's nine birds down before we have bagged one," said Archer; "I hope
+no more will rise, or we'll be losing these."
+
+But this time his hopes were not destined to meet accomplishment, for
+seven more woodcock got up, five of which were scattered in the grass
+around us, wing-broken or dead, before we had even bagged the bird which
+Shot was gently mouthing.
+
+"I never saw anything like this in my life, Tom. Did you?" cried Harry.
+
+"I never did, by George!" responded Tom. "Now do you think there's any
+three men to be found in York, such darned etarnal fools as to be
+willing to shoot a match agin us?"
+
+"To be sure I do, lots of them; and to beat us too, to boot, you stupid
+old porpoise. Why, there's Harry T--- and Nick L---, and a dozen more of
+them, that you and I would have no more chance with, than a gallon of
+brandy would have of escaping from you at a single sitting. But we have
+shot pretty well, to-day. Now do, for heaven's sake, let us try to bag
+them!"
+
+And scattered though they were in all directions, among the most
+infernal tangled grass I ever stood on, those excellent dogs retrieved
+them one by one, till every bird was pocketed. We then beat on and swept
+the rest of the meadow, and the outer verge of the alders, picking up
+three more birds, making a total of seventeen brought to bag in less
+than half an hour. We then proceeded to the wagon, took a good pull of
+water from a beautiful clear spring by the road-side, properly qualified
+with whiskey, and rattled on about one mile farther to the second
+bridge. Here we again got out.
+
+"Now, Tim," said Harry. "mark me well! Drive gently to the old barrack
+yonder under the west-end of that wood-side, unhitch the horses and tie
+them in the shade; you can give them a bite of meadow hay at the same
+time; and then get luncheon ready. We shall be with you by two o'clock
+at farthest."
+
+"Ay, ay, sur!"
+
+And off he drove at a steady pace, while we, striking into the meadow,
+to the left hand of the road, went along getting sport such as I never
+beheld, or even dreamed of before. For about five hundred yards in width
+from the stream, the ground was soft and miry to the depth of some four
+inches, with long sword-grass quite knee-deep, and at every fifty yards
+a bunch of willows or swamp alders. In every clump of bushes we found
+from three to five birds, and as the shooting was for the most part very
+open, we rendered on the whole a good account of them. The dogs
+throughout behaved superbly, and Tom was altogether frantic with the
+excitement of the sport. The time seemed short indeed, and I could not
+for a moment have imagined that it was even noon, when we reached the
+barrack.
+
+This was a hut of rude, unplaned boards, which had been put up formerly
+with the intent of furnishing a permanent abode for some laboring men,
+but which, having been long deserted, was now used only as a temporary
+shelter by charcoal burners, haymakers, or like ourselves, stray
+sportsmen. It was, however, though rudely built, and fallen considerably
+into decay, perfectly beautiful from its romantic site; for it stood
+just at the end of a long tangled covert, with a huge pin oak-tree,
+leaning abruptly out from an almost precipitous bank of yellow sand,
+completely canopying it; while from a crevice in the sand-stone there
+welled out a little source of crystal water, which expanded into as
+sweet a basin as ever served a Dryad for her bath in Arcady, of old.
+
+Before it stretched the wide sweep of meadow land, with the broad blue
+Wallkill gliding through it, fringed by a skirt of coppice, and the high
+mountains, veiled with a soft autumnal mist, sleeping beyond, robed in
+their many-colored garb of crimson, gold, and green. Besides the spring
+the indefatigable Tim had kindled a bright glancing fire, while in the
+basin were cooling two long-necked bottles of the Baron's best; a clean
+white cloth was spread in the shade before the barrack door, with plates
+and cups, and bread cut duly, and a traveling case of cruets, with all
+the other appurtenances needful.
+
+On our appearance he commenced rooting in a heap of embers, and soon
+produced six nondescript looking articles enclosed--as they dress
+maintenon cutlets or red mullet--in double sheets of greasy letter
+paper--these he incontinently dished, and to my huge astonishment they
+turned out to be three couple of our woodcock, which that indefatigable
+varlet had picked, and baked under the ashes, according to some strange
+idea, whether original, or borrowed at second hand from his master, I
+never was enabled to ascertain.
+
+The man, be he whom he may, who invented that plat, is second neither to
+Caramel nor to Ude--the exquisite juicy tenderness of the meat, the
+preservation of the gravy, the richness of the trail--by heaven! they
+were inimitable.
+
+In that sweet spot we loitered a full hour--then counted our bag, which
+amounted already to fifty-nine cock, not including those with which
+Tim's gastronomic art had spread for us a table in the wilderness--then
+leaving him to pack up and meet us at the spot where we first started,
+we struck down the stream homeward, shooting our way along a strip of
+coppice about ten yards in breadth, bounded on one side by a dry bare
+bank of the river, and on the other by the open meadows. We of course
+kept the verges of this covert, our dogs working down the middle, and so
+well did we manage it, that when we reached the wagon, just as the sun
+was setting, we numbered a hundred and twenty-five birds bagged, besides
+two which were so cut by the shot as to be useless, six which we had
+devoured, and four or five which we lost in spite of the excellence of
+our retrievers. When we got home again, although the Dutchman was on the
+spot, promising us a quarter race upon the morrow, and pressing
+earnestly for a rubber to-night, we were too much used up to think of
+anything but a good supper and an early bed.
+
+
+DAY THE FIFTH
+
+Our last day's shooting in the vale of Sugar-loaf was over; and,
+something contrary to Harry's first intention, we had decided, instead
+of striking westward into Sullivan or Ulster, to drive five miles upon
+our homeward route, and beat the Longpond mountain--not now for such
+small game as woodcock, quail, or partridge; but for a herd of deer,
+which, although now but rarely found along the western hills, was said
+to have been seen already several times, to the number of six or seven
+head, in a small cove, or hollow basin, close to the summit of the
+Bellevale ridge.
+
+As it was not of course our plan to return again to Tom Draw's,
+everything was now carefully and neatly packed away; the game, of which
+we had indeed a goodly stock, was produced from Tom's ice-house, where,
+suspended from the rafters, it had been kept as sound and fresh as
+though it had been all killed only on the preceding day.
+
+A long deep box, fitting beneath the gun-case under the front seat, was
+now produced, and proved to be another of Harry's notable inventions;
+for it was lined throughout, lid, bottom, sides and all, with zinc, and
+in the centre had a well or small compartment of the same material, with
+a raised grating in the bottom. This well was forthwith lined with a
+square yard, or rather more, of flannel, into which was heaped a
+quantity of ice pounded as fine as possible, sufficient to cram it
+absolutely to the top; the rest of the box was then filled with the
+birds, displayed in regular rows, with heads and tails alternating, and
+a thin coat of clean dry wheaten straw between each layer, until but a
+few inches' depth remained between the noble pile and the lid of this
+extempore refrigerator; this space being filled in with flannel packed
+close and folded tightly, the box was locked and thrust into the
+accurately fitting boot by dint of the exertion of Timothy's whole
+strength.
+
+"There, Frank," cried Harry, who had superintended the storage of the
+whole with nice scrutiny, "those chaps will keep there as sound as
+roaches, till we get to young Tom's at Ramapo; you cannot think what
+work I had, trying in vain to save them, before I hit upon this method;
+I tried hops, which I have known in England to keep birds in an
+extraordinary manner--for, what you'll scarce believe, I once ate a
+Ptarmigan, the day year after it was killed, which had been packed with
+hops, in perfect preservation, at Farnley, Mr. Fawke's place in
+Yorkshire!--and I tried prepared charcoal, and got my woodcock down to
+New York, looking like chimney sweeps, and smelling--"
+
+"What the devil difference does it make to you now, Archer, I'd be
+pleased to know!" interposed Tom; "what under heaven they smells like--a
+man that eats cock with their guts in, like you does, needn't stick now,
+I reckon, for a leetle mite of a stink!"
+
+"Shut up, you old villain," answered Harry, laughing, "bring the milk
+punch, and get your great coat on, if you mean to go with us; for it's
+quite keen this morning, I can tell you; and we must be stirring too,
+for the sun will be up before we get to Teachman's. Now, Jem, get out
+the hounds; how do you take them, Tom?"
+
+"Why, that darned Injun, Jem, he'll take them in my lumber wagon--and, I
+say, Jem, see that you don't over-drive old roan--away with you, and
+rouse up Garry, he means to go, I guess!"
+
+After a mighty round of punch, in which, as we were now departing, one
+half at least of the village joined, we all got under Way; Tom, buttoned
+up to the throat in a huge white lion skin wrap-rascal, looking for all
+the world like a polar bear erect on its hind legs; and all of us
+muffled up pretty snugly, a proceeding which was rendered necessary by a
+brisk bracing north-west breeze. The sky, though it was scarcely the
+first twilight of an autumnal dawn, was beautifully clear, and as
+transparent--though still somewhat dusky--as a wide sheet of crystal; a
+few pale stars were twinkling here and there; but in the east a broad
+gray streak changing on the horizon's edge to a faint straw color,
+announced the sun's approach.
+
+The whole face of the country, hill, vale, and woodland, was overspread
+by an universal coat of silvery hoar-frost; thin wreaths of snowy mist
+rising above the tops of the sere woodlands, throughout the whole length
+of the lovely vale, indicated as clearly as though it were traced on a
+map, the direction of the stream that watered it; and as we paused upon
+the brow of the first hillock, and looked back toward the village, with
+its white steeples and neat cottage dwellings buried in the still repose
+of that early hour, with only one or two faint columns of blue smoke
+worming their way up lazily into the cloudless atmosphere, a feeling of
+regret--such as has often crossed my mind before, when leaving any place
+wherein I have spent a few days happily, and which I never may see more
+--rendered me somewhat indisposed to talk.
+
+Something or other--it might with Harry, perhaps, have been a similar
+train of thought--caused both my comrades to be more taciturn by far
+than was their wont; and we had rattled over five miles of our route,
+and scaled the first ridge of the hills, and dived into the wide ravine;
+midway the depth of this the pretty village of Bellevale lies on the
+brink of the dammed rivulet, which, a few yards below the neat stone
+bridge, takes a precipitous leap of fifty feet, over a rustic wier, and
+rushes onward, bounding from ledge to ledge of rifted rocks, chafing and
+fretting as if it were doing a match against time, and were in danger of
+losing its race.
+
+Thus we had passed the heavy lumber wagon, with Jem and Garry perched on
+a board laid across it, and the four couple of stanch hounds nestling in
+the straw which Tom had provided in abundance for their comfort, before
+the silence was broken by any sounds except the rattle of the wheels,
+the occasional interjectional whistle of Harry to his horses, or the
+flip of the well handled whip.
+
+Just, however, as we were shooting ahead of the lumber wain, an
+exclamation from Tom Draw, which should have been a sentence, had it not
+been very abruptly terminated in a long rattling eructation, arrested
+Archer's progress.
+
+Pulling short up where a jog across the road, constructed--after the
+damnable mode adopted in all the hilly portions of the interior--in
+order to prevent the heavy rains from channelling the descent, afforded
+him a chance of stopping on the hill, so as to slack his traces. "How
+now," he exclaimed; "what the deuce ails you now, you old rhinoceros?"
+
+"Oh, Archer, I feels bad; worst sort, by Judas! It's that milk punch, I
+reckon; it keeps a raising--raising, all the time like..."
+
+"And you want to lay it, I suppose, like a ghost, in a sea of whiskey;
+well, I've no especial objection! Here, Tim, hand the case bottle, and
+the dram cup! No! no! confound you, pass it this way first, for if Tom
+once gets hold of it, we may say good-bye to it altogether. There," he
+continued, after we had both taken a moderate sip at the superb old
+Ferintosh, "there, now take your chance at it, and for Heaven's sake do
+leave a drop for Jem and Garry; by George now, you shall not drink it
+all!" as Tom poured down the third cup full, each being as big as an
+ordinary beer-glass. "There was above a pint and a half in it when you
+began, and now there's barely one cup-full between the two of them. An't
+you ashamed of yourself now, you greedy old devil?"
+
+"It doos go right, I swon!" was the only reply that could be got out of
+him.
+
+"That's more a plaguy sight than the bullets will do, out of your old
+tower musket; you're so drunk now, I fancy, that you couldn't hold it
+straight enough to hit a deer at three rods, let alone thirty, which you
+are so fond of chattering about."
+
+"Do tell now," replied Tom, "did you, or any other feller, ever see me
+shoot the worser for a mite of liquor, and as for deer, that's all a no
+sich thing; there arnt no deer a this side of Duckseedar's. It's all a
+lie of Teachman's and that Deckering son of a gun."
+
+"Holloa! hold up, Tom--recollect yesterday!--I thought there had been no
+cock down by the first bridge there, these six years; why you're getting
+quite stupid, and a croaker too, in your old age."
+
+"Mayhap I be," he answered rather gruffly; "mayhap I be, but you won't
+git no deer to-day, I'll stand drinks for the company; and if we doos
+start one, I'll lay on my own musket agin your rifle."
+
+"Well! we'll soon see, for here we are," Harry replied, as after leaving
+the high-road just at the summit of the Bellevale mountain, he rattled
+down a very broken rutty bye-road at the rate of at least eight miles an
+hour, vastly to the discomfiture of our fat host, whose fleshy sides
+were jolted almost out of their skin by the concussion of the wheels
+against the many stones and jogs which opposed their progress.
+
+"Here we are, or at least soon will be. It is but a short half mile
+through these woods to Teachman's cottage. Is there a gun loaded, Tim?
+It's ten to one we shall have a partridge fluttering up and treeing here
+directly; I'll let the dogs out--get away, Flash! get away, Dan! you
+little rascals. Jump out, good dogs, Shot, Chase--hie up with you!" and
+out they went rattling and scrambling through the brush-wood all four
+abreast!
+
+At the same moment Tim, leaning over into the body of the wagon, lugged
+out a brace of guns from their leathern cases; Harry's short ounce ball
+rifle, and the long single barreled duck gun.
+
+"'T roifle is loaden wi' a single ball, and 't single goon wi' yan of
+them green cartridges!"
+
+"Much good ball and buck-shot will do us against partridge;
+nevertheless, if one trees, I'll try if I can't cut his head off for
+him," said Archer, laughing.
+
+"Nay! nay! it be-ant book-shot; it's no but noomber three; tak' haud
+on't, Measter Draa, tak' haud on't. It's no hoort thee, mon, and 't
+horses boath stand foire cannily!"
+
+Scarce had Fat Tom obeyed his imperative solicitations, and scarce had
+Tim taken hold of the ribbands which Harry relinquished the moment he
+got the rifle into his hands, before a most extraordinary hubbub arose
+in the little skirt of coppice to our left; the spaniels quested for a
+second's space at the utmost, when a tremendous crash of the branches
+arose, and both the setters gave tongue furiously with a quick savage
+yell.
+
+The road at this point of the wood made a short and very sudden angle,
+so as to enclose a small point of extremely dense thicket between its
+two branches; on one of these was our wagon, and down the other the
+lumber-wain was rumbling, at the moment when this strange and most
+unexpected outcry started us all.
+
+"What in t' fient's neam is yon?" cried Timothy.
+
+"And what the devil's that?" responded I and Archer in a breath.
+
+But whatever it was that had aroused the dogs to such an most unusual
+pitch of fury, it went crashing through the brush-wood for some five or
+six strokes at a fearful rate toward the other wagon; before, however it
+had reached the road, a most appalling shout from Jem, followed upon the
+instant by the blended voices of all the hounds opening at once, as on a
+view, excited us yet farther!
+
+I was still tugging at my double gun, in the vain hope of getting it out
+time enough for action. Tom had scrambled out of the wagon on the first
+alarm, and stood eye, ear, and heart erect, by the off side of the
+horses, which were very restless, pawing, and plunging violently, and
+almost defying Timothy best skill to hold them; while Harry, having cast
+off his box-coat, stood firm and upright on the foot board as a carved
+statue, with his rifle cocked and ready; when, headed back upon us by
+the yell of Lyn and the loud clamor of his fresh foes, the first buck I
+had seen in America, and the largest I had seen any where, dashed at a
+single plunge into the round, clearing the green head of a fallen
+hemlock, apparently without an effort, his splendid antlers laid back on
+his neck, and his white flag lashing his fair round haunch as the fleet
+bitches Bonny Belle and Blossom yelled with their shrill fierce trebles
+close behind him.
+
+Seeing that it was useless to persist in my endeavor to extricate my
+gun, and satisfied that the matter was in good hands, I was content to
+look on, an inactive but most eager witness.
+
+Tom, who from his position at the head of the off horse, commanded the
+first view of the splendid creature, pitched his gun to his shoulder
+hastily and fired; the smoke drifted across my face, but through its
+vapory folds I could distinguish the dim figure of the noble hart still
+bounding unhurt onward; but, before the first echo of the round ringing
+report of Tom's shot-gun reached my ear, the sharp flat crack of Harry's
+rifle followed it, and at the self-same instant the buck sprang six feet
+into the air, and pitched head foremost on the ground; it was but for a
+moment, however, for with the speed of light he struggled to his feet,
+and though sore wounded, was yet toiling onward when the two English
+foxhounds dashed at his throat and pulled him down again.
+
+"Run in, Tom, run in! quick," shouted Harry, "he's not clean killed, and
+may gore the dogs sadly!"
+
+"I've got no knife," responded Tom, but dauntlessly he dashed in, all
+the same, to the rescue of the bitches--which I believe he loved almost
+as well as his own children--and though, encumbered by his ponderous
+white top-coat, not to say by his two hundred and fifty weight of solid
+flesh, seized the fierce animal by the brow-antlers, and bore him to the
+ground, before Harry, who had leaped out of the wagon, with his first
+words, could reach him.
+
+The next moment the keen short hunting knife, without which Archer never
+takes the field, had severed at a single stroke the weasand of the
+gallant brute; the black blood streamed out on the smoking hoar-frost,
+the full eyes glazed, and, after one sharp fluttering struggle, the life
+departed from those graceful limbs, which had been but a few short
+instants previous so full of glorious energy--of fiery vigor.
+
+"Well, that's the strangest thing I ever heard of, let alone seeing,"
+exclaimed Archer, "fancy a buck like that lying in such a mere fringe of
+coppice, and so near to the road-side, too! and why the deuce did he lay
+here till we almost passed him!"
+
+"I know how it's been, any heaw," said Jem, who had by this time come
+up, and was looking on with much exultation flashing in his keen small
+eye. "Bill Speer up on the hill there telled me jist now, that they druv
+a big deer down from the back-bone clear down to this here hollow just
+above, last night arter dark. Bill shot at him, and kind o' reckoned he
+hot him--but I guess he's mistaken--leastwise he jumped strong enough
+jist neaw!--but which on you was 't 'at killed him?"
+
+"I did," exclaimed Tom, "I did by--!"
+
+"Why you most impudent of all old liars," replied Harry--while at the
+same time, with a most prodigious chuckle, Tim Matlock pointed to the
+white bark of a birch sapling, about the thickness of a man's thigh,
+standing at somewhat less than fifteen paces' distance, wherein the
+large shot contained by the wire cartridge--the best sporting invention
+by the way, that has been made since percussion caps--had bedded
+themselves in a black circle, cut an inch at least into the solid wood,
+and about two inches in diameter!
+
+"I ken gay and fairly," exclaimed Tim, "'at Ay rammed an Eley's patent
+cartridge into 't single goon this morning; and yonder is 't i' t' birk
+tree, and Ay ken a load o' shot fra an unce bullet!"
+
+The laugh was general now against fat Tom; especially as the small wound
+made by the heavy ball of Harry's rifle was plainly visible, about a
+hand's breadth behind the heart, on the side toward which he had aimed;
+while the lead had passed directly through, in an oblique direction
+forward, breaking the left shoulder blade, and lodging just beneath the
+skin, whence a touch of the knife dislodged it.
+
+"What now--what now, boys?" cried the old sinner, no whit disconcerted
+by the general mirth against him. "I say, by gin! I killed him, and I
+say so yet. Which on ye all--which on ye all daared to go in on him,
+without a knife nor nothen. I killed him, I say, anyhow, and so let's
+drink!"
+
+"Well, I believe we must wet him," Harry answered, "so get out another
+flask of whiskey, Tim; and you Jem and Garry lend me a hand to lift this
+fine chap into the wagon. By Jove! but this will make the Teachmans open
+their eyes; and now look sharp! You sent the Teachmans word that we were
+coming, Tom?"
+
+"Sartin! and they've got breakfast ready long enough before this,
+anyways."
+
+With no more of delay, but with lots more of merriment and shouting, on
+we drove; and in five minutes' space, just as the sun was rising,
+reached the small rude enclosure around two or three log huts, lying
+just on the verge of the beautiful clear lake. Two long sharp boats, and
+a canoe scooped out of a whole tree, were drawn up on the sandy beach; a
+fishing net of many yards in length was drying on the rails; a brace of
+large, strong, black and tan foxhounds were lying on the step before the
+door; a dozen mongrel geese, with one wing-tipped wild one among them,
+were sauntering and gabbling about the narrow yard; and a glorious
+white-headed fishing eagle, with a clipped wing, but otherwise at large,
+was perched upon the roof hard by the chimney.
+
+At the rattle of our arrival, out came from the larger of the cottages,
+three tall rough-looking countrymen to greet us, not one of whom stood
+less than six foot in his stockings, while two were several inches
+taller.
+
+Great was their wonder, and loud were their congratulations when they
+beheld the unexpected prize which we had gained, while on our route; but
+little space was given at that time to either; for the coffee, which, by
+the way, was poor enough, and the hot cakes and fried perch, which were
+capital, and the grilled salt pork, swimming in fat, and the large mealy
+potatoes bursting through their brown skins, were ready smoking upon a
+rough wooden board, covered, however, by a clean white table cloth,
+beside a sparkling fire of wood, which our drive through the brisk
+mountain air had rendered by no means unacceptable.
+
+We breakfasted like hungry men and hunters, both rapidly and well; and
+before half an hour elapsed, Archer, with Jem and one of our bold hosts,
+started away, well provided with powder and ball, and whiskey, and
+accompanied by all the hounds, to make a circuit of the western hill, on
+the summit of which they expected to be joined by two or three more of
+the neighbors, whence they proposed to drive the whole sweep of the
+forest-clad descent down to the water's edge.
+
+Tim was enjoined to see to the provisions, and to provide as good a
+dinner as his best gastronomic skill and the contents of our portable
+larder might afford, and I was put under the charge of Tom, who seemed,
+for about an hour, disposed to do nothing but to lie dozing with a cigar
+in his mouth, stretched upon the broad of his back, on a bank facing the
+early sunshine just without the door; while our hosts were collecting
+bait, preparing fishing tackle, and cleaning or repairing their huge
+clumsy muskets. At length, when the drivers had been gone already for
+considerably more than an hour, he got up and shook himself.
+
+"Now, then, boys," he exclaimed, "we'll be a movin. You Joe Teachman,
+what are you lazin there about, cuss you? You go with Mr. Forester and
+Garry in the big boat, and pull as fast as you can put your oars to
+water, till you git opposite the white-stone pint--and there lie still
+as fishes! You may fish, though, if you will, Forester," he added,
+turning to me, "and I do reckon the big yellow pearch will bite the
+darndest, this cold morning, arter the sun gits fairly up--but soon as
+ever you hear the hounds holler, or one of them chaps shoot, then look
+you out right stret away for business! Cale, here, and I'll take the
+small boat, and keep in sight of you; and so we can kiver all this eend
+of the pond like, if the deer tries to cross hereaways. How long is't,
+Cale, since we had six on them all at once in the water--six--seven--
+eight! well, I swon, it's ten years agone now! But come, we mus'nt stand
+here talkin, else we'll get a dammin when they drives down a buck into
+the pond, and none of us in there to tackle with him!"
+
+So without more ado, we got into our boats, disposed our guns, with the
+stocks towards us in the bows, laid in our stock of tinder, pipes, and
+liquor, and rowed off merrily to our appointed stations.
+
+Never, in the whole course of my life, has it been my fortune to look
+upon more lovely scenery than I beheld that morning. The long narrow
+winding lake, lying as pure as crystal beneath the liquid skies,
+reflecting, with the correctness of the most perfect mirror, the abrupt
+and broken hills, which sank down so precipitously into it--clad as they
+were in foliage of every gorgeous dye, with which the autumn of America
+loves to enhance the beauty of her forest pictures--that, could they
+find their way into its mountain-girdled basin, ships of large burthen
+might lie afloat within a stone's throw of the shore--the slopes of the
+wood-covered knolls, here brown, or golden, and interspersed with the
+rich crimson of the faded maples, there verdant with the evergreen
+leaves of the pine and cedar--and the far azure summits of the most
+distant peaks, all steeped in the serene and glowing sunshine of an
+October morning.
+
+For hours we lay there, our little vessel floating as the occasional
+breath of a sudden breeze, curling the lake into sparkling wavelets,
+chose to direct our course, smoking our cigars, and chatting cozily, and
+now and then pulling up a great broad-backed yellow bass, whose flapping
+would for a time disturb the peaceful silence, which reigned over wood,
+and dale, and water, quite unbroken save by the chance clamor of a
+passing crow; yet not a sound betokening the approach of our drivers had
+reached our ears.
+
+Suddenly, when the sun had long passed his meridian height, and was
+declining rapidly toward the horizon, the full round shot of a musket
+rang from the mountain top, followed immediately by a sharp yell, and in
+an instant the whole basin of the lake was filled with the harmonious
+discord of the hounds.
+
+I could distinguish on the moment the clear sharp challenge of Harry's
+high-bred foxhounds, the deep bass voices of the Southern dogs, and the
+untamable and cur-like yelping of the dogs which the Teachmans had taken
+with them.
+
+Ten minutes passed full of anxiety, almost of fear.
+
+We knew not as yet whither to turn our boat's head, for every second the
+course of the hounds seemed to vary, at one instant they would appear to
+be rushing directly down to us, and the next instant they would turn as
+though they were going up the hill again. Meantime our beaters were not
+idle--their stirring shouts, serving alike to animate the hounds, and to
+force the deer to water, made rock and wood reply in cheery echoes; but,
+to my wonder, I caught not for a long time one note of Harry's gladsome
+voice.
+
+At length, as I strained my eyes against the broad hill-side, gilt by
+the rays of the declining sun, I caught a glimpse of his form running at
+a tremendous pace, bounding over stock and stone, and plunging through
+dense thickets, on a portion of the declivity where the tall trees had a
+few years before been destroyed by accidental fire.
+
+At this moment the hounds were running, to judge from their tongues,
+parallel to the lake and to the line which he was running--the next
+minute, with a redoubled clamor, they turned directly down to him. I
+lost sight of him. But half a minute afterward, the sharp crack of his
+rifle again rang upon the air, followed by a triumphant "Whoop!
+who-whoop!" and then, I knew, another stag had fallen.
+
+The beaters on the hill shouted again louder and louder than before--and
+the hounds still raved on. By heaven! but there must be a herd of them
+a-foot! And now the pack divides! The English hounds are bringing their
+game down--here--by the Lord! just here--right in our very faces! The
+Southrons have borne away over the shoulder of the hill, still running
+hot and hard in Jolly Tom's direction.
+
+"By heaven!" I cried, "look, Teachman! Garry, look! There! See you not
+that noble buck?--he leaped that sumac bush like a race-horse! and see!
+see! now he will take the water. Bad luck on it! he sees us, and heads
+back!"
+
+Again the fleet hounds rally in his rear, and chide till earth and air
+are vocal and harmonious. Hark! hark! how Archer's cheers ring on the
+wind! Now he turns once again--he nears the edge--how glorious! with
+what a beautiful bold bound he leaped from that high bluff into the
+flashing wave! with what a majesty he tossed his antlered head above the
+spray! with how magnificent and brave a stroke he breasts the curling
+billows!"
+
+"Give way! my men, give way!"
+
+How the frail bark creaks and groans as we ply the long oars in the
+rullocks--how the ash bends in our sturdy grasp--how the boat springs
+beneath their impulse.
+
+"Together, boys! together! now--now we gain--now, Garry, lay your oar
+aside--up with your musket--now you are near enough--give it to him, in
+heaven's name! a good shot, too! the bullet ricocheted from the lake
+scarcely six inches from his nose! Give way again--it's my shot now!"
+
+And lifting my Joe Manton, each barrel loaded with a bullet carefully
+wadded with greased buckskin, I took a careful aim and fired.
+
+"That's it," cried Garry; "well done, Forester--right through the head,
+by George!"
+
+And, as he spoke, I fancied for a moment he was right. The noble buck
+plunged half his height out of the bright blue water, shaking his head
+as if in the death agony, but the next instant he stretched out again
+with vigor unimpaired, and I could see that my ball had only knocked a
+tine off his left antler.
+
+My second barrel still remained, and without lowering the gun, I drew my
+second trigger. Again, a fierce plunge told that the ball had not erred
+widely; and this time, when he again sank into his wonted posture, the
+deep crimson dye that tinged the foam which curled about his graceful
+neck, as he still struggled, feebly fleet, before his unrelenting foes,
+gave token of a deadly wound.
+
+Six more strokes of the bending oars--we shot alongside--a noose of rope
+was cast across his branching tines, the keen knife flashed across his
+throat, and all was over! We towed him to the shore, where Harry and his
+comrades were awaiting us with another victim to his unerring aim. We
+took both bucks and all hands on board, pulled stoutly homeward, and
+found Tom lamenting.
+
+Two deer, a buck of the first head, and a doe, had taken water close
+beside him--he had missed his first shot, and in toiling over-hard to
+recover lost ground, had broken his oar, and been compelled inactively
+to witness their escape.
+
+Three fat bucks made the total of the day's sport--not one of which had
+fallen to Tom's boasted musket.
+
+It needed all that Tim's best dinner, with lots of champagne and
+Ferintosh, could do to restore the fat chap's equanimity; but he at last
+consoled himself, as we threw ourselves on the lowly beds of the log
+hut, by swearing that by the etarnal devil he'd bea us both at
+partridges to-morrow.
+
+
+DAY THE SIXTH
+
+The sun rose broad and bright in a firmament of that most brilliant and
+transparent blue, which I have witnessed in no other country than
+America, so pure, so cloudless, so immeasurably distant as it seems from
+the beholder's eye! There was not a speck of cloud from east to west,
+from zenith to horizon; not a fleece of vapor on the mountain sides; not
+a breath of air to ruffle the calm basin of the Greenwood lake.
+
+The rock-crowned, forest-mantled ridge, on the farther side of the
+narrow sheet, was visible almost as distinctly through the medium of the
+pure fresh atmosphere, as though it had been gazed at through a
+telescope--the hues of the innumerable maples, in their various stages
+of decay, purple, and crimson, and bright gorgeous scarlet, were
+contrasted with the rich chrome yellow of the birch and poplars, the
+sere red leaves of the gigantic oaks, and with the ever verdant plumage
+of the junipers, clustered in massy patches on every rocky promontory,
+and the tall spires of the dark pines and hemlock.
+
+Over this mass of many-colored foliage, the pale thin yellow light of
+the new-risen sun was pouring down a flood of chaste illumination;
+while, exhaled from the waters by his first beams, a silvery gauze-like
+haze floated along the shores, not rising to the height of ten feet from
+the limped surface, which lay unbroken by the smallest ripple,
+undisturbed by the slightest splash of fish or insect, as still and
+tranquil to the eye as though it had been one huge plate of beaten
+burnished silver; with the tall cones of the gorgeous hills in all their
+rich variety, in all their clear minuteness, reflected, summit downward,
+palpable as their reality, in that most perfect mirror.
+
+Such was the scene on which I gazed, as on the last day of our sojourn
+in the Woodlands of fair Orange, I issued from the little cabin, under
+the roof of which I had slept so dreamlessly and deep, after the fierce
+excitement of our deer hunt, that while I was yet slumbering, all save
+myself had risen, donned their accoutrements, and sallied forth, I knew
+not whither, leaving me certainly alone, although as certainly not so
+much to my glory.
+
+From the other cottage, as I stood upon the threshold, I might hear the
+voices of the females, busy at their culinary labors, the speedily
+approaching term of which was obviously denoted by the rich savory
+steams which tainted--not, I confess, unpleasantly--the fragrant morning
+air.
+
+As I looked out upon this lovely morning, I did not, I acknowledge it,
+regret the absence of my excellent though boisterous companions; for
+there was something which I cannot define in the deep stillness, in the
+sweet harmonious quiet of the whole scene before me, that disposed my
+spirit to meditation far more than to mirth; the very smoke which rose
+from the low chimneys of the Teachmans' colony--not surging to and fro,
+obedient to the fickle winds--but soaring straight, tall, unbroken,
+upward, like Corinthian columns, each with its curled capital--seemed to
+invite the soul of the spectator to mount with it toward the sunny
+heavens.
+
+By-and-by I strayed downward to the beach, a narrow strip of silvery
+sand and variegated pebbles, and stood there long, silently watching the
+unknown sports, the seemingly--to us at least--unmeaning movements, and
+strange groupings of the small fry, which darted to and fro in the clear
+shallows within two yards of my feet; or marking the brief circling
+ripples, wrought by the morning swallow's wing, and momently subsiding
+into the wonted rest of the calm lake.
+
+How long I stood there musing I know not, for I had fallen into a train
+of thought so deep that I was utterly unconscious of everything around
+me, when I was suddenly aroused from my reverie by the quick dash of
+oars, and by a volley of some seven barrels discharged in quick
+succession. As I looked up with an air, I presume somewhat bewildered, I
+heard the loud and bellowing laugh of Tom and saw the whole of our stout
+company gliding up in two boats, the skiff and the canoe, toward the
+landing place, perhaps a hundred yards from the spot where I stood.
+
+"Come here, darn you," were the first words I heard, from the mouth of
+what speaker it need not be said--"come here, you lazy, snortin, snoozin
+Decker--lend a hand here right stret away, will you? We've got more
+perch than all of us can carry--and Archer's got six wood-duck."
+
+Hurrying down in obedience to this unceremonious mandate, I perceived
+that indeed their time had not been misemployed, for the whole bottom of
+the larger boat was heaped with fish--the small and delicate green
+perch, the cat-fish, hideous in its natural, but most delicious in its
+artificial shape, and, above all, the large and broad-backed yellow
+bass, from two to four pounds weight. While Archer, who had gone forth
+with Garry only in the canoe, had picked up half a dozen wood-duck, two
+or three of the large yellow-legs, a little bittern, known by a far less
+elegant appellative throughout the country, and thirteen English snipe.
+
+"By Jove!" cried I, "but this is something like--where the deuce did you
+pick the snipe up, Harry--and, above all, why the deuce did you let me
+lie wallowing in bed this lovely morning?"
+
+"One question at a time," responded he, "good Master Frank; one question
+at a time. For the snipe, I found them very unexpectedly, I tell you, in
+a bit of marshy meadow just at the outlet of the pond. Garry was
+paddling me along at the top of his pace, after a wing-tipped wood-duck,
+when up jumped one of the long-billed rascals, and had the impudence to
+skim across the creek under my very nose--'skeap! skeap!' Well, I
+dropped him, you may be sure, with a charge, too, of duck shot; and he
+fell some ten yards over on the meadow; so leaving Garry to pursue the
+drake, I landed, loaded my gun with No. 9, and went to work--the result
+as you see; but I cleared the meadow--devil a bird is left there, except
+one I cut to pieces, and could not find for want of Chase--two went away
+without a shot, over the hills and far away. As for letting you lie in
+bed, you must talk to Tom about it; I bid him call you, and the fat
+rascal never did so, and never said a word about you, till we were ready
+for a start, and then no Master Frank was to the fore."
+
+"Well, Tom," cried I, "what have you got to say to this?"
+
+"Now, cuss you, don't come foolin' about me," replied that worthy,
+aiming a blow at me, which, had it taken place, might well have felled
+Goliah; but which, as I sprang aside, wasting its energies on the
+impassive air, had well nigh floored the striker. "Don't you come
+foolin' about me--you knows right well I called you, and you knows, too,
+you almost cried, and told me to clear out, and let you git an hour's
+sleep; for by the Lord you thought Archer and I was made of steel!--you
+couldn't and you wouldn't--and now you wants to know the reason why you
+warn't along with us!"
+
+"Never mind the old thief, Frank," said Archer, seeing that I was on the
+point of answering, "even his own aunt says he is the most notorious
+liar in all Orange county--and Heaven forbid we should gainsay that most
+respectable old lady!"
+
+Into what violent asseveration our host would have plunged at this
+declaration, remains, like the tale of Cambuscan bold, veiled in deep
+mystery; for as he started from the log on which he had been reposing
+while in the act of unsplicing his bamboo fishing pole, the elder of the
+Teachmans thrust his head out of the cabin nearest to us--"Come, boys,
+to breakfast! "--and at the first word of his welcome voice, Tom made,
+as he would have himself defined it, stret tracks for the table. And a
+mighty different table it was from that to which we had sat down on the
+preceding morning. Timothy--unscared by the wonder of the mountain
+nymphs, who deemed a being of the masculine gender as an intruder,
+scarce to be tolerated, on the mysteries of the culinary art--had
+exerted his whole skill, and brought forth all the contents of his
+canteen! We had a superb steak of the fattest venison, graced by
+cranberries stewed with cayenne pepper, and sliced lemons. A pot of
+excellent black tea, almost as strong as the cognac which flanked it; a
+dish of beautiful fried perch, with cream as thick as porridge, our own
+loaf sugar, and Teachman's new laid eggs, hot wheaten cakes, and hissing
+rashers of right tender pork, furnished a breakfast forth that might
+have vied successfully with those which called forth, in the Hebrides,
+such raptures from the lexicographer.
+
+Breakfast despatched--for which, to say the truth, Harry gave us but
+little time--we mustered our array and started; Harry and Tom and I
+making one party, with the spaniels--Garry, the Teachmans, and Timothy,
+with the setters, which would hunt very willingly for him in Archer's
+absence, forming a second. It was scarce eight o'clock when we went out,
+each on a separate beat, having arranged our routes so as to meet at one
+o'clock in the great swamp, said to abound, beyond all other places, in
+the ruffed grouse or partridge, to the pursuit of which especially we
+had devoted our last day.
+
+"Now, Frank," said Harry, "you have done right well throughout the week;
+and if you can stand this day's tramp, I will say for you that you are a
+sportsman, aye, every inch of one. We have got seven miles right hard
+walking over the roughest hills you ever saw--the hardest moors of
+Yorkshire are nothing to them--before we reach the swamp, and that
+you'll find a settler! Tom, here, will keep along the bottoms, working
+his way as best he can; while we make good the uplands! Are your flasks
+full?"
+
+"Sartain, they are!" cried Tom--"and I've got a rousin big black bottle,
+too--but not a drop of the old cider sperrits do you git this day, boys;
+not if your thirsty throats were cracking for it!"
+
+"Well, well! we won't bother you--you'll need it all, old porpoise,
+before you get to the far end. Here, take a hard boiled egg or two,
+Frank, and some salt, and I'll pocket a few biscuits--we must depend on
+ourselves to-day."
+
+"Ay, ay, Sur," chuckled Timothy, "there's naw Tim Matlock to mak
+looncheon ready for ye 'a the day. See thee, measter Frank. Ay'se gotten
+'t measter's single barrel; and gin I dunna ootshoot measter Draa--whoy
+Ay'se deny my coontry!"
+
+"Most certainly you will deny it then, Tim," answered I, "for Mr. Draw
+shoots excellently well, and you--"
+
+"And Ay'se shot mony a hare by 't braw moon, doon i' bonny Cawoods.
+Ay'se beat, Ay'se oophaud* [*Oophaud, Yorkshire. Anglice, uphold] it!"
+So saying, he shouldered the long single barrel, and paddled off with
+the most extraordinary expedition after the Teachmans, who had already
+started, leading the setters in a leash, till they were out of sight of
+Archer.
+
+"They have the longest way to go," said Harry, "by a mile at the least;
+so we have time for a cheroot before we three get under way."
+
+Cigars were instantly produced and lighted, and we lounged about the
+little court for the best part of half an hour, till the report of a
+distant gunshot, ringing with almost innumerable reverberations along
+the woodland shores, announced to us that our companions had already got
+into their work.
+
+"Here goes," cried Harry, springing to his feet at once, and grasping
+his good gun; "here goes--they have got into the long hollow, Tom, and
+by the time we've crossed the ridge, and got upon our ground, they'll be
+abreast of us."
+
+"Hold on! hold on!" Tom bellowed, "you are the darndest critter, when
+you do git goin--now hold on, do--I wants some rum, and Forester here
+looks a kind of white about the gills, his what-d'ye-call, cheeroot, has
+made him sick, I reckon!"
+
+Of course, with such an exhortation in our ears as this, it was
+impossible to do otherwise than wet our whistles with one drop of the
+old Ferintosh; and then, Tom having once again recovered his good humor,
+away we went, and "clombe the high hill," though we "swam not the deep
+river," as merrily as ever sportsman did, from the days of Arbalast and
+Longbow, down to these times of Westley Richards' caps and Eley's wire
+cartridges.
+
+A tramp of fifteen minutes through some scrubby brushwood, brought us to
+the base of a steep stony ridge covered with tall and thrifty hickories
+and a few oaks and maples intermixed, rising so steeply from the shore
+that it was necessary not only to strain every nerve of the leg, but to
+swing our bodies up from tree to tree, by dint of hand. It was indeed a
+hard and heavy tug; and I had pretty tough work, what between the
+exertion of the ascent, and the incessant fits of laughter into which I
+was thrown by the grotesquely agile movements of fat Tom; who, grunting,
+panting, sputtering, and launching forth from time to time the strangest
+and most blasphemously horrid oaths, contrived to make way to the summit
+faster than either of us--crashing through the dense underwood of
+juniper and sumac, uprooting the oak saplings as he swung from this to
+that, and spurning down huge stones upon us, as we followed at a
+cautious distance. When we at last crowned the ridge, we found him, just
+as Harry had predicted, stretched in a half recumbent attitude, leaning
+against a huge gray stone, with his fur cap and double-barrel lying upon
+the withered leaves beside him, puffing, as Archer told him, to his
+mighty indignation, like a great grampus in shoal water.
+
+After a little rest, however, Falstaff revived, though not before he had
+imbibed about a pint of applejack, an occupation in which he could not
+persuade either of us, this time, to join him. Descending from our
+elevated perch, we now got into a deep glen, with a small brooklet
+winding along the bottom, bordered on either hand by a stripe of marshy
+bog earth, bearing a low growth of alder bushes, mixed with stunted
+willows. On the side opposite to that by which we had descended, the
+hill rose long and lofty, covered with mighty timber-trees standing in
+open ranks and overshadowing a rugged and unequal surface, covered with
+whortleberry, wintergreen, and cranberries, the latter growing only
+along the courses of the little runnels, which channeled the whole
+slope. Here, stony ledges and gray broken crags peered through the
+underwood, among the crevices of which the stunted cedars stood thick
+set, and matted with a thousand creeping vines and brambles; while
+there, from some small marshy basin, the giant Rhododendron Maximum rose
+almost to the height of a timber tree.
+
+"Here, Tom," said Harry, "keep you along this run--you'll have a
+woodcock every here and there, and look sharp when you hear them fire
+over the ridge, for they can't shoot to speak of, and the ruffed grouse
+will cross--you know. You, master Frank, stretch your long legs and get
+three parts of the way up this hill--over the second mound--there, do
+you see that great blue stone with a thunder-splintered tree beside it?
+just beyond that! then turn due west, and mark the trending of the
+valley, keeping a little way ahead of me, which you will find quite
+easy, for I shall have to beat across you both. Go very slow, Tom--now,
+hurrah!"
+
+Exhorted thus, I bounded up the hill and soon reached my appointed
+station; but not before I heard the cheery voice of Archer encouraging
+the eager spaniels--"Hie cock! hie cock! pu-r-r-h!"--till the woods rang
+to the clear shout.
+
+Scarce had I reached the top, before, as I looked down into the glen
+below me, a puff of white smoke, instantly succeeded by a second, and
+the loud full reports of both his barrels from among the green-leafed
+alders, showed me that Tom had sprung game. The next second I heard the
+sharp questing of the spaniel Dan, followed by Harry's "Charge!--down
+Cha-arge, you little thief--down to cha-arge, will you!"
+
+But it was all in vain--for on he went furious and fast, and the next
+moment the thick whirring of a grouse reached my excited ears.
+Carefully, eagerly, I gazed out to mark the wary bird; but the discharge
+of Harry's piece assured me, as I thought, that further watch was
+needless; and stupidly enough I dropped the muzzle of my gun.
+
+Just at the self-same point of time--"Mark! mark, Frank!" shouted
+Archer, "mark! there are a brace of them!"--and as he spoke, gliding
+with speed scarcely inferior to a bullet's flight upon their balanced
+pinions, the noble birds swept past me, so close that I could have
+struck them with a riding whip.
+
+Awfully fluttered was I--I confess--but by a species of involuntary and
+instinctive consideration I rallied instantly, and became cool. The
+grouse had seen me, and wheeled diverse; one darting to the right,
+through a small opening between a cedar bush and a tall hemlock--the
+other skimming through the open oak woods a little toward the left.
+
+At such a crisis thought comes in a second's space; and I have often
+fancied that in times of emergency or great surprise, a man deliberates
+more promptly, and more prudently withal, than when he has full time to
+let his second thought trench on his first and mar it. So was it in this
+case with me. At half a glance I saw, that if I meant to get both birds,
+the right-hand fugitive must be the first, and that with all due speed;
+for but a few yards further he would have gained a brake which would
+have laughed to scorn Lord Kennedy or Harry T--r.
+
+Pitching my gun up to my shoulder, both barrels loaded with Eley's red
+wire cartridge No. 6, I gave him a snap shot, and had the satisfaction
+of seeing him keeled well over, not wing-tipped or leg-broken, but
+fairly riddled by the concentrated charge of something within thirty
+yards. Turning as quick as light, I caught a fleet sight of the other,
+which by a rapid zig-zag was now flying full across my front, certainly
+over forty-five yards distant, among a growth of thick-set saplings--the
+hardest shot, in my opinion, that can be selected to test a quick and
+steady sportsman. I gave it him, and down he came too--killed dead--that
+I knew, for I had shot full half a yard before him. Just as I dropped my
+butt to load, the hill began to echo with the vociferous yells of master
+Dan, the quick redoubled cracks of Harry's heavy dog-whip, and his
+incessant rating--"Down, cha-arge! For sha-ame! Dan! Dan! down cha-arge!
+for sha-ame! "--broken at times by the impatient oaths of Tom Draw, in
+the gulley, who had, it seems, knocked down two woodcock, neither of
+which he could bag, owing to the depth and instability of the wet bog.
+
+"Quit! quit! cuss you, quit there, leatherin that brute! Quit, I say, or
+I'll send a shot at you! Come here, Archer--I say, come here!--there be
+the darndest lot of droppins here, I ever see--full twenty cock, I
+swon!"
+
+But still the scourge continued to resound, and still the raving of the
+spaniel excited Tom's hot ire.
+
+"Frank Forester!" exclaimed he once again. "Do see now--Harry missed
+them partridge, and so he licks the poor dumb brute for it. I wish I
+were a spannel, and he'd try it on with me!"
+
+"I will, too," answered Archer, with a laugh; "I will, too, if you go
+wish it, though you are not a spaniel, nor any thing else half so good.
+And why, pray, should I not scourge this wild little imp? he ran slap
+into the best pack of ruffed grouse I have seen this two years--fifteen
+or sixteen birds. I wonder they're not scattered--it's full late to find
+them packed!"
+
+"Did you kill ere a one?" Tom holloaed; "not one, either of you!"
+
+"I did," answered Harry, "I nailed the old cock bird, and a rare dog he
+is!--two pounds, good weight, I warrant him," he added, weighing him as
+he spoke. "Look at the crimson round his eye, Frank, like a cock
+pheasant's, and his black ruff or tippet--by George! but he's a beauty!
+And what did you do?" he continued.
+
+"I bagged a brace--the only two that crossed me."
+
+"Did you, though?" exclaimed Archer, with no small expression of
+surprise; "did you, though?--that's prime work--it takes a thorough
+workmen to bag a double shot upon October grouse. But come, we must go
+down to Tom; hark how the old hound keeps bawling."
+
+Well, down we went. The spaniels quickly retrieved his dead birds, and
+flushed some fifteen more, of which we gave a clean account--Harry
+making up for lost time by killing six cock, right and left, almost
+before they topped the bushes--seven more fell to me, but single birds
+all of them--and but one brace to Tom, who now began to wax indignant;
+for Archer, as I saw, for fun's sake, was making it a point to cut down
+every bird that rose to him, before he could get up his gun; and then
+laughed at him for being fat and slow. But the laugh was on Tom's side
+before long--for while we were yet in the valley, the report of a gun
+came faintly down the wind from beyond the hill, and as we all looked
+out attentively, a grouse skimmed the brow, flying before the wind at a
+tremendous pace, and skated across the valley without stooping from his
+altitude. I stood the first, and fired, a yard at least ahead of him--on
+he went, unharmed and undaunted; bang went my second barrel--still on he
+went, the faster, as it seemed, for the weak insult.
+
+Harry came next, and he too fired twice, and--tell it not in Gath--
+missed twice! "Now, Fat-Guts!" shouted Archer, not altogether in his
+most amiable or pleasing tones; and sure enough up went the old man's
+piece--roundly it echoed with its mighty charge--a cloud of feathers
+drifted away in a long line from the slaughtered victim--which fell not
+direct, so rapid was its previous flight, but darted onward in a long
+declining tangent, and struck the rocky soil with a thud clearly audible
+where we stood, full a hundred yards from the spot where it fell.
+
+He bagged, amid Tom's mighty exultation, forward again we went and in a
+short half hour got into the remainder of the pack which we had flushed
+before, in some low tangled thorn cover, among which they lay well, and
+we made havoc of them. And here the oddest accident I ever witnessed in
+the field took place--so odd, that I am half ashamed to write to it--but
+where's the odds, for it is true.
+
+A fine cock bird was flushed close at Tom's feet, and went off to the
+left, Harry and I both standing to the right; he blazed away, and at the
+shot the bird sprung up six or eight feet into the air, with a sharp
+staggering flutter. "Killed dead!" cried I; "well done again, Fat Tom."
+But to my great surprise the grouse gathered wing, and flew on, feebly
+at first, and dizzily, but gaining strength more and more as he went on
+the farther. At the last, after a long flight, he treed in a tall
+leafless pine.
+
+"Run after him, Frank," Archer called to me, "you are the lightest; and
+we'll beat up the swale till you return. You saw the tree he took?"
+
+"Aye, aye!" said I preparing to make off.
+
+"Well! he sits near the top--now mind me! no chivalry Frank! give him no
+second chance--a ruffed grouse, darting downward from a tall pine tree,
+is a shot to balk the devil--it's full five to one that you shoot over
+and behind him--give him no mercy!"
+
+Off I went, and after a brisk trot, five or six minutes long, reached my
+tree, saw my bird perched on a broken limb close to the time-blanched
+trunk, cocked my Joe Manton, and was in the very act of taking aim, when
+something so peculiar in the motion of the bird attracted me, that I
+paused. He was nodding like a sleepy man, and seemed with difficulty to
+retain his foot-hold. While I was gazing, he let go, pitched headlong,
+fluttered his wings in the death-struggle, yet in air, and struck the
+ground close at my feet, stone-dead. Tom's first shot had cut off the
+whole crown of the head, with half the brain and the right eye; and
+after that the bird had power to fly five or six hundred yards, and then
+to cling upon its perch for at least ten minutes.
+
+Rejoining my companions, we again went onward, slaying and bagging as we
+went, till when the sun was at meridian we sat down beside the brook to
+make our frugal meal--not to-day of grilled woodcock and champagne, but
+of hard eggs, salt, biscuit, and Scotch whiskey--not so bad either--nor
+were we disinclined to profit by it. We were still smoking on the marge,
+when a shot right ahead told us that our out-skirting party was at hand.
+
+All in an instant were on the alert; in twenty minutes we joined forces,
+and compared results. We had twelve grouse, five rabbits, seventeen
+woodcock; they, six gray squirrels, seven grouse, and one solitary cock
+--Tim, proud as Lucifer at having led the field. But his joy now was at
+an end--for to his charge the setters were committed to be led in leash,
+while we shot on, over the spaniels. Another dozen grouse, and eighteen
+rabbits, completed our last bag in the Woodlands.
+
+Late was it when we reached the Teachmans' hut--and long and deep was
+the carouse that followed; and when the moon had sunk and we were
+turning in, Tom Draw swore with a mighty oath of deepest emphasis--that
+since we had passed a week with him, he'd take a seat down in the wagon,
+and see the Beacon Races. So we filled round once more, and clinked our
+glasses to bind the joyous contract, and turned in happy.
+
+
+DAY THE SEVENTH
+
+Once more we were compelled to change our purpose.
+
+When we left Tom Draw's it had been, as we thought, finally decided that
+we were for this bout to visit that fair village no more, but when that
+worthy announced his own determination to accompany us on our homeward
+route, and when we had taken into consideration the fact, that,
+independent of Tom's two hundred and fifty weight of solid flesh, we had
+two noble bucks, beside quail, ruffed grouse, woodcock, and rabbit
+almost innumerable to transport, in addition to our two selves and
+Timothy, with the four dogs, and lots of luggage--when we, I say,
+considered all this, it became apparent that another vehicle must be
+provided for our return. So during the last jorum, it had been put to
+the vote and unanimously carried that we should start for Tom's, by a
+retrograde movement, at four o'clock in the morning, breakfast with him,
+and rig up some drag or other wherein Timothy might get the two deer and
+the dogs, as best he might, into the city.
+
+"As for us," said Harry, "we will go down the other road, Tom, over the
+back-bone of the mountain, dine with old Colonel Beams, stop at
+Paterson, and take a taste at the Holy Father's poteen--you may look at
+the Falls if you like it, Frank, while we're looking at the Innishowen--
+and so get home to supper. I'll give you both beds for one night--but
+not an hour longer--my little cellar would be broken, past all doubt, if
+old Tom were to get two nights out of it!"
+
+"Ay'se sure it would," responded Timothy, who had been listening, all
+attention, mixing meanwhile some strange compound of eggs and rum and
+sugar. "Whoy, measter Draa did pratty nigh drink 't out yance--that
+noight 'at eight chaps, measter Frank, drank oop two baskets o'
+champagne, and fifteen bottles o' 't breawn sherry--Ay carried six on
+'em to bed, Ay'se warrant it--and yan o' them, young measter Clark, he
+spoilt me a new suit o' liveries, wi' vomiting a top on me."
+
+"That'll do, Timothy," interposed Archer, unwilling, as I thought, that
+the secret mysteries of his establishment should be revealed any further
+to the profane ears which were gaping round about us--"that'll do for
+the present--give Mr. Draw that flip--he's looking at it very angrily, I
+see! and then turn in, or you'll be late in the morning; and, by George,
+we must be away by four o'clock at latest, for we have all of sixty
+miles to make to-morrow, and Tom's fat carcase will try the springs most
+consumedly, down hill."
+
+Matters thus settled, in we turned, and--as it seemed to me, within five
+minutes, I was awakened by Harry Archer, who stood beside my bed full
+dressed, with a candle in his hand.
+
+"Get up," he whispered, "get up, Frank, very quietly; slip on your
+great-coat and your slippers--we have a chance to serve Tom out--he's
+not awake for once! and Timothy will have the horses ready in five
+minutes!"
+
+Up I jumped on the instant, hauled on a rough-frieze pea-jacket, thrust
+my unstockinged feet into their contrary slippers, and followed Harry,
+on the tips of my toes, along a creaking passage, guided by the
+portentous ruckling snorts, which varied the ilk profundity of the fat
+man's slumbers. When I reached his door, there stood Harry, laughing to
+himself, with a small quiet chuckle, perfectly inaudible at three feet
+distance, the intensity of which could, however, be judged by the manner
+in which it shook his whole person. Two huge horse-buckets, filled to
+the brim, were set beside him; and he had cut a piece of an old
+broomstick so as to fit exactly to the width of the passage, across
+which he had fastened it, at about two feet from the ground, so that it
+must most indubitably trip up any person, who should attempt to run
+along that dark and narrow thoroughfare.
+
+"Now, Frank," said he, "see here! I'll set this bucket here behind the
+door--we'll heave the other slap into his face--there he lies, full on
+the broad of his fat back, with his mouth wide open--and when he jumps
+up full of fight, which he is sure to do, run you with the candle, which
+blow out the moment he appears, straight down the passage. I'll stand
+back here, and as he trips over that broomstick, which he is certain to
+do, I'll pitch the other bucket on his back--and if he does not think
+he's bewitched, I'll promise not to laugh. I owe him two or three
+practical jokes, and now I've got a chance, so I'll pay him all at
+once."
+
+Well! we peeped in, aided by the glare of the streaming tallow candle,
+and there, sure enough, with all the clothes kicked off him, and his
+immense rotundity protected only from the cold by an exceeding scanty
+shirt of most ancient cotton, lay Tom, flat on his back, like a stranded
+porpoise, with his mouth wide open, through which he was puffing and
+breathing like a broken-winded cab-horse, while through his expanded
+nostrils he was snoring loudly enough to have awaked the seven sleepers.
+Neither of us could well stand up for laughing. One bucket was deposited
+behind the door, and back stood Harry ready to slip behind it also at
+half a moment's warning--the candlestick was placed upon the floor,
+which I was to kick over in my flight.
+
+"Stand by to heave!" whispered my trusty comrade--"heave!" and with the
+word--flash!--slush!--out went the whole contents of the full pail, two
+gallons at the least of ice-cold water, slap in the chaps, neck, breast,
+and stomach of the sound sleeper. With the most wondrous noise that ears
+of mine have ever witnessed--a mixture of sob, snort, and groan,
+concluding in the longest and most portentous howl that mouth of man
+ever uttered--Tom started out of bed; but, at the very instant I
+discharged my bucket, I put my foot upon the light, flung down the empty
+pail, and bolted. Poor devil!--as he got upon his feet the bucket rolled
+up with its iron handles full against his shins, the oath he swore at
+which encounter, while he dashed headlong after me, directed by the
+noise I made on purpose, is most unmentionable. Well knowing where it
+was, I easily jumped over the stick which barred the passage. Not so
+Tom--for going at the very top of his pace, swearing like forty troopers
+all the time, he caught it with both legs just below the knees, and went
+down with a squelch that shook the whole hut to the rooftree, while at
+the self-same instant Harry once again soused him with the contents of
+the second pail, and made his escape unobserved by the window of Tom's
+own chamber. Meanwhile I had reached my room, and flinging off my
+jacket, came running out with nothing but my shirt and a lighted candle,
+to Tom's assistance, in which the next moment I was joined by Harry, who
+rushed in from out of doors with the stable lanthorn.
+
+"What's the row now?" he said, with his face admirably cool and quiet.
+"What the devil's in the wind?"
+
+"Oh! Archer!" grunted poor Tom, in most piteous accents--"them darned
+etarnal Teachmans--they've murdered me right out! I'll never get over
+this--ugh! ugh! ugh! Half drowned and smashed up the darndest! Now aint
+it an etarnal shame! Cuss them, if I doos n't sarve them out for it, my
+name's not Thomas Draw!"
+
+"Well, it is not," rejoined Harry, "who in the name of wonder ever
+called you Thomas? Christened you never were at all, that's evident
+enough, you barbarous old heathen--but you were certainly named Tom."
+
+Swearing, and vowing vengeance on Jem Lyn, and Garry, and the Teachmans
+--each one of whom, by the way, was sound asleep during this pleasant
+interlude--and shaking with the cold, and sputtering with uncontrollable
+fury, the fat man did at length get dressed, and after two or three
+libations of milk punch, recovered his temper somewhat, and his spirits
+altogether.
+
+Although, however, Harry and I told him very frankly that we were not
+merely the sole planners, but the sole executors, of the trick--it was
+in vain we spoke. Tom would not have it.
+
+"No--he knew--he knew well enough; did we go for to think he was such an
+old etarnal fool as not to know Jem's voice--a bloody Decker--he would
+be the death of him."
+
+And direful, in good truth, I do believe, were the jokes practical, and
+to him no jokes at all, which poor Jem had to undergo, in expiation of
+his fancied share in this our misdemeanor.
+
+Scarce had the row subsided, before the horses were announced. Harry and
+I, and Tom and Timothy, mounted the old green drag; and, with our
+cheroots lighted--the only lights, by the way, that were visible at all
+--off we went at a rattling trot, the horses in prime condition, full of
+fire, biting and snapping at each other, and making their bits clash and
+jingle every moment. Up the long hill, and through the shadowy wood,
+they strained, at full ten miles an hour, without a touch of the whip,
+or even a word of Harry's well-known voice.
+
+We reached the brow of the mountain, where there are four cleared
+fields--whereon I once saw snow lie five feet deep on the tenth day of
+April--and an old barn; and thence we looked back through the cold gray
+gloom of an autumnal morning, three hours at least before the rising of
+the sun, while the stars were waning in the dull sky, and the moon had
+long since set, toward the Greenwood lake.
+
+Never was there a stronger contrast, than between that lovely sheet of
+limpid water, as it lay now--cold, dun, and dismal, like a huge plate of
+pewter, without one glittering ripple, without one clear reflection,
+surrounded by the wooded hills which, swathed in a dim mist, hung grim
+and gloomy over its silent bosom--and its bright sunny aspect on the
+previous day.
+
+Adieu! fair Greenwood Lake! adieu! Many and blithe have been the hours
+which I have spent around, and in, and on you--and it may well be I
+shall never see you more--whether reflecting the full fresh greenery of
+summer; or the rich tints of cisatlantic autumn; or sheeted with the
+treacherous ice; but never, thou sweet lake, never will thy remembrance
+fade from my bosom, while one drop of life-blood warms it; so art thou
+intertwined with memories of happy careless days, that never can return
+--of friends, truer, perhaps, though rude and humble, than all of
+prouder seeming. Farewell to thee, fair lake! Long may it be before thy
+rugged hills be stripped of their green garniture, or thy bright waters
+marred by the unpicturesque improvements of man's avarice!--for truly
+thou, in this utilitarian age, and at brief distance from America's
+metropolis, art young, and innocent, and unpolluted, as when the red man
+drank of thy pure waters, long centuries ere he dreamed of the
+pale-faced oppressors, who have already rooted out his race from half
+its native continent.* [*Marred it has been long ago. A huge dam has
+been drawn across its outlet, in order to supply a feeder to the Morris
+Canal--a gigantic piece of unprofitable improvement, made, I believe,
+merely as a basis on which for brokers, stock-jobbers--et id genus omne
+of men too utilitarian and ambitious to be content with earning money
+honestly--to exercise their prodigious 'cuteness. The effect of this has
+been to change the bold shores into pestilential submerged swamps,
+whereon the dead trees still stand, tall, gray and ghostly; to convert a
+number of acres of beautiful meadow-land into stagnant grassy shallows;
+to back up the waters at the lake's head, to the utter destruction of
+several fine farms; and, last not least, to create fever and ague in
+abundance, where no such thing had ever been heard tell of before.
+Certainly! your well devised improvement is a great thing for a
+country!]
+
+Another half hour brought us down at a rattling pace to the village, and
+once again we pulled up at Tom's well-known dwelling, just as the day
+was breaking. A crowd of loiterers, as usual, was gathered even at that
+untimely season in the large bar-room; and when the clatter of our hoofs
+and wheels announced us, we found no lack of ready-handed and quick
+tongued assistants.
+
+"Take out the horses, Timothy," cried Harry, "unharness them, and rub
+them down as quickly and as thoroughly as may be--let them have four
+quarts each, and mind that all is ready for a start before an hour.
+Meantime, Frank, we will overhaul the game, get breakfast, and hunt up a
+wagon for the deer and setters."
+
+"Don't bother yourself about no wagon," interposed Tom, "but come you in
+and liquor, else we shall have you gruntin half the day; and if old roan
+and my long pig-box wont carry down the deer, why I'll stand treat."
+
+A jorum was prepared, and discussed accordingly, fresh ice produced, the
+quail and woodcock carefully unpacked, and instantly re-stowed with
+clean straw, a measure which, however, seemed almost supererogatory,
+since so completely had the external air been excluded from the
+game-box, that we found not only the lumps of ice in the bottom unthawed,
+but the flannel which lay over it stiff frozen; the birds were of course
+perfectly fresh, cool, and in good condition. Our last day's batch,
+which it was found impossible to get into the box, with all the ruffed
+grouse, fifty at least in number, were tied up by the feet, two brace
+and two brace, and hung in festoons round the inside rails of the front
+seat and body, while about thirty hares dangled by their hind legs, with
+their long ears flapping to and fro, from the back seat and baggage
+rack. The wagon looked, I scarce know how, something between an English
+stage-coach when the merry days of Christmas are at hand, and a
+game-hunter's taxed cart.
+
+The business of re-packing had been scarce accomplished, and Harry and
+myself had just retired to change our shooting-jackets and coarse
+fustians for habiliments more suitable for the day and our destination--
+New York, to-wit, and Sunday--when forth came Tom, bedizened from top to
+toe in his most new and knowing rig, and looking now, to do him justice,
+a most respectable and portly yeoman.
+
+A broad-brimmed, low-crowned, and long-napped white hat, set forth
+assuredly to the best advantage his rotund, rubicund, good-humored phiz;
+a clean white handkerchief circled his sturdy neck, on the voluminous
+folds of which reposed in placid dignity the mighty collops of his
+double chin. A bright canary waistcoat of imported kerseymere, with vast
+mother-of-pearl buttons, and a broad-skirted coat of bright blue cloth,
+with glittering brass buttons half the size of dollars, covered his
+upper man, while loose drab trousers of stout double-milled, and a pair
+of well-blacked boots, completed his attire; so that he looked as
+different an animal as possible, from the unwashed, uncombed, half-naked
+creature he presented, when lounging in his bar-room in his every-day
+apparel.
+
+"Why, halloa, Guts!" cried Archer, as he entered, "you've broken out
+here in a new place altogether."
+
+"Now quit, you, callin' of me Guts," responded Tom, more testily than I
+had ever heard him speak to Harry, whose every whim and frolic he seemed
+religiously to venerate and humor; "a fellow doesn't want to have it
+'Guts' here, and 'Guts' there, over half a county. Why, now, it was but
+a week since, while 'lections was a goin' on, I got a letter from some
+d--d chaps to Newburg--`Rouse about now, old Guts, you'll need it this
+election?'"
+
+"Ha! ha! ha!" shouted Harry and I almost simultaneously, delighted at
+Tom's evident annoyance.
+
+"Who wrote it, Tom?"
+
+"That's what I'd jist give fifty dollars to know now," replied mine
+host, clinching his mighty paw.
+
+"Why, what would you do," said I, "if you did know?"
+
+"Lick him, by George! Lick him, in the first place, till he was as nigh
+dead as I daared lick him--and then I'd make him eat up every darned
+line of it! But come, come--breakfast's ready; and while we're getting
+through with it, Timothy and Jem Lyn will fix the pig-box, and make the
+deer all right and tight for traveling!"
+
+No sooner said than done--an ample meal was speedily despatched--and
+when that worthy came in to announce all ready, for the saving of time,
+master Timothy was accommodated with a seat at a side-table, which he
+occupied with becoming dignity, abstaining, as it were, in consciousness
+of his honorable promotion, from any of the quaint and curious
+witticisms, in which he was wont to indulge; but manducating, with vast
+energy, the various good things which were set before him.
+
+It was a clear, bright Sabbath morning, as ever shone down on a sinful
+world, on which we started homeward--and, though I fear there was not
+quite so much solemnity in our demeanor as might have best accorded with
+the notions of over strict professors, I can still answer that, with
+much mirth, much merriment, and much good feeling in our hearts, there
+was no touch of irreverence, or any taint of what could be called sinful
+thought. The sun had risen fairly, but the hour was still too early for
+the sweet peaceful music of the church-going bells to have made their
+echoes tunable through the rich valley. A merry cavalcade, indeed, we
+started--Harry leading the way at his usual slap-dash pace, so that one,
+less a workman than himself, would have said he went up hill and down at
+the same break-neck pace, and would take all the grit out of his team
+before he had gone ten miles--while a more accurate observer would have
+seen, at a glance, that he varied his rate at almost every inequality of
+road, that he quartered every rut, avoided every jog or mud-hole,
+husbanded for the very best his horses' strength, never making them
+either pull or hold a moment longer than was absolutely necessary from
+the abruptness of the ground.
+
+At his left hand sat I, while Tom, in honor of his superior bulk and
+weight, occupied with his magnificent and portly person the whole of the
+back seat, keeping his countenance as sanctified as possible, and
+nodding, with some quaint and characteristic observation, to each one of
+the scattered groups of country-people, which we encountered every
+quarter of a mile for the first hour of our route, wending their way
+toward the village church--but, when we reached the forest-mantled road
+which clombe the mountain, making the arched woods resound to many a
+jovial catch or merry hunting chorus.
+
+Mounted sublime on an arm-chair lashed to the forepart of the pig-box,
+sat Timothy in state--his legs well muffled in a noble scarlet-fringed
+buffalo skin, and his body encased in his livery top-coat--the setters
+and the spaniels crouching most meekly at his feet, and the two noble
+bucks--the fellow on whose steaks we had already made an inroad, having
+been left as fat Tom's portion--securely corded down upon a pile of
+straw, with their sublime and antlered crests drooping all spiritless
+and humble over the backboard, toward the frozen soil which crashed and
+rattled under the ponderous hoofs of the magnificent roan horse--Tom's
+special favorite--which, though full seventeen hands high, and heavy in
+proportion; yet showing a good strain of blood, trotted away with his
+huge load at full ten miles an hour.
+
+Plunging into the deep recesses of the Greenwoods, hill after hill we
+scaled, a toilsome length of stony steep ascents, almost precipitous,
+until we reached the back-bone of the mountain ridge--a rugged, bare,
+sharp edge of granite rock, without a particle of soil upon it, diving
+down at an angle not much less than forty-five degrees into a deep
+ravine, through which thundered and roared a flashing torrent. This
+fearful descent overpast, and that in perfect safety, we rolled merrily
+away down hill, till we reached Colonel Beam's tavern, a neat,
+low-browed, Dutch, stone farmhouse, situate in an angle scooped out of a
+green hill-side, with half a dozen tall and shadowy elms before it--a
+bright crystal stream purling along into the horse-trough through a
+miniature aqueduct of hollowed logs, and a clear cold spring in front of
+it, with half a score of fat and lazy trout floating in its transparent
+waters.
+
+A hearty welcome, and a no less hearty meal having been here encountered
+and despatched, we rattled off again, through laden orchards and rich
+meadows; passed the confluence of the three bright rivers which issue
+from their three mountain gorges, to form, by their junction, the
+fairest of New Jersey's rivers, the broad Passaic; reached the small
+village noted for rum-drinking and quarter racing--high Pompton--thence
+by the Preakness mountain, and Mose Canouze's tavern--whereat, in honor
+of Tom's friend, a worthy of the self-same kidney with himself, we
+paused awhile--to Paterson, the filthiest town, situate on one of the
+loveliest rivers in the world, and famous only for the possession, in
+the person of its Catholic priest, of the finest scholar and best fellow
+in America, whom we unluckily found not at home, and therefore tasted
+not, according to friend Harry's promise, the splendid Innishowen which
+graces at all times his hospitable board.
+
+Eight o'clock brought us to Hoboken, where, by good luck, the ferry boat
+lay ready--and nine o'clock had not struck when we three sat down once
+again about a neat small supper-table, before a bright coal fire, in
+Archer's snuggery--Tom glorying in the prospect of the races on the
+morrow, and I regretting that I had brought to its conclusion--MY FIRST
+WEEK IN THE WOODLANDS
+
+
+THE WARWICK WOODLANDS: ON A SECOND VISIT
+
+THE WAYSIDE INN
+
+On a still evening in October, Frank Forester and Harry Archer were
+sitting at the open window of a neat country tavern, in a sequestered
+nook of Rockland County, looking out upon as beautiful a view as ever
+gladdened the eyes of wandering amateur or artist.
+
+The house was a large old-fashioned stone mansion, certainly not of
+later date than the commencement of the revolution; and probably had
+been, in its better days, the manor-house of some considerable
+proprietor--the windows were of a form very unusual in the States,
+opening like doors, with heavy wooden mullions and small lattices, while
+the walls were so thick as to form a deep embrasure, provided with a
+cushioned windowseat; the parlor, in which the friends had taken up
+their temporary domicile, contained two of these pleasant lounges, the
+larger looking out due south upon the little garden, with the road
+before it, and, beyond the road, a prospect, of which more anon--the
+other commanding a space of smooth green turf in front of the stables,
+whereon our old acquaintance, Timothy, was leading to and fro a pair of
+smoking horses. The dark green drag, with all its winter furniture of
+gaily decorated bearskins, stood half-seen beneath the low-arched
+wagon-shed.
+
+The walls of the room--the best room of the tavern--were paneled with
+the dark glossy wood of the black cherry, and a huge mantel-piece of the
+same material, took up at least one-half of the side opposite the larger
+window, while on the hearth below reposed a glowing bed of red-hot
+hickory ashes, a foot at least in depth, a huge log of that glorious
+fuel blazing upon the massive andirons. Two large, deep gun-cases, a
+leathern magazine of shot, and sundry canisters of diamond gunpowder,
+Brough's, were displayed on a long table under the end window--a
+four-horse whip, and two fly-rods in India-rubber cases, stood in the
+chimney-corner; while reveling in the luxurious warmth of the piled
+hearth lay basking on the rug, three exquisitely formed Blenheim
+spaniels of the large breed--short-legged and bony, with ears that
+almost swept the ground as they stood upright, and coats as soft and
+lustrous as floss silk.
+
+On a round table, which should have occupied the centre of the parlor,
+now pulled up to the window-seat, whereon reclined the worthies, stood a
+large pitcher of iced water; a square case-bottle of cut crystal filled,
+as the flavor which pervaded the whole room sufficiently demonstrated,
+with superb old Antigua Shrub; several large rummers corresponding to
+the fashion of the bottle; a twisted taper of green wax, and a small
+silver plate with six or eight cheroots, real manillas.
+
+Supper was evidently over, and the friends, amply feasted, were now
+luxuriating in the delicious indolence, half-dozing, half-daydreaming,
+of a calm sleepy smoke, modestly lubricated by an occasional sip of the
+cool beverage before them. If we except a pile of box-coats, capes, and
+mackintoshes of every cut and color--a traveling liquor-case which,
+standing open, displayed the tops of three more bottles similar to that
+on the table, and spaces lined with velvet for all the glass in use--and
+another little leathern box, which, like the liquor-case, showed its
+contents of several silver plates, knives, forks, spoons, flasks of
+sauce, and condiments of different kinds--the whole interior, as a
+painter would have called it, has been depicted with all accuracy.
+
+Without, the view on which the windows opened was indeed most lovely.
+The day had been very bright and calm; there was not a single cloud in
+the pale transparent heaven, and the sun, which had shone cheerfully all
+day from his first rising in the east, till now when he was hanging like
+a ball of bloody fire in the thin filmy haze which curtained the
+horizon, was still shooting his long rays, and casting many a shadow
+over the slopes and hollows which diversified the scene.
+
+Immediately across the road lay a rich velvet meadow, luxuriant still
+and green--for the preceding month had been rather wet, and frost had
+not set in to nip its verdure--sloping down southerly to a broad shallow
+trout-stream, which rippled all glittering and bright over a pebbly bed,
+although the margin on the hither side was somewhat swampy, with tufts
+of willows and bushes of dark alder fringing it here and there, and
+dipping their branches in its waters--the farther bank was skirted by a
+tall grove of maple, hickory, and oak, with a thick undergrowth of sumac
+arrayed in all the gorgeous garniture of autumn, purples and brilliant
+scarlets and chrome yellows, mixed up and harmonized with the dark
+copper foliage of a few sere beeches, and the gray trunks apparent here
+and there through the thin screen of the fast falling leaves.
+
+Beyond this grove, the bank rose bold and rich in swelling curves, with
+a fine corn-field, topped already to admit every sunbeam to the ripening
+ears. A buckwheat stubble, conspicuous by its deep ruddy hue, and two or
+three brown pastures divided by high fences, along the lines of which
+flourished a copious growth of cat-briers and sumacs, with here and
+there a goodly tree waving above them, made up the centre of the
+picture. Beyond this cultured knoll there seemed to be a deep pitch of
+the land clothed with a hanging wood of heavy timber; and, above this
+again, the soil surged upward into a huge and round-topped hill, with
+several golden stubbles, shining out from the frame-work of primeval
+forest, which, dark with many a mighty pine, covered the mountain to the
+top, except where at its western edge it showed a huge and rifted
+precipice of rock.
+
+To the right, looking down the stream, the hills closed in quite to the
+water's brink on the far side, rough and uncultivated, with many a blue
+and misty peak discovered through the gaps in their bold, broken
+outline, and a broad, lake-like sheet, as calm and brightly pictured as
+a mirror, reflecting their inverted beauties so wondrously distinct and
+vivid, that the amazed eye might not recognize the parting between
+reality and shadow. An old gray mill, deeply embosomed in a clump of
+weeping willows, still verdant, though the woods were sere and waxing
+leafless, explained the nature of that tranquil pool, while, beyond
+that, the hills swept down from the rear of the building, which
+contained the parlor whence the two sportsmen gazed, and seemed entirely
+to bar the valley, so suddenly, and in so short a curve, did it wind
+round their western shoulder. To the left hand, the view was closed by a
+thick belt of second growth, through which the sandy road and glittering
+stream wandered away together on their mazy path, and over which the
+summits of yet loftier and more rugged steeps towered heavenward.
+
+Over this valley they had for some time gazed in silence, till now the
+broad sun sank behind the mountains, and the shrill whistle of the
+quail, which had been momently audible during the whole afternoon,
+ceased suddenly; four or five night-hawks might be seen wheeling high in
+pursuit of their insect prey through the thin atmosphere, and the sharp
+chirrup of a solitary katydid, the last of its summer tribe, was the
+only sound that interrupted the faint rush of the rapid stream, which
+came more clearly on the ear now that the louder noises of busy babbling
+daylight had yielded to the stillness of approaching night. Before long
+a bright gleam shot through the tufted outline of a dark wooded hill,
+and shortly after, just when a gray and misty shadow had settled down
+upon the half-seen landscape, the broad full moon came soaring up above
+the tree-tops, pouring her soft and silver radiance over the lovely
+valley, and investing its rare beauties with something of romance--a
+sentiment which belongs not to the gay, gaudy sunshine.
+
+Just at this moment, while neither of the friends felt much inclined to
+talk, the door opened suddenly, and Timothy's black head was thrust in,
+with a query if "they didn't need t' waax candles?"
+
+"Not yet, Tim," answered Archer, "not yet for an hour or so--but hold a
+minute--how have the horses fed?"
+
+"T' ould gray drayed off directly, and he's gane tull t' loike bricks--
+but t' bay's no but sillyish--he keeps a breaking oot again for iver--
+and sae Ay'se give him a hot maash enow!"
+
+"That's right. I saw he wasn't quite up to the mark the last ten miles
+or so. If he don't dry off now, give him a cordial ball out of the
+tool-chest--one of the number 3--camphire and cardamums and ginger; a
+clove of garlic, and treacle quantum sic, hey, Frank, that will set him
+to rights, I warrant it. Now have you dined yourself, or supped, as the
+good people here insist on calling it?"
+
+"Weel Ay wot, have I, sur," responded Timothy; "an hour agone and
+better."
+
+"Exactly; then step out yourself into the kitchen, and make us a good
+cup of our own coffee, strong and hot, do you see? and when that's done,
+bring it in with the candles; and, hark you, run up to the bed-room and
+bring my netting needles down, and the ball of silk twist, and the front
+of that new game-bag, I began the other night. If you were not as lazy
+as possible, friend Frank, you would bring your fly-book out, when the
+light comes, and tie some hackles."
+
+"Perhaps I may, when the light comes," Forester answered; "but I'm in no
+hurry for it; I like of all things to look out, and watch the changes of
+the night over a landscape even less beautiful than this. One-half the
+pleasures of field sports to me, is other than the mere excitement. If
+there were nothing but the eagerness of the pursuit, and the
+gratification of successful vanity, fond as I am of shooting, I should,
+I believe, have long since wearied of it; but there are so many other
+things connected with it--the wandering among the loveliest scenery--the
+full enjoyment of the sweetest weather--the learning the innumerable and
+all-wondrous attributes and instincts of animated nature--all these are
+what make up to me the rapture I derive from woodcraft! Why, such a
+scene as this--a scene which how few, save the vagrant sportsman, or the
+countryman who but rarely appreciates the picturesque, have ever
+witnessed--is enough, with the pure and tranquil thoughts it calls up in
+the heart, to plead a trumpet-tongued apology, for all the vanity, and
+uselessness, and cruelty, and what not, so constantly alleged against
+our field sports."
+
+"Oh! yes," cried Harry; "yes, indeed, Frank, I perfectly agree with you.
+But all that last is mere humbug--humbug, too, of the lowest and most
+foolish order--I never hear a man droning about the cruelty of field
+sports, but I set him down, on the spot, either as a hypocrite or a
+fool, and probably a glorious union of the two. When man can exist
+without killing myriads of animals with every breath of vital air he
+draws, with every draught of water he imbibes, with every footstep he
+prints upon the turf or gravel of his garden--when he abstains from
+every sort of animal food--and, above all, when he abstains from his
+great pursuit of torturing his fellow men--then let him prate, if he
+will, of sportsmen's cruelty.
+
+"For show me one trade, one profession, wherein one man's success is not
+based upon another's failure; all rivalry, all competition, triumph and
+rapture to the winner, disgrace and anguish to the loser! And then these
+fellows, fattened on widows' tears and orphans' misery, preach you pure
+homilies about the cruelty of taking life. But you are quite right about
+the combination of pleasures--the excitement, too, of quick motion
+through the fresh air--the sense of liberty amid wide plains, or tangled
+woods, or on the wild hill tops--this, surely, to the reflective
+sportsman--and who can be a true sportsman, and not reflective--is the
+great charm of his pursuit."
+
+"And do you not think that this pleasure exists in a higher degree here
+in America than in our own England?"
+
+"As how, Frank?--I don't take."
+
+"Why, in the greater, I will not say beauty--for I don't think there is
+greater natural beauty in the general landscape of the States--but
+novelty and wildness of the scenery! Even the richest and most
+cultivated tracts of America, that I have seen, except the Western part
+of New York, which is unquestionably the ugliest, and dullest, and most
+unpoetical region on earth, have a young untamed freshness about them,
+which you do not find in England.
+
+"In the middle of the high-tilled and fertile cornfield you come upon
+some sudden hollow, tangled with brake and bush, which hedge in some
+small pool where float the brilliant cups and smooth leaves of the water
+lily, and whence, on your approach, up springs the blue-winged teal or
+gorgeous wood-duck. Then the long sweeping woodlands, embracing in
+themselves every variety of ground, deep marshy swamp, and fertile level
+thick-set with giant timber, and sandy barrens with their scrubby
+undergrowth, and difficult rocky steeps; and, above all, the seeming and
+comparative solitude--the dinner carried along with you and eaten under
+the shady tree, beside the bubbling basin of some spring--all this is
+vastly more exciting, than walking through trim stubbles and rich turnip
+fields, and lunching on bread and cheese and home-brewed, in a snug
+farmhouse. In short, field sports here have a richer range, are much
+more various, wilder--"
+
+"Hold there, Frank; hold hard there; I cannot concede the wilder, not
+the really wilder--seemingly they are wilder; for, as you say, the
+scenery is wilder--and all the game, with the exception of the English
+snipe, being wood-haunters, you are led into rougher districts. But oh!
+no, no!--the field sports are not really wilder--in the Atlantic States
+at least--nor half so wild as those of England!"
+
+"I should like to hear you prove that, Archer," answered Frank, "for I
+am constantly beset with the superiority of American field sports to
+tame English preserve shooting!"
+
+"Pooh! pooh! that is only by people who know nothing about either; by
+people who fancy that a preserve means a park full of tame birds,
+instead of a range, perhaps, of many thousand acres, of the very
+wildest, barest moorland, stocked with the wariest and shyest of the
+feathered race, the red grouse. But what I mean to say, is this, that
+every English game-bird--to use an American phrase--is warier and wilder
+than its compeer in the United States. Who, for instance, ever saw in
+England, Ireland, or Scotland, eighteen or twenty snipe or woodcock,
+lying within a space of twelve yards square, two or three dogs pointing
+in the midst of them, and the birds rising one by one, the gunshots
+rattling over them, till ten or twelve are on the ground before there is
+time to bag one.
+
+"English partridge will, I grant, do this sometimes, on very warm days
+in September; but let a man go out with his heavy gun and steady dog
+late in December, or the month preceding it, let him see thirty or more
+covies--as on good ground he may--let him see every covey rise at a
+hundred yards, and fly a mile; let him be proud and glad to bag his
+three or four brace; and then tell me that there is any sport in these
+Atlantic States so wild as English winter field-shooting.
+
+"Of grouse shooting on the bare hills, which, by the way, are wilder,
+more solitary far, and more aloof from the abodes of men, than any thing
+between Boston and the Green Bay, I do not of course speak; as it
+confessedly is the most wild and difficult kind of shooting.
+
+"Still less of deer stalking--for Scrope's book has been read largely
+even here; and no man, how prejudiced soever, can compare with the
+standing at a deer-path all day long waiting till a great timid beast is
+driven up within ten yards of your muzzle, with that extraordinary sport
+on bald and barren mountains, where nothing but vast and muscular
+exertion, the eye of the eagle, and the cunning of the serpent, can
+bring you within range of the wild cattle of the hills.
+
+"Battue shooting, I grant, is tame work; but partridge shooting, after
+the middle of October, is infinitely wilder, requiring more exertion and
+more toil than quail shooting. Even the pheasant--the tamest of our
+English game--is infinitely bolder on the wing than the ruffed grouse,
+or New York partridge; while about snipe and woodcock there exists no
+comparison--since by my own observation, confirmed by the opinion of old
+sportsmen, I am convinced that nine-tenths of the snipe and cock bagged
+in the States, are killed between fifteen and twenty paces; while I can
+safely say, I never saw a full snipe rise in England within that average
+distance. Quail even, the hardest bird to kill, the swiftest and the
+boldest on the wing, are very rarely killed further than twenty-five to
+thirty, whereas you may shoot from daylight to sunset in England, after
+October, and not pick up a single partridge within the farthest, as a
+minimum distance."
+
+"Well! that's all true, I grant," said Forester, "yet even you allow
+that it is harder to kill game here than at home; and if I do not err, I
+have heard you admit that the best shot in all England could be beat
+easily by the crack shots on this side; how does all this agree!"
+
+"Why very easily, I think," Harry replied, "though to the last remark, I
+added in his first season here! Now that American field sports are
+wilder in one sense, I grant readily; with the exception of
+snipe-shooting here, and grouse-shooting in Scotland, the former being
+tamer, in all senses, than any English--the latter wilder in all senses
+than any American--field-sport.
+
+"American sporting, however, is certainly wilder, in so much as it is
+pursued on much wilder ground; in so much as we have a greater variety
+of game--and in so much as we have many more snap shots, and fewer fair
+dead points.
+
+"Harder it is, I grant; for it is all, with scarcely an exception,
+followed in very thick and heavy covert--covert to which the thickest
+woods I ever saw in England are but as open ground. Moreover, the woods
+are so very large that the gun must be close up with the dog; and
+consequently the shots must, half of them, be fired in attitudes most
+awkward, and in ground which would, I think, at home, be generally
+styled impracticable; thirdly, all the summer shooting here is made with
+the leaf on--with these thick tangled matted swamps clad in the thickest
+foliage.
+
+"Your dogs must beat within twenty yards at farthest, and when they
+stand you are aware of the fact rather by ceasing to hear their motion,
+than by seeing them at point; I am satisfied that of six pointed shots
+in summer shooting, three at the least must be treated as snap shots!
+Many birds must be shot at--and many are killed--which are never seen
+at all, till they are bagged; and many men here will kill three out of
+four summer woodcock, day in and day out, where an English sportsman,
+however crack a shot he might be, would give the thing up in despair in
+half an hour.
+
+"Practice, however, soon brings this all to rights. The first season I
+shot here--I was a very fair, indeed a good, young shot, when I came out
+hither--not at all crack, but decidedly better than the common run!--the
+first day I shot was on 4th of July, 1832, the place Seer's swamp, the
+open end of it; the witness old Tom Draw--and there I missed, in what we
+now call open covert, fourteen birds running; and left the place in
+despair--I could not, though I missed at home by shooting too quick--I
+could not, for the life of me, shoot quick enough. Even you, Frank,
+shoot three times as well as you did, when you began here; yet you began
+in autumn, which is decidedly a great advantage, and came on by degrees,
+so that the following summer you were not so much nonplussed, though I
+remember the first day or two, you bitched it badly."
+
+"Well, I believe I must knock under, Harry," Forester answered; "and
+here comes Timothy with the coffee, and so we will to bed, that taken,
+though I do want to argufy with you, on some of your other notions about
+dogs, scent, and so forth. But do you think the Commodore will join us
+here to-morrow?"
+
+"No! I don't think so," Harry said, "I know it! Did not he arrive in New
+York last first of July, from a yachting tour at four o'clock in the
+afternoon; receive my note saying that I was off to Tom's that morning;
+and start by the Highlander at five that evening? Did he not get a team
+at Whited's and travel all night through, and find me just sitting down
+to breakfast, and change his toggery, and out, and walk all day--like a
+trump as he is? And did not we, by the same token, bag--besides
+twenty-five more killed that we could not find--one hundred and fifteen
+cock between ten o'clock and sunset; while you, you false deceiver, were
+kicking up your heels in Buffalo? Is not all this a true bill, and have
+you now the impudence to ask me whether I think the Commodore will come?
+I only wish I was as sure of a day's sport tomorrow, as I am of his
+being to the fore at luncheon time!"
+
+"At luncheon time, hey? I did not know that you looked for him so early!
+Will he be in time, then, for the afternoon's shooting?"
+
+"Why, certainly he will," returned Archer. "The wind has been fair up
+the river all day long, though it has been but light; and the Ianthe
+will run up before it like a race-horse. I should not be much surprised
+if he were here to breakfast." "And that we may be up in time for him,
+if perchance he should let us to bed forthwith," said Frank with a heavy
+yawn.
+
+"I am content," answered Harry, finishing his cup of coffee, and
+flinging the stump of his cheroot into the fire. "Good-night! Timothy
+will call you in the morning."
+
+"Goodnight, old fellow."
+
+And the friends parted merrily, in prospect of a pleasant day's sport on
+the morrow.
+
+
+THE MORNING'S SPORT
+
+It was not yet broad daylight when Harry Archer, who had, as was usual
+with him on his sporting tour, arisen with the lark, was sitting in the
+little parlor I have before described, close to the chimney corner,
+where a bright lively fire was already burning, and spreading a warm
+cheerful glow through the apartment. The large round table, drawn up
+close to the hearth, was covered with a clean though coarse white cloth,
+and laid for breakfast, with two cups and saucers, flanked by as many
+plates and egg-cups, although as yet no further preparations for the
+morning meal, except the presence of a huge home-made loaf and a large
+roll of rich golden-hued butter, had been made by the neat-handed
+Phillis of the country inn. Two candles were lighted, for though the day
+had broken, the sun was not yet high enough to cast his rays into that
+deep and rock-walled valley, and by their light Archer was busy with the
+game-bag, the front of which he had finished netting on the previous
+night.
+
+Frank Forester had not as yet made his appearance; and still, while the
+gigantic copper kettle bubbled and steamed away upon the hearth,
+discoursing eloquent music, and servant after servant bustled in, one
+with a cold quail-pie, another with a quart jug of cream, and fresh eggs
+ready to be boiled by the fastidious epicures in person, he steadily
+worked on, housewife and saddler's silk, and wax and scissors ready to
+his hand; and when at last the door flew open, and the delinquent
+comrade entered, he flung his finished job upon the chair, and gathered
+up his implements, with:
+
+"Now, Frank, let's lose no time, but get our breakfasts. Halloa! Tim,
+bring the rockingham and the tea-chest; do you hear?"
+
+"Well, Harry, so you've done the game-bag," exclaimed the other, as he
+lifted it up and eyed it somewhat superciliously--"Well, it is a good
+one certainly; but you are the queerest fellow I ever met, to give
+yourself unnecessary trouble. Here you have been three days about this
+bag, hard all; and when it's done, it is not half as good a one as you
+can buy at Cooper's for a dollar, with all this new-fangled machinery of
+loops and buttons, and I don't know what."
+
+"And you, Master Frank," retorted Harry, nothing daunted, "to be a good
+shot and a good sportsman--which, with some few exceptions, I must
+confess you are--are the most culpably and wilfully careless about your
+appointments I ever met. I don't call a man half a sportsman, who has
+not every thing he wants at hand for an emergency, at half a minute's
+notice. Now it so happens that you cannot get, in New York at all,
+anything like a decent game-bag--a little fancy-worked French or German
+jigmaree machine you can get anywhere, I grant, that will do well enough
+for a fellow to carry on his shoulders, who goes out robin-gunning, but
+nothing for your man to carry, wherein to keep your birds cool, fresh,
+and unmutilated. Now, these loops and buttons, at which you laugh, will
+make the difference of a week at least in the bird's keeping, if every
+hour or so you empty your pockets--wherein I take it for granted you put
+your birds as fast as you bag them--smooth down their plumage gently,
+stretch their legs out, and hang them by the heads, running the button
+down close to the neck of each. In this way this bag, which is, as you
+see, half a yard long, by a quarter and a half a quarter deep, made
+double, one hag of fustian, with a net front, which makes two pockets--
+will carry fifty-one quail or woodcock, no one of them pressing upon, or
+interfering with, another, and it would carry sixty-eight if I had put
+another row of loops in the inner bag; which I did not, that I might
+have the bottom vacant to carry a few spare articles, such as a bag of
+Westley Richards' caps, and a couple of dozen of Ely's cartridges."
+
+"Oh! that's all very well," said Frank, "but who the deuce can be at the
+bore of it?"
+
+"Why be at the bore of shooting at all, for that matter?" replied Harry
+--"I, for one, think that if a thing is worth doing at all, it is worth
+doing well--and I can't bear to kill a hundred or a hundred and fifty
+birds, as our party almost always do out here, and then be obliged to
+throw them away, just for want of a little care. Why, I was shooting
+summer cock one July day two years ago--there had been heavy rain in the
+early morning, and the grass and bushes were very wet--Jem Blake was
+with me, and we had great sport, and he laughed at me like the deuce for
+taking my birds out of my pocket at the end of every hour's sport, and
+making Timothy smooth them down carefully, and bag them all after my
+fashion. Egad I had the laugh though, when we got home at night!"
+
+"How so," asked Frank, "in what way had you the laugh?"
+
+"Simply in this--a good many of the birds were very hard shot, as is
+always the case in summer shooting, and all of them got more or less
+wet, as did the pockets of Jem's shooting jacket, wherein he persisted
+in carrying his birds all day--the end was, that when we got home at
+night, it having been a close, hot, steamy day, he had not one bird
+which was not more or less tainted--and, as you know of course, when
+taint has once begun, nothing can check it."
+
+"Ay! ay! well that indeed's a reason; if you can't buy such a bag,
+especially!"
+
+"Well, you cannot then, I can tell you! and I'm glad you're convinced
+for once; and here comes breakfast--so now let us to work, that we may
+get on our ground as early as may be. For quail you cannot be too early;
+for if you don't find them while they are rambling on their feeding
+ground, it is a great chance if you find them at all."
+
+"But, after all, you can only use up one or two bevies or so; and, that
+done, you must hunt for them in the basking time of day, after all's
+done and said," replied Frank, who seemed to have got up somewhat
+paradoxically given that morning.
+
+"Not at all, Frank, not at all," answered Harry--"that is if you know
+your ground; and know it to be well stocked; and have a good marker with
+you."
+
+"Oh! this is something new of yours--some strange device fantastical--
+let's have it, pray."
+
+"Certainly you shall; you shall have it now in precept, and in an hour
+or two in practice. You see those stubbles on the hill--in those seven
+or eight fields there are, or at least should be, some five bevies;
+there is good covert, good easy covert all about, and we can mark our
+birds down easily; now, when I find one bevy, I shall get as many
+barrels into it as I can, mark it down as correctly as possible, and
+then go and look for another."
+
+"What! and not follow it up? Now, Harry, that's mere stuff; wait till
+the scent's gone cold, and till the dogs can't find them? 'Gad, that's
+clever, any way!"
+
+"Exactly the reverse, friend Frank; exactly the reverse. If you follow
+up a bevy, of quail mark you, on the instant, it's ten to one almost
+that you don't spring them. If, on the contrary, you wait for half an
+hour, you are sure of them. How it is, I cannot precisely tell you. I
+have sometimes thought that quail have the power of holding in their
+scent, whether purposely or naturally--from the effect of fear perhaps
+contracting the pores, and hindering the escape of the effluvia--I know
+not, but I am far from being convinced even now that it is not so. A
+very good sportsman, and true friend of mine, insists upon it that birds
+give out no scent except from the feet, and that, consequently, if they
+squat without running they cannot be found. I do not, however, believe
+the theory, and hold it to be disproved by the fact that dead birds do
+give out scent. I have generally observed that there is no difficulty in
+retrieving dead quail, but that, wounded, they are constantly lost. But,
+be that as it may, the birds pitch down, each into the best bit of
+covert he can find, and squat there like so many stones, leaving no
+trail or taint upon the grass or bushes, and being of course
+proportionally hard to find; in half an hour they will begin, if not
+disturbed, to call and travel, and you can hunt them up, without the
+slightest trouble. If you have a very large tract of country to beat,
+and birds are very scarce, of course it would not answer to pass on; nor
+ever, even if they are plentiful, in wild or windy weather, or in large
+open woods; but where you have a fair ground, lots of birds, and fine
+weather, I would always beat on in a circuit, for the reason I have
+given you. In the first place, every bevy you flush flies from its
+feeding to its basking ground, so that you get over all the first early,
+and know where to look afterward; instead of killing off one bevy, and
+then going blundering on, at blind guess work, and finding nothing. In
+the second place, you have a chance of driving two or three bevies into
+one brake, and of getting sport proportionate; and in the third place,
+as I have told you, you are much surer of finding marked birds after an
+hour's lapse, than on the moment."
+
+"I will do you the justice to say," Forester replied, "that you always
+make a tolerably good fight in support of your opinions; and so you have
+done now, but I want to hear something more about this matter of holding
+scent--facts! facts! and let me judge for myself."
+
+"Well, Frank, give me a bit more of that pie in the mean time, and I
+will tell you the strongest case in point I ever witnessed. I was
+shooting near Stamford, in Connecticut, three years ago, with C--- K---,
+and another friend; we had three as good dogs out, as ever had a trigger
+drawn over them. My little imported yellow and white setter, Chase,
+after which this old rascal is called--which Mike Sandford considered
+the best-nosed dog he had ever broken--a capital young pointer dog of
+K---'s, which has since turned out, as I hear, superlative, and P---'s old
+and stanch setter Count. It was the middle of a fine autumn day, and the
+scenting was very uncommonly good. One of our beaters flushed a bevy of
+quail very wide of us, and they came over our heads down a steep
+hillside, and all lighted in a small circular hollow, without a bit of
+underbrush or even grass, full of tall thrifty oak trees, of perhaps
+twenty-five years' growth. They were not much out of gun-shot, and we
+all three distinctly saw them light; and I observed them flap and fold
+their wings as they settled. We walked straight to the spot, and beat it
+five or six times over, not one of our dogs ever drawing, and not one
+bird rising. We could not make it out; my friends thought they had
+treed, and laughed at me when I expressed my belief that they were still
+before us, under our very noses. The ground was covered only by a deep
+bed of sere decaying oak leaves. Well, we went on, and beat all round
+the neighborhood within a quarter of a mile, and did not find a bird,
+when lo! at the end of perhaps half an hour, we heard them calling--
+followed the cry back to that very hollow; the instant we entered it,
+all the three dogs made game, drawing upon three several birds, roaded
+them up, and pointed steady, and we had half an hour's good sport, and
+we were all convinced that the birds had been there all the time. I have
+seen many instances of the same kind, and more particularly with
+wing-tipped birds, but none I think so tangible as this!"
+
+"Well, I am not a convert, Harry; but, as the Chancellor said, I doubt."
+
+"And that I consider not a little, from such a positive wretch as you
+are; but come, we have done breakfast, and it's broad daylight. Come,
+Timothy, on with the bag and belts; he breakfasted before we had got up,
+and gave the dogs a bite."
+
+"Which dogs do you take, Harry; and do you use cartridge?"
+
+"Oh! the setters for the morning; they are the only fellows for the
+stubble; we should be all day with the cockers; even setters, as we must
+break them here for wood shooting, have not enough of speed or dash for
+the open. Cartridges? yes! I shall use a loose charge in my right, and a
+blue cartridge in my left; later in the season I use a blue in my right
+and a red in my left. It just makes the difference between killing with
+both, or with one barrel. The blue kills all of twenty, and the red all
+of thirty-five yards further than loose shot; and they kill clean!"
+
+"Yet many good sportsmen dislike them," Frank replied; "they say they
+ball!"
+
+"They do not now, if you load with them properly; formerly they would do
+so at times, but that defect is now rectified--with the blue and red
+cartridges at least--the green, which are only fit for wild-fowl, or
+deer-shooting, will do so sometimes, but very rarely; and they will
+execute surprisingly. For a bad or uncertain rifle-shot, the green
+cartridge, with SG shot is the thing--twelve good-sized slugs, propelled
+with force enough to go through an inch plank, at eighty yards, within a
+compass of three feet--but no wad must be used, either upon the
+cartridge or between that and the powder; the small end must be inserted
+downward, and the cartridge must be chosen so that the wad at the top
+shall fit the gun, the case being two sizes less than the caliber. With
+these directions no man need make a mistake; and, if he can cover a bird
+fairly, and is cool enough not to fire within twenty yards, he will
+never complain of cartridges, after a single trial. Remember, too, that
+vice versa to the rule of a loose charge, the heavier you load with
+powder, the closer will your cartridge carry. The men who do not like
+cartridges are--you may rely upon it--of the class which prefers
+scattering guns. I always use them, except in July shooting, and I shall
+even put a few red in my pockets, in case the wind should get up in the
+afternoon. Besides which, I always take along two buckshot cartridges,
+in case of happening, as Timothy would say, on some big varmint. I have
+four pockets in my shooting waistcoat, each stitched off into four
+compartments--each of which holds, erect, one cartridge--you cannot
+carry them loose in your pocket, as they are very apt to break. Another
+advantage of this is, that in no way can you carry shot with so little
+inconvenience, as to weight; besides which, you load one-third quicker,
+and your gun never leads!"
+
+"Well! I believe I will take some to-day--but don't you wait for the
+Commodore?"
+
+"No! He drives up, as I told you, from Nyack, where he lands from his
+yacht, and will be here at twelve o'clock to luncheon; if he had been
+coming for the morning shooting, he would have been here ere this. By
+that time we shall have bagged twenty-five or thirty quail, and a ruffed
+grouse or two; besides driving two or three bevies down into the meadows
+and the alder bushes by the stream, which are quite full of woodcock.
+After luncheon, with the Commodore's aid, we will pick up these
+stragglers, and all the timber-doodles!"
+
+In another moment the setters were unchained, and came careering, at the
+top of their speed, into the breakfast room, where Harry stood before
+the fire, loading his double gun, while Timothy was buttoning on his
+left leggin. Frank, meanwhile, had taken up his gun, and quietly sneaked
+out of the door, two flat irregular reports explaining, half a moment
+after, the purport of his absence.
+
+"Well, now, Frank, that is"--expostulated Harry--"that is just the most
+snobbish thing I ever saw you do; aint you ashamed of yourself now, you
+genuine cockney!"
+
+"Not a bit--my gun has not been used these three months, and something
+might have got into the chamber!"
+
+"Something might not, if when you cleaned it last you had laid a wad in
+the centre of a bit of greased rag three inches square and rammed it
+about an inch down the barrel, leaving the ends of the linen hanging
+out. And by running your rod down you could have ascertained the fact,
+without unnecessarily fouling your piece. A gun has no right ever to
+miss fire now; and never does, if you use Westley Richards' caps, and
+diamond gunpowder--putting the caps on the last thing--which has the
+further advantage of being much the safer plan, and seeing that the
+powder is up to the cones before you do so. If it is not so, let your
+hammer down, and give a smart tap to the under side of the breech,
+holding it uppermost, and you will never need a picker; or at least
+almost never. Remember, too, that the best picker in the world is a
+strong needle headed with sealing wax. And now that you have finished
+loading, and I lecturing, just jump over the fence to your right; and
+that footpath will bring us to the stepping-stones across the Ramapo. By
+Jove, but we shall have a lovely morning."
+
+He did so, and away they went, with the dogs following steadily at the
+heel, crossed the small river dry-shod, climbed up the wooded bank by
+dint of hand and foot, and reached the broad brown corn stubble. Harry,
+however, did not wave his dogs to the right-hand and left, but calling
+them in, quietly plodded along the headland, and climbed another fence,
+and crossed a buckwheat stubble, still without beating or disturbing any
+ground, and then another field full of long bents and ragwort, an old
+deserted pasture, and Frank began to grumble, but just then a pair of
+bars gave access to a wide fifty acre lot, which had been wheat, the
+stubble standing still knee deep, and yielding a rare covert.
+
+"Now we are at the far end of our beat, and we have got the wind too in
+the dogs' noses, Master Frank--and so hold up good lads," said Harry.
+And off the setters shot like lightning, crossing and quartering their
+ground superbly.
+
+"There! there! well done, old Chase--a dead stiff point already, and
+Shot backing him as steady as a rail. Step up, Frank, step up quietly,
+and let us keep the hill of them."
+
+They came up close, quite close to the stanch dog, and then, but not
+till then, he feathered and drew on, and Shot came crawling up till his
+nose was but a few inches in the rear of Chase's, whose point he never
+thought of taking from him. Now they are both upon the game. See how
+they frown and slaver, the birds are close below their noses.
+
+Whirr--r--r! "There they go--a glorious bevy!" exclaimed Harry, as he
+cocked his right barrel and cut down the old cock bird, which had risen
+rather to his right hand, with his loose charge--"blaze away, Frank!"
+Bang--bang!--and two more birds came fluttering down, and then he
+pitched his gun up to his eye again, and sent the cartridge after the
+now distant bevy, and to Frank's admiration a fourth bird was keeled
+over most beautifully, and clean killed, while crossing to the right, at
+forty-six yards, as they paced it afterward.
+
+"Now mark! mark, Timothy--mark, Frank!" And shading their eyes from the
+level sunbeams, the three stood gazing steadily after the rapid bevy.
+They cross the pasture, skim very low over the brush fence of the
+cornfield--they disappear behind it they are down! no! no! not yet--they
+are just skirting the summit of the topped maize stalks--now they are
+down indeed, just by that old ruined hovel, where the cat-briers and
+sumac have overspread its cellar and foundation with thick underwood.
+And all the while the sturdy dogs are crouching at their feet unmoving.
+
+"Will you not follow those, Harry?" Forester inquired--"there are at
+least sixteen of them!"
+
+"Not I," said Archer, "not I, indeed, till I have beat this field--I
+expect to put up another bevy among those little crags there in the
+corner, where the red cedars grow--and if we do, they will strike down
+the fence of the buckwheat stubble--that stubble we must make good, and
+the rye beside it, and drive, if possible, all that we find before us to
+the corn field. Don't be impatient, and you'll see in time that I am in
+the right."
+
+No more words were now wasted; the four birds were bagged without
+trouble, and the sportsmen being in the open, were handed over on the
+spot to Tim; who stroked their freckled breasts, and beautifully mottled
+wing-coverts and backs, with a caressing touch, as though he loved them;
+and finally, in true Jack Ketch style, tucked them up severally by the
+neck. Archer was not mistaken in his prognostics--another bevy had run
+into the dwarf cedars from the stubble at the sound of the firing, and
+were roaded up in right good style, first one dog, and then the other,
+leading; but without any jealousy or haste.
+
+They had, however, run so far, that they had got wild, and as there was
+no bottom covert on the crags, had traversed them quite over to the
+open, on the far side--and, just as Archer was in the act of warning
+Forester to hurry softly round and head them, they flushed at thirty
+yards, and had flown some five more before they were in sight, the
+feathery evergreens for a while cutting off the view--the dogs stood
+dead at the sound of their wings. Then, as they came in sight, Harry
+discharged both barrels very quickly--the loose shot first, which
+evidently took effect, for one bird cowered and seemed about to fall,
+but gathered wing again, and went on for the present--the cartridge,
+which went next, although the bevy had flown ten yards further, did its
+work clean, and stopped its bird. Frank fired but once, and killed,
+using his cartridge first, and thinking it in vain to fire the loose
+shot. The remaining birds skimmed down the hill, and lighted in the
+thick bushy hedge-row, as Archer had foreseen.
+
+"So much for Ely!" exclaimed Harry--"had we both used two of them, we
+should have bagged four then. As it is, I have killed one which we shall
+not get; a thing that I most particularly hate."
+
+"That bird will rise again," said Frank.
+
+"Never!" replied the other, "he has one, if not two, shot in him, well
+forward--if I am not much mistaken, before the wing--he is dead now! but
+let us on. These we must follow, for they are on our line; you keep this
+side the fence, and I will cross it with the dogs--come with me,
+Timothy."
+
+In a few minutes more there was a dead point at the hedge-row. "Look to,
+Frank!" "Ay! ay! Poke them out, Tim;" then followed sundry bumps and
+threshings of the briers, and out with a noisy flutter burst two birds
+under Forester's nose. Bang! bang!
+
+"The first shot too quick, altogether," muttered Archer; "Ay, he has
+missed one; mark it, Tim--there he goes down in the corn, by jingo--
+you've got that bird, Frank! That's well! Hold up, Shot"--another point
+within five yards. "Look out again, Frank."
+
+But this time vainly did Tim poke, and thrash, and peer into the bushes
+--yet still Shot stood, stiff as a marble statue--then Chase drew up and
+snuffed about, and pushed his head and forelegs into the matted briers,
+and thereupon a muzzling noise ensued, and forthwith out he came,
+mouthing a dead bird, warm still, and bleeding from the neck and breast.
+
+"Frank, he has got my bird--and shot, just as I told you, through the
+neck and near the great wing joint--good dog! good dog!"
+
+"The devil!"
+
+"Yes, the devil! but look out man, here is yet one more point;" and this
+time ten or twelve birds flushed upon Archer's side; he slew, as usual,
+his brace, and as they crossed, at long distance, Frank knocked down one
+more--the rest flew to the corn-field.
+
+In the middle of the buckwheat they flushed another, and, in the rye,
+another bevy, both of which crossed the stream, and settled down among
+the alders. They reached the corn-field, and picked up their birds
+there, quite as fast as Frank himself desired--three ruffed grouse they
+had bagged, and four rabbits, in a small dingle full of thorns, before
+they reached the corn; and just as the tin horns were sounding for noon
+and dinner from many a neighboring farm, they bagged their thirty-fourth
+quail. At the same moment, the rattle of a distant wagon on the hard
+road, and a loud cheer replying to the last shot, announced the
+Commodore; who pulled up at the tavern door just as they crossed the
+stepping-stones, having made a right good morning's work, with a dead
+certainty of better sport in the afternoon, since they had marked two
+untouched bevies, thirty-five birds at least, beside some ten or twelve
+more stragglers into the alder brakes, which Harry knew to hold--
+moreover, thirty woodcock, as he said, at the fewest.
+
+"Well! Harry," exclaimed Frank, as he set down his gun, and sat down to
+the table, "I must for once knock under--your practice has borne out
+your precepts."
+
+
+THE WOODCOCK
+
+Luncheon was soon discussed, a noble cold quail pie and a spiced round
+of beef, which formed the most essential parts thereof, displaying in
+their rapidly diminished bulk ocular evidence of the extent of
+sportmen's appetites; a single glass of shrub and water followed,
+cheroots were lighted, and forth the comrades sallied, the Commodore
+inquiring as they went what were the prospects of success.
+
+"You fellows," he concluded, "have, I suppose, swept the ground
+completely."
+
+"That you shall see directly," answered Archer; "I shall make you no
+promises. But see how evidently Grouse recollects those dogs of mine,
+though it is nearly a year since they have met; don't you think so,
+A---?"
+
+"To be sure I do," replied the Commodore; "I saw it the first moment you
+came up--had they been strangers he would have tackled them upon the
+instant; and instead of that he began wagging his tail, and wriggling
+about, and playing with them. Oh! depend upon it, dogs think, and
+remember, and reflect far more than we imagine--"
+
+"Oh! run back, Timothy--run back!" here Archer interrupted him--"we
+don't want you this afternoon. Harness the nags and pack the wagon, and
+put them to, at five--we shall be at home by then, for we intend to be
+at Tom's to-night. Now look out, Frank, those three last quail we marked
+in from the hill dropped in the next field, where the ragwort stands so
+thick; and five to one, as there is a thin growth of brushwood all down
+this wall side, they will have run down hither. Why, man alive! you've
+got no copper caps on!"
+
+"By George! no more I have--I took them off when I laid down my gun in
+the house, and forgot to replace them."
+
+"And a very dangerous thing you did in taking them off, permit me to
+assure you. Any one but a fool, or a very young child, knows at once
+that a gun with caps on is loaded. You leave yours on the table without
+caps, and in comes some meddling chap or other, puts on one to try the
+locks, or to frighten his sweetheart, or for some other no less sapient
+purpose, and off it goes! and if it kill no one, it's God's mercy! Never
+do that again, Frank!"
+
+Meanwhile they had arrived within ten yards of the low rickety stone
+wall, skirted by a thin fringe of saplings, in which Archer expected to
+find game--Grouse, never in what might be called exact command, had
+disappeared beyond it.
+
+"Hold up, good dogs!" cried Harry, and as he spoke away went Shot and
+Chase--the red dog, some three yards ahead, jumped on the wall, and, in
+the act of bounding over it, saw Grouse at point beyond. Rigid as stone
+he stood upon that tottering ridge, one hind foot drawn up in the act of
+pointing, for both the fore were occupied in clinging to some trivial
+inequalities of the rough coping, his feathery flag erect, his black eye
+fixed, and his lip slavering; for so hot was the scent that it reached
+his exquisitely fashioned organs, though Grouse was many feet advanced
+between him and the game. Shot backed at the wall-foot, seeing the red
+dog only, and utterly unconscious that the pointer had made the game
+beyond.
+
+"By Jove! but that is beautiful!" exclaimed the Commodore. "That is a
+perfect picture!--the very perfection of steadiness and breaking."
+
+They crossed the wall, and poor Shot, in the rear, saw them no more; his
+instinct strongly, aye! naturally, tempted him to break in, but second
+nature, in the shape of discipline, prevailed; and, though he trembled
+with excitement, he moved not an inch. Grouse was as firm as iron, his
+nose within six inches of a bunch of wintergreen, pointed directly
+downward, and his head cocked a little on one side--they stepped up to
+him, and still on the wall-top, Chase held to his uneasy attitude.
+
+"Now, then," said Harry, "look out, till I kick him up."
+
+No sooner said than done--the toe of his thick shooting-boot crushed the
+slight evergreen, and out whirred, with his white chaps and speckled
+breast conspicuous, an old cock quail. He rose to Forester, but ere that
+worthy had even cocked his gun--for he had now adopted Archer's plan,
+and carried his piece always at half cock, till needed--flew to the
+right across the Commodore; so Frank released his hammer and brought
+down his Manton, while A--- deliberately covered, and handsomely cut
+down the bird at five-and-twenty yards.
+
+Grouse made a movement to run in, but came back instantly when called.
+
+"Just look back, if you please, one moment, before loading," said Harry,
+"for that down-charge is well worth looking at."
+
+And so indeed it was--for there, upon the wall-top, where he had been
+balancing, Chase had contrived to lie down at the gunshot--wagging his
+stern slightly to and fro, with his white forepaws hanging down, and his
+head couched between them, his haunches propped up on the coping stone,
+and his whole attitude apparently untenable for half a minute.
+
+"Now, load away for pity's sake, as quickly as you can; that posture
+must be any thing but pleasant."
+
+This was soon done; inasmuch as the Commodore is not exactly one to
+dally in such matters; and when his locks ticked, as he drew the hammers
+to half-cock, Chase quietly dismounted from his perch, and Shot's head
+and fore-paws appeared above the barrier; but not till Archer's hand
+gave the expected signal did the stanch brutes move on.
+
+"Come, Shot, good dog--it is but fair you should have some part of the
+fun! Seek dead! seek dead! that's it, sir! Toho! steady! Fetch him, good
+lad! Well done!"
+
+In a few minutes' space, four or five more birds came to bag--they had
+run, at the near report, up the wall side among the bushes, and the dogs
+footed them along it, now one and now another taking the lead
+successively, but without any eagerness or raking looking round
+constantly, each to observe his comrades' or his master's movements, and
+pointing slightly, but not steadily, at every foot, till at the last all
+three, in different places, stood almost simultaneously--all three dead
+points.
+
+One bird jumped up to Frank, which he knocked over. A double shot fell
+to the Commodore, who held the centre of the line, and dropped both
+cleverly--the second, a long shot, wing-tipped only. Harry flushed three
+and killed two dean, both within thirty paces, and then covered the
+third bird with his empty barrels--but, though no shot could follow from
+that quarter, he was not to escape scot free, for wheeling short to the
+left hand, and flying high, he crossed the Commodore in easy distance,
+and afterward gave Forester a chance.
+
+"Try him, Frank," halloaed Archer--and "It's no use!" cried A---, almost
+together, just as he raised his gun, and levelled it a good two feet
+before the quail.
+
+But it was use, and Harry's practiced eye had judged the distance more
+correctly than the short sight of the Commodore permitted--the bird
+quailed instantly as the shot struck, but flew on notwithstanding,
+slanting down wind, however, towards the ground, and falling on the
+hill-side at a full hundred yards.
+
+"We shall not get him," Forester exclaimed; "and I am sorry for it,
+since it was a good shot."
+
+"A right good shot," responded Harry, "and we shall get him. He fell
+quite dead; I saw him bounce up, like a ball, when he struck the hard
+ground. But A---'s second bird is only wing-tipped, and I don't think we
+shall get him; for the ground where he fell is very tussockky and full
+of grass, and if he creeps in, as they mostly will do, into some hole in
+the bog-ground, it is ten to one against the best dog in America!"
+
+And so it came to pass, for they did bag Forester's, and all the other
+quail except the Commodore's which, though the dogs trailed him well,
+and worked like Trojans, they could not for their lives make out.
+
+After this little rally they went down to the alders by the stream-side,
+and had enough to do, till it was growing rapidly too dark to shoot--for
+the woodcock were very plentiful--it was sweet ground, too, not for
+feeding only, but for lying, and that, as Harry pointed out, is a great
+thing in the autumn.
+
+The grass was short and still rich under foot, although it froze hard
+every night; but all along the brook's marge there were many small oozy
+bubbling springlets, which it required a stinging night to congeal; and
+round these the ground was poached up by the cattle, and laid bare in
+spots of deep, soft, black loam; and the innumerable chalkings told the
+experienced eye at half a glance, that, where they laid up for the night
+soever, here was their feeding ground, and here it had been through the
+autumn.
+
+But this was not all, for at every ten or twenty paces was a dense tuft
+of willow bushes, growing for the most part upon the higher knolls where
+it was dry and sunny, their roots heaped round with drift wood, from the
+decay of which had shot up a dense tangled growth of cat-briers. In
+these the birds were lying, all but some five or six which had run out
+to feed, and were flushed, fat and large, and lazy, quite in the open
+meadow.
+
+"They stay here later," Harry said, as they bagged the last bird, which,
+be it observed, was the twenty-seventh, "than any where I know. Here I
+have killed them when there was ice thicker than a dollar on all the
+waters round about, and when you might see a thin and smoke-like mist
+boiling up from each springlet. Kill them all off to-day, and you will
+find a dozen fresh birds here to-morrow, and so on for a fortnight--they
+come down from the high ground as it gets too cold for them to endure
+their high and rarified atmosphere, and congregate hither!"
+
+"And why not more in number at a time?" asked A---.
+
+"Ay! there we are in the dark--we do not know sufficiently the habits of
+the bird to speak with certainty. I do not think they are pugnacious,
+and yet you never find more on a feeding ground than it will well
+accommodate for many days, nay weeks, together. One might imagine that
+their migrations would be made en masse, that all the birds upon these
+neighboring hills would crowd down to this spot together, and feed here
+till it was exhausted, and then on--but this is not so! I know fifty
+small spots like this, each a sure find in the summer for three or four
+broods, say from eight to twelve birds. During the summer, when you have
+killed the first lot, no more return--but the moment the frost begins,
+there you will find them--never exceeding the original eight or ten in
+number, but keeping up continually to that mark--and whether you kill
+none at all, or thirty birds a week, there you will always find about
+that number, and in no case any more. Those that are killed off are
+supplied, within two days at farthest, by new comers; yet, so far as I
+can judge, the original birds, if not killed, hold their own, unmolested
+by intruders. Whence the supplies come in--for they must be near
+neighbors by the rapidity of their succession--and why they abstain from
+their favorite grounds in worse locations, remains, and I fear we must
+remain, in the dark. All the habits of the woodcock are, indeed, very
+partially and slightly understood. They arrive here, and breed early in
+the spring--sometimes, indeed, before the snow is off the hills--get
+their young off in June, and with their young are most unmercifully,
+most unsportsmanly, thinned off, when they can hardly fly--such is the
+error, as I think it, of the law--but I could not convince my stanch
+friends, Philo, and J. Cypress, Jr., of the fact, when they bestirred
+themselves in favor of the progeny of their especial favorites, perdix
+virginiana and tetrao umbellus, and did defer the times for slaying them
+legitimately to such a period, that it is in fact next to impossible to
+kill the latter bird at all. But vainly did I plead, and a false
+advocate was Cypress after all, despite his nominal friendship, for that
+unhappy Scolopax, who in July at least deserves his nickname minor, or
+the infant. For, setting joke apart, what a burning shame it is to
+murder the poor little half-fledged younglings in July, when they will
+scarcely weigh six ounces; when they will drop again within ten paces of
+the dog that flushes, or the gun that misses them; and when the heat
+will not allow you even to enjoy the consummation of their slaughter.
+Look at these fellows now, with their gray foreheads, their plump ruddy
+breasts, their strong, well-feathered pinions, each one ten ounces at
+the least. Think how these jolly old cocks tower away, with their shrill
+whistle, through the tree-tops, and twist and dodge with an agility of
+wing and thought-like speed, scarcely inferior to the snipe's or
+swallow's, and fly a half mile if you miss them; and laugh to scorn the
+efforts of any one to bag them, who is not an out-and-outer! No chance
+shot, no stray pellet speaks for these--it must be the charge, the whole
+charge, and nothing but the charge, which will cut down the grown bird
+of October! The law should have said woodcock thou shalt not kill until
+September; quail thou shalt not kill till October, the twenty-fifth if
+you please; partridge thou shalt kill in all places, and at all times,
+when thou canst! and that, as we know, Frank, and A---, that is not
+everywhere or often."
+
+"But, seriously," said the Commodore, "seriously, would you indeed
+abolish summer shooting?"
+
+"Most seriously! most solemnly I would!" Archer responded. "In the first
+place because, as I have said, it is a perfect sin to shoot cock in
+July; and secondly, because no one would, I am convinced, shoot for his
+own pleasure at that season, if it were not a question of now or never.
+Between the intense heat, and the swarms of mosquitoes, and the
+unfitness of that season for the dogs, which can rarely scent their game
+half the proper distance, and the density of the leafy coverts; and
+lastly, the difficulty of keeping the game fresh till you can use it,
+render July shooting a toil, in my opinion, rather than a real pleasure;
+although we are such hunting creatures, that rather than not have our
+prey at all, we will pursue it in all times, and through all
+inconveniences. Fancy, my dear fellows, only fancy what superb shooting
+we should have if not a bird were killed till they were all full grown,
+and fit to kill; fancy bagging a hundred and twenty-five fall woodcock
+in a single autumn day, as we did this very year on a summer's day!"
+
+"Oh! I agree with you completely," said Frank Forester, "but I am afraid
+such a law will never be brought to bear in this country--the very day
+on which cock shooting does not really begin, but is supposed by nine
+tenths of the people to begin--the fourth of July is against it.* [*In
+the State of New York close time for woodcock expires on the last day of
+June--in New Jersey on the fourth of July--leaving the bird lawful prey
+on the 1st and the 5th, respectively.] Moreover, the amateur killers of
+game are so very few, in comparison with the amateur eaters thereof,
+that it is all but impossible to enforce the laws at all upon this
+subject. Woodcock even now are eaten in June--nay, I have heard, and
+believe it to be true, that many hotels in New York serve them up even
+in March and April; quail, this autumn, have been sold openly in the
+markets, many days previous to the expiration of close time. And, in
+fact, sorry I am to say it, as far as eating-houses are in question, the
+game laws are nearly a dead letter.
+
+"In the country, also, I have universally found it to be the case, that
+although the penalty of a breach may be exacted from strangers, no
+farmer will differ with a neighbor, as they call it, for the sake of a
+bird. Whether time, and a greater diffusion of sporting propensities,
+and sporting feelings, may alter this for the better or no, I leave to
+sager and more politic pates than mine. And now I say, Harry, you surely
+do not intend to trundle us off to Tom Draw's to-night without a drink
+at starting? I see Timothy has got the drag up to the door, and the
+horses harnessed, and all ready for a start."
+
+"Yes! yes! all that's true," answered Harry, "but take my word for it,
+the liquor case is not put in yet. Well, Timothy," he went on, as they
+reached the door, "that is right. Have you got everything put up?"
+
+"All but t' gam' bag and t' liquor ca-ase, sur," Tim replied, touching
+his hat gnostically as he spoke; "Ay reckoned ple-ease sur, 'at you'd
+maybe want to fill t' yan oop, and empty t' oother!"
+
+"Very well thought, indeed!" said Archer, winking to Forester the while.
+"Let that boy stand a few minutes to the horses' heads, and come into
+the house yourself and pack the birds up, and fetch us some water."
+
+"T' watter is upon t' table, sur, and t' cigars, and a loight; but Ay'se
+be in wi' you directly. Coom hither, lad till Ay shew thee hoo to guide
+'em; thou munna tooch t' bits for the loife o' thee, but joost stan'
+there anent them--if they stir loike, joost speak to 'em--Ayse hear
+thee!" and he left his charge and entered the small parlor, where the
+three friends were now assembled, with a cheroot apiece already lighted,
+and three tall brimming rummers on the table.
+
+"Look sharp and put the birds up," said Harry, pitching, as he spoke,
+the fine fat fellows right and left out of his wide game pockets, "and
+when that's done fill yourself out a drink, and help us on with our
+great coats."
+
+"What are you going to do with the guns?" inquired the Commodore.
+
+"To carry them uncased and loaded; substituting in my own two buckshot
+cartridges for loose shot," replied Archer. "The Irish are playing the
+very devil through this part of the country--we are close to the line of
+the great Erie railroad--and they are murdering, and robbing, and I know
+not what, for miles around. The last time I was at old Tom's he told me
+that but ten days or a fortnight previously a poor Irish woman, who
+lived in his village, started to pay a visit to her mother by the self
+same road we shall pass to-night; and was found the next morning with
+her person brutally abused, kneeling against a fence stone dead,
+strangled with her own cambric handkerchief. He says, too, that not a
+week passes but some of them are found dead in the meadows, or in the
+ditches, killed in some lawless fray; and no one ever dreams of taking
+any notice, or making any inquiry about the matter!"
+
+"Is it possible? then keep the guns at hand by all means!"
+
+"Yes! but this time we will violate my rule about the copper caps--there
+is no rule, you are aware, but what has some exception--and the
+exception to this of mine is, always take off your copper caps before
+getting into a wagon; the jar will occasionally explode them, an upset
+will undoubtedly. So uncap, Messrs. Forester and A---, and put the
+bright little exploders into your pockets, where they will be both safe
+and handy! And now, birds are in, drinks are in, dogs and guns are in,
+and now let us be off!"
+
+No more words were wasted; the landlord's bill was paid, Frank Forester
+and Timothy got up behind, the Commodore took the front seat, Harry
+sprang, reins in hand, to the box, and off they bowled, with lamps and
+cigars burning merrily, for it was now quite dark, along the well-known
+mountain road, which Archer boasted he could drive as safely in the most
+gloomy night of winter as in a summer noon. And so it proved this time,
+for though he piloted his horses with a cool head and delicate finger
+through every sort of difficulty that a road can offer, up long and
+toilsome hills without a rail between the narrow track and the deep
+precipice, down sharp and stony pitches, over loose clattering bridges,
+along wet marshy levels, he never seemed in doubt or trouble for a
+moment, but talked and laughed away, as if he were a mere spectator.
+
+After they had gone a few miles on their way--"you broke off short,
+Archer," said the Commodore, "in the middle of your dissertation on the
+natural history and habits of the woodcock, turning a propos des bottes
+to the cruelty of killing them in midsummer. In all which, by the way, I
+quite agree with you. But I don't want to lose the rest of your
+lucubrations on this most interesting topic. What do you think becomes
+of the birds in August, after the moult begins?"
+
+"Verily, Commodore, that is a positive poser. Many good sportsmen
+believe that they remain where they were before; getting into the
+thickest and wettest brakes, refusing to rise before the dog, and giving
+out little or no scent!"
+
+"Do you believe this?"
+
+"No; I believe there is a brief migration, but whither I cannot tell you
+with any certainty. Some birds do stay, as they assert; and that a few
+do stay, and do give out enough scent to enable dogs to find them, is a
+proof to me that all do not. A good sportsman can always find a few
+birds even during the moult, and I do not think that birds killed at
+that time are at all worse eating than others. But I am satisfied that
+the great bulk shift their quarters, whither I have not yet fully
+ascertained; but I believe to the small runnels and deep swales which
+are found throughout all the mountain tracts of the middle States; and
+in these, as I believe, they remain dispersed and scattered in such
+small parties that they are not worth looking after, till the frost
+drives them down to their old haunts. A gentleman, whom I can depend on,
+told me once that he climbed Bull Hill one year late in September--Bull
+Hill is one of the loftiest peaks in the Highlands of the Hudson--merely
+to show the prospect to a friend, and he found all the brushwood on the
+summit full of fine autumn cock, not a bird having been seen for weeks
+in the low woodlands at the base. They had no guns with them at the
+time, and some days elapsed before he could again spare a few hours to
+hunt them up; in the meantime frost came, the birds returned to their
+accustomed swamps and levels, and, when he did again scale the rough
+mountain, not a bird rewarded his trouble. This, if true, which I do not
+doubt, would go far to prove my theory correct; but it is not easy to
+arrive at absolute certainty, for if I am right, during that period
+birds are to be found no where in abundance, and a man must be a
+downright Audubon to be willing to go mountain-stalking--the hardest
+walking in the world, by the way--purely for the sake of learning the
+habits of friend Scolopax, with no hope of getting a good bag after
+all."
+
+"How late have you ever killed a cock previous to their great southern
+flight?"
+
+"Never myself beyond the fifteenth of November; but Tom Draw assures me,
+and his asseveration was accidentally corroborated by a man who walked
+along with him, that he killed thirty birds last year in Hell-hole,
+which both of you fellows know, on the thirteenth of December. There had
+been a very severe frost indeed, and the ice on that very morning was
+quite thick, and the mud frozen hard enough to bear in places. But the
+day was warm, bright, and genial, and, as he says, it came into his head
+to see 'if cock was all gone,' and he went to what he knew to be the
+latest ground, and found the very heaviest and finest birds he ever
+saw!"
+
+"Oh! that of course," said A---, "if he found any! Did you ever hear of
+any other bird so late?"
+
+"Yes! later--Mike Sandford, I think, but some Jerseyman or other--killed
+a couple the day after Christmas day, on a long southern slope covered
+with close dwarf cedars, and watered by some tepid springs, not far from
+Pine Brook; and I have been told that the rabbit shooters, who always go
+out in a party between Christmas and New Year's day, almost invariably
+flush a bird or two there in mid-winter. The same thing is told of a
+similar situation on the south-western slope of Staten Island; and I
+believe truly in both instances. These, however, must, I think, be
+looked upon not as cases of late emigration, but as rare instances of
+the bird wintering here to the northward; which I doubt not a few do
+annually. I should like much to know if there is any State of the Union
+where the cock is perennial. I do not see why he should not be so in
+Maryland or Delaware, though I have never heard it stated so to be. The
+great heat of the extreme southern summer drives them north, as surely
+as our northern winter sends them south; and the great emigrations of
+the main flight are northward in February and March, and southward in
+November, varying by a few days only according to the variations of the
+seasons!"
+
+"Well, I trust they have not emigrated hence yet--ha! ha! ha!" laughed
+the Commodore, with his peculiar hearty, deep-toned merriment.
+
+"Not they! not they! I warrant them," said Archer; "but that to-morrow
+must bring forth."
+
+"Come, Harry," exclaimed Forester, after a little pause, "spin us a
+shooting yarn, to kill the time, till we get to fat Tom's."
+
+"A yarn! well, what shall it be?"
+
+"I don't know; oh! yes! yes! I do. You once told me something about a
+wolf-hunt, and then shut up your mouth all at once, and would give me no
+satisfaction."
+
+"A wolf-hunt?" cried the Commodore, "were you ever at a wolf-hunt; and
+here in this country, Harry?"
+
+"Indeed was I, and--"
+
+"The story, then, the story; we must have it."
+
+"Oh! as for story, there is not much--"
+
+"The story! the story!" shouted Frank. "You may as well begin at once,
+for we will have it."
+
+"Oh! very well. All is one to me, but you will be tired enough of it
+before I have got through, so here goes for: A WOLF HUNT ON THE WARWICK
+HILLS," said Archer, and without more ado, spun his yarn as follows:
+
+"There are few wilder regions within the compass of the United States,
+much less in the vicinity of its most populous and cultivated districts,
+than that long line of rocky wood-crowned heights which--at times rising
+to an elevation and exhibiting a boldness of outline that justifies the
+application to them of the term 'mountains', while at others they would
+be more appropriately designated as hills or knolls--run all across the
+Eastern and the Midland States, from the White Mountains westward to the
+Alleghanies, between which mighty chains they form an intermediate and
+continuous link.
+
+"Through this stern barrier, all the great rivers of the States, through
+which they run, have rent themselves a passage, exhibiting in every
+instance the most sublime and boldest scenery, while many of the minor,
+though still noble streams, come forth sparkling and bright and cold
+from the clear lakes and lonely springs embosomed in its dark recesses.
+
+"Possessing, for the most part, a width of eight or ten miles, this
+chain of hills consists, at some points, of a single ridge, rude,
+forest-clad and lonely--at others, of two, three, or even four distinct
+and separate lines of heights, with valleys more or less highly
+cultured, long sheets of most translucent water, and wild mountain
+streams dividing them.
+
+"With these hills--known as the Highlands--where the gigantic Hudson has
+cloven, at some distant day, a devious path for his eternal and
+resistless waters, and by a hundred other names, the Warwick Hills, the
+Greenwoods, and yet farther west, the Blue Ridge and the Kittatinny
+Mountains, as they trend southerly and west across New York and New
+Jersey--with these hills I have now to do.
+
+"Not as the temples meet for the lonely muse, fit habitations for the
+poet's rich imaginings! not as they are most glorious in their natural
+scenery--whether the youthful May is covering their rugged brows with
+the bright tender verdure of the tasseled larch, and the yet brighter
+green of maple, mountain ash and willow--or the full flush of summer has
+clothed their forests with impervious and shadowy foliage, while
+carpeting their sides with the unnumbered blossoms of calmia,
+rhododendron and azalea!--whether the gorgeous hues of autumn gleam
+like the banners of ten thousand victor armies along their rugged
+slopes, or the frozen winds of winter have roofed their headlands with
+inviolate white snow! Not as their bowels teem with the wealth of mines
+which ages of man's avarice may vainly labor to exhaust! but as they are
+the loved abode of many a woodland denizen that has retreated, even from
+more remote and seemingly far wilder fastnesses, to these sequestered
+haunts. I love them, in that the graceful hind conceals her timid fawn
+among the ferns that wave on the lone banks of many a nameless rill,
+threading their hills, untrodden save by the miner, or the infrequent
+huntsman's foot--in that the noble stag frays oftentimes his antlers
+against their giant trees--in that the mighty bear lies hushed in grim
+repose amid their tangled swamps--in that their bushy dingles resound
+nightly to the long-drawn howl of the gaunt famished wolf--in that the
+lynx and wild-cat yet mark their prey from the pine branches--in that
+the ruffed grouse drums, the woodcock bleats, and the quail chirrups
+from every height or hollow--in that, more strange to tell, the noblest
+game of trans-atlantic fowl, the glorious turkey--although, like angels'
+visits, they be indeed but few and far between--yet spread their bronzed
+tails to the sun, and swell and gobble in their most secret wilds.
+
+"I love those hills of Warwick--many a glorious day have I passed in
+their green recesses; many a wild tale have I heard of sylvan sport and
+forest warfare, and many, too, of patriot partisanship in the old
+revolutionary days--the days that tried men's souls--while sitting at my
+noontide meal by the secluded wellhead, under the canopy of some
+primeval oak, with implements of woodland sport, rifle or shot-gun by my
+side, and well-broke setter or stanch hound recumbent at my feet. And
+one of these tales will I now venture to record, though it will sound
+but weak and feeble from my lips, if compared to the rich, racy, quaint
+and humorous thing it was, when flowing from the nature-gifted tongue of
+our old friend Tom Draw."
+
+"Hear! hear!" cried Frank, "the chap is eloquent!"
+
+"It was the middle of the winter 1832--which was, as you will recollect,
+of most unusual severity--that I had gone up to Tom Draw's, with a view
+merely to quail shooting, though I had taken up, as usual, my rifle,
+hoping perhaps to get a chance shot at a deer. The very first night I
+arrived, the old bar-room was full of farmers, talking all very eagerly
+about the ravages which had been wrought among their flocks by a small
+pack of wolves, five or six, as they said, in number, headed by an old
+gaunt famished brute, which had for many years been known through the
+whole region, by the loss of one hind foot, which had been cut off in a
+steel trap.
+
+"More than a hundred sheep had been destroyed during the winter, and
+several calves beside; and what had stirred especially the bile of the
+good yeomen, was that, with more than customary boldness, they had the
+previous night made a descent into the precincts of the village, and
+carried off a fat wether of Tom Draw's.
+
+"A slight fall of snow had taken place the morning I arrived, and, this
+suggesting to Tom's mind a possibility of hunting up the felons, a party
+had gone out and tracked them to a small swamp on the Bellevale
+Mountain, wherein they had undoubtedly made their head-quarters.
+Arrangements had been made on all sides--forty or fifty stout and active
+men were mustered, well armed, though variously, with muskets,
+ducking-guns and rifles--some fifteen couple of strong hounds, of every
+height and color, were collected--some twenty horses saddled and
+bridled, and twice as many sleighs were ready; with provisions,
+ammunition, liquor and blankets, all prepared for a week's bivouac. The
+plan prescribed was in the first place to surround the swamp, as
+silently as possible, with all our forces, and then to force the pack
+out so as to face our volley. This, should the method be successful,
+would finish the whole hunt at once; but should the three-legged savage
+succeed in making his escape, we were to hunt him by relays, bivouacking
+upon the ground wherever night should find us, and taking up the chase
+again upon the following morning, until continual fatigue should wear
+out the fierce brute. I had two horses with me, and Tim Matlock; so I
+made up my mind at once, got a light one-horse sleigh up in the village,
+rigged it with all my bear-skins, good store of whiskey, eatables, and
+so forth, saddled the gray with my best Somerset, holsters and surcingle
+attached, and made one of the party on the instant.
+
+"Before daylight we started, a dozen mounted men leading the way, with
+the intent to get quite round the ridge, and cut off the retreat of
+these most wily beasts of prey, before the coming of the rear-guard
+should alarm them--and the remainder of the party, sleighing it merrily
+along, with all the hounds attached to them. The dawn was yet in its
+first gray dimness when we got into line along the little ridge which
+bounds that small dense brake on the northeastern side--upon the
+southern side the hill rose almost inaccessibly in a succession of short
+limestone ledges--westward the open woods, through which the hounds and
+footmen were approaching, sloped down in a long easy fall, into the deep
+secluded basin, filled with the densest and most thorny coverts, and in
+the summer time waist deep in water, and almost inaccessible, though now
+floored with a sheet of solid ice, firm as the rocks around it--due
+northward was an open field, dividing the wolf-dingle from the mountain
+road by which we always travel.
+
+"Our plot had been well laid, and thus far had succeeded. I, with eleven
+horsemen, drawn up in easy pistol shot one of the other, had taken our
+ground in perfect silence; and, as we readily discovered, by the
+untrodden surface of the snow, our enemies were as yet undisturbed. My
+station was the extreme left of our line, as we faced westward, close to
+the first ridge of the southern hill; and there I sat in mute
+expectancy, my holsters thrown wide open, my Kuchenreuters loaded and
+cocked, and my good ounce-ball rifle lying prepared within the hollow of
+my arm.
+
+"Within a short half hour I saw the second party, captained by our
+friend Garry, coming up one by one, and forming silently and promptly
+upon the hill side--and directly after I heard the crash and shout of
+our beaters, as they plunged into the thicket at its westward end. So
+far as I could perceive, all had gone well. Two sides, my own eyes told
+me, were surrounded, and the continuous line in which the shouts ran all
+along the farther end, would have assured me, if assurance had been
+needful, for Tom himself commanded in that quarter, that all was
+perfectly secure on that side. A Jerseyman, a hunter of no small repute,
+had been detached with a fourth band to guard the open fields upon the
+north; due time had been allotted to him, and, as we judged, he was upon
+his ground. Scarce had the first yell echoed through the forest before
+the pattering of many feet might be heard, mingled with the rustling of
+the matted boughs throughout the covert--and as the beaters came on, a
+whole host of rabbits, with no less than seven foxes, two of them gray,
+came scampering through our line in mortal terror; but on they went
+unharmed, for strict had been the orders that no shot should be fired,
+save at the lawful objects of the chase. Just at this moment I saw
+Garry, who stood a hundred feet above me on the hill, commanding the
+whole basin of the swamp, bring up his rifle. This was enough for me--my
+thumb was on the cock, the nail of my forefinger pressed closely on the
+trigger-guard. He lowered it again, as though he had lost sight of his
+object--raised it again with great rapidity, and fired. My eye was on
+the muzzle of his piece, and just as the bright stream of flame glanced
+from it, distinctly visible in the dim of morning twilight, before my
+ear had caught the sound of the report, a sharp long snarl rose from the
+thicket, announcing that a wolf was wounded. Eagerly, keenly did I
+listen; but there came no further sound to tell me of his whereabouts.
+
+"'I hit him,' shouted Garry, 'I hit him then, I swon; but I guess not so
+badly, but he can travel still. Look out you, Archer, he's squatted in
+the thick there, and won't stir 'till they get close a top on him.'
+
+"While he was speaking yet, a loud and startling shout arose from the
+open field, announcing to my ear upon the instant that one or more had
+broken covert at some unguarded spot, as it was evident from the absence
+of any firing. The leader of our squad was clearly of the same opinion;
+for, motioning to us to spread our line a little wider, he galloped off
+at a tremendous rate, spurning the snowballs high into the air,
+accompanied by three of his best men, to stop the gap which had been
+left through the misapprehension of the Jerseyman.
+
+"This he accomplished; but not until the great wolf, wilier than his
+comrades, had got off unharmed. He had not moved five minutes before a
+small dark bitch-wolf broke away through our line, at the angle furthest
+from my station, and drew a scattering volley from more than half our
+men--too rapid and too random to be deadly--though several of the balls
+struck close about her, I thought she had got off scot free; but Jem
+McDaniel--whom you know--a cool, old steady hand, had held his fire, and
+taking a long quiet aim, lodged his ball fairly in the centre of her
+shoulders--over she went, and over, tearing the snow with tooth and claw
+in her death agony; while fancying, I suppose, that all our guns were
+emptied--for, by my life, I think the crafty brutes can almost reason--
+out popped two more! one between me and my right hand man--the other, a
+large dog, dragging a wounded leg behind him, under my horse's very
+feet. Bob made a curious demi-volte, I do assure you, as the dark
+brindled villain darted between his fore legs with an angry snarl; but
+at a single word and slight admonition of the curb, stood motionless as
+though he had been carved in marble. Quickly I brought my rifle up,
+though steadily enough, and--more, I fancy, by good luck than
+management--planted my bullet in the neck, just where the skull and
+spine unite, so that he bounced three feet at least above the frozen
+snow, and fell quite dead, within twelve paces of the covert. The other
+wolf, which had crept out to my right hand, was welcomed by the almost
+simultaneous fire of three pieces, one of which only lodged its bullet,
+a small one by the way--eighty or ninety only to the pound--too light
+entirely to tell a story, in the brute's loins.
+
+"He gave a savage yell enough as the shot told; and, for the first
+twenty or thirty yards, dragged his hind quarters heavily; but, as he
+went on, he recovered, gathering headway very rapidly over the little
+ridge, and through the open woodland, toward a clear field on the
+mountain's brow. Just as this passed, a dozen shots were fired, in a
+quick running volley, from the thicket, just where an old cart-way
+divides it; followed, after a moment's pause, by one full, round report,
+which I knew instantly to be the voice of old Tom's musket; nor did I
+err, for, while its echoes were yet vocal in the leafless forest, the
+owner's jovial shout was heard--
+
+"'Wiped all your eyes, boys! all of them, by the Etarnal!--Who-whoop for
+our side!--and I'll bet horns for all on us, old leather-breeches has
+killed his'n.'
+
+"This passed so rapidly--in fact it was all nearly simultaneous--that
+the fourth wolf was yet in sight, when the last shot was fired. We all
+knew well enough that the main object of our chase had for the time
+escaped us!--the game was all afoot!--three of them slain already; nor
+was there any longer aught to be gained by sticking to our stations. So,
+more for deviltry than from entertaining any real hope of overtaking
+him, I chucked my rifle to the nearest of the farmers, touched old Bob
+with the spur, and went away on a hard gallop after the wounded
+fugitive, who was now plodding onward at the usual long loping canter of
+his tribe. For about half a mile the wood was open, and sloped gently
+upward, until it joined the open country, where it was bounded by a high
+rugged fence, made in the usual snake fashion, with a huge heavy
+top-rail. This we soon reached; the wolf, which was more hurt than I had
+fancied, beginning to lag grievously, crept through it scarcely a
+hundred yards ahead of me, and, by good luck, at a spot where the top
+rail had been partially dislodged, so that Bob swept over it, almost
+without an effort, in his gallop; though it presented an impenetrable
+rampart to some half dozen of the horsemen who had followed. I was now
+in a cleared lot of some ten acres, forming the summit of the hill,
+which, farther on, sunk steeply into a dark ravine full of thick
+brushwood, with a small verge of thinly growing coppice not more than
+twenty yards in width, on tolerably level ground, within the low
+stone-wall which parted it from the cultivated land. I felt that I was
+now upon my vantage ground; and you may be sure, Frank, that I spared
+not the spurs; but the wolf, conscious probably of the vicinity of some
+place of safety, strained every nerve and ran, in fact, as if he had
+been almost unwounded; so that he was still twelve or fourteen paces
+from me when he jumped on the wall.
+
+"Once over this, I well knew he was safe; for I was thoroughly
+acquainted with the ground, and was of course aware that no horse could
+descend the banks of the precipitous ravine. In this predicament, I
+thought I might as well take a chance at him with one of my good
+pistols, though of course with faint hopes of touching him. However, I
+pulled out the right hand nine-inch barrel, took a quick sight, and let
+drive at him; and, much to my delight, the sound was answered by the
+long snarling howl, which I had that day heard too often to doubt any
+more its meaning. Over he jumped, however, and the wall covering him
+from my sight, I had no means of judging how badly he was hurt; so on I
+went, and charged the wall with a tight rein, and a steady pull; and
+lucky for me was it, that I had a steady pull; for under the lee of the
+wall there was a heap of rugged logs into which Bob plunged gallantly,
+and, in spite of my hard hold on him, floundered a moment, and went
+over. Had I been going at top speed, a very nasty fall must have been
+the immediate consequence--as it was, both of us rolled over; but with
+small violence, and on soft snow, so that no harm was done.
+
+"As I came off, however, I found myself in a most unpleasant
+neighborhood; for my good friend the wolf, hurt pretty badly by the last
+shot, had, as it seemed, ensconced himself among the logs, whence Bob's
+assault and subsequent discomfiture had somewhat suddenly dislodged him;
+so that, as I rolled over on the snow, I found myself within six feet of
+my friend, seemingly very doubtful whether to fight or fly! But, by good
+luck, my bullet had struck him on the hip-bone, and being of a rather
+large calibre, had let his claret pretty freely loose, besides
+shattering the bone, so that he was but in poor fighting trim; and I had
+time to get back to the gray--who stood snorting and panting, up to his
+knees in snow and rubbish, but without offering to stir--to draw my
+second pistol, and to give Isegrin--as the Germans call him--the coup de
+grace, before he could attain the friendly shelter of the dingle, to
+which with all due speed he was retreating. By this time all our
+comrades had assembled. Loud was the glee--boisterous the applause,
+which fell especially to me, who had performed with my own hand the
+glorious feat of slaying two wolves in one morning; and deep the cups of
+applejack, Scotch whiskey, and Jamaica spirits, which flowed in rich
+libations, according to the tastes of the compotators, over the
+slaughtered quarry.
+
+"Breakfast was produced on the spot; cold salt pork, onions, and hard
+biscuit forming the principal dishes, washed down by nothing weaker than
+the pure ardent! Not long, however, did fat Tom permit us to enjoy our
+ease.
+
+"'Come, boys," he shouted, "no lazin' here; no gormandizin'--the worst
+part of our work's afore us; the old lame devil is afoot, and five miles
+off by now. We must get back, and lay the hounds on, right stret off--
+and well if the scent an't cold now! He's tuk right off toward
+Duckcedars'--for so Tom ever calls Truxedo Pond--a lovely
+crescent-shaped lakelet deep in the bosom of the Greenwoods--'so off
+with you, Jem, down by the road, as hard as you can strick with ten of
+your boys in sleighs, and half the hounds; and if you find his tracks
+acrost the road, don't wait for us, but stick right arter him. You,
+Garry, keep stret down the old road with ten dogs and all the plunder--
+we'll meet at night, I reckon.'
+
+"No sooner said than done! the parties were sent off with the relays.
+This was on Monday morning--Tom and I, and some thirteen others, with
+eight couple of the best dogs, stuck to his slot on foot. It was two
+hours at least, so long had he been gone, before a single hound spoke to
+it, and I had begun well nigh to despair; but Tom's immense sagacity,
+which seemed almost to know instinctively the course of the wily savage,
+enabling us to cut off the angles of his course, at last brought us up
+somewhat nearer to him. At about noon, two or three of the hounds
+opened, but doubtfully and faintly. His slot, however, showed that they
+were right, and lustily we cheered them on! Tom, marvelling the while
+that we heard not the cry of Jem's relay.
+
+"'For I'll be darned,' he said, 'if he hasn't crossed the road long
+enough since; and that dumb nigger, Jem's not had the sense to stick to
+him!'
+
+"For once, however, the fat man was wrong; for, as it appeared when we
+neared the road, the wolf had headed back, scared doubtless by some
+injudicious noise of our companions, and making a wide ring, had crossed
+three miles below the spot where Jem was posted. This circuit we were
+forced to make, as at first sight we fancied he had headed altogether
+back, and it was four o'clock before we got upon his scent, hot, fresh,
+and breast-high; running toward the road, that is, due eastward from the
+covert whence he had bolted in the morning. Nor were our friends
+inactive; for, guided by the clamors of our pack, making the forest
+musical, they now held down the road; and, as the felon crossed, caught
+a long view of him as he limped over it, and laid the fresh hounds on.
+
+"A brilliant rally followed--we calling off our wearied dogs, and
+hasting to the lower road, where we found Garry with the sleighs, and
+dashing off in our turn through all sorts of by-paths and wood-roads to
+head them once again! This, with much labor, we effected; but the full
+winter-moon had risen, and the innumerable stars were sparkling in the
+frosty skies, when we flogged off the hounds--kindled our night fires--
+prepared our evening meal, feasted, and spread our blankets, and slept
+soundly under no warmer canopy than the blue firmament--secure that our
+lame friend would lie up for the night at no great distance. With the
+first peep of dawn we were again afoot, and, the snow still befriending
+us, we roused him from a cedar-brake at about nine o'clock, cut him off
+three times with fresh dogs and men, the second day, and passed the
+night, some sixteen miles from home, in the rude hovel of a charcoal
+burner.
+
+"Greater excitement I cannot imagine, than that wild, independent
+chase!--sometimes on foot, cheering the hounds through swamp and dingle,
+over rough cliffs and ledges where foot of horse could avail nothing.
+Sometimes on horseback, galloping merrily through the more open
+woodlands. Sometimes careering in the flying sleigh, to the gay music of
+its bells, along the wild wood-paths! Well did we fare, too--ay,
+sumptuously!--for our outskirters, though they reserved their rifles for
+the appropriate game, were not so sparing with the shot-gun; so that,
+night after night, our chaldron reeked with the mingled steam of rabbit,
+quail, and partridge, seethed up a la Meg Merrilies, with fat pork,
+onions, and potatoes--by the Lord Harry! Frank, a glorious and unmatched
+consummee.
+
+"To make, however, a long tale short--for every day's work, although
+varied to the actors by thousands of minute but unnarratable
+particulars, would appear but as a repetition of the last, to the mere
+listener--to make a long tale short, on the third day he doubled back,
+took us directly over the same ground--and in the middle of the day, on
+Saturday, was roused in view by the leading hounds, from the same little
+swamp in which the five had harbored during the early winter. No man was
+near the hounds when he broke covert. But fat Tom, who had been detached
+from the party to bring up provisions from the village, was driving in
+his sleigh steadily along the road, when the sharp chorus of the hounds
+aroused him. A minute after, the lame scoundrel limped across the
+turnpike, scant thirty yards before him. Alas! Tom had but his
+double-barrel, one loaded with buck shot, the other merely prepared for
+partridge--he blazed away, however, but in vain! Out came ten couple on
+his track, hard after him; and old Tom, cursing his bad luck, stood to
+survey the chase across the open.
+
+"Strange was the felon's fate! The first fence, after he had crossed the
+road, was full six feet in height, framed of huge split logs, piled so
+close together that, save between the two topmost rails, a small dog
+even could have found no passage. Full at this opening the wolf dashed,
+as fresh, Tom said, as though he had not run a yard; but as he struggled
+through it, his efforts shook the top rails from the yokes, and the huge
+piece of timber falling across his loins, pinned him completely! At a
+mile off I heard his howl myself, and the confused and savage hubbub, as
+the hounds front and rear, assailed him.
+
+"Hampered although he was, he battled it out fiercely--ay, heroically--
+as six of our best hounds maimed for life, and one slain outright,
+testified.
+
+"Heavens! how the fat man scrambled across the fence! he reached the
+spot, and, far too much excited to reload his piece and quietly blow out
+the fierce brute's brains, fell to belaboring him about the head with
+his gun-stock, shouting the while and yelling; so that the din of his
+tongue, mixed with the snarls and long howls of the mangled savage, and
+the fierce baying of the dogs, fairly alarmed me, as I said before, at a
+mile's distance.
+
+"As it chanced, Timothy was on the road close by, with Peacock; I caught
+sight of him, mounted, and spurred on fiercely to the rescue; but when I
+reached the hill's brow, all was over. Tom, puffing and panting like a
+grampus in shoal water, covered--garments and face and hands--with
+lupine gore, had finished his huge enemy, after he had destroyed his
+gun, with what he called a stick, but what you and I, Frank, should term
+a fair-sized tree; and with his foot upon the brindled monster's neck
+was quaffing copious rapture from the neck of a quart bottle--once full,
+but now well nigh exhausted--of his appropriate and cherished beverage.*
+[*The facts and incidents of the lame wolf's death are strictly true,
+although they were not witnessed by the writer.] Thus fell the last wolf
+on the Hills of Warwick!
+
+"There, I have finished my yarn, and in good time," cried Harry, "for
+here we are at the bridge, and in five minutes more we shall be at old
+Tom's door."
+
+"A right good yarn!" said Forester; "and right well spun, upon my word."
+
+"But is it a yarn?" asked A---, "or is it intended to be the truth?"
+
+"Oh! the truth," laughed Frank, "the truth, as much as Archer can tell
+the truth; embellished, you understand, embellished!"
+
+"The truth, strictly," answered Harry, quietly--"the truth not
+embellished. When I tell personal adventures, I am not in the habit of
+decorating them with falsehood."
+
+"I had no idea," responded the Commodore, "that there had been any
+wolves here so recently."
+
+"There are wolves here now," said Archer, "though they are scarce and
+wary. It was but last year that I rode down over the back-bone of the
+mountain, on the Pompton road, in the nighttime, and that on the third
+of July, and one fellow followed me along the road till I got quite down
+into the cultivated country."
+
+"The devil he did!"
+
+"How did you know he was following you?" exclaimed Frank and the
+Commodore, almost in a breath.
+
+"Did you see him?"
+
+"Not I--but I heard him howl half a dozen times, and each time nearer
+than before. When I got out of the hills he was not six hundred yards
+behind me."
+
+"Pleasant, that! Were you armed? What did you do?"
+
+"It was not really so unpleasant, after all--for I knew that he would
+not attack me at that season of the year. I had my pistols in my
+holsters; and for the rest, I jogged steadily along, taking care to keep
+my nag in good wind for a spirt, if it should be needed. I knew that for
+three or four miles I could outrun him, if it should come to the worst,
+though in the end a wolf can run down the fastest horse; and, as every
+mile brought me nearer to the settlement, I did not care much about it.
+Had it been winter, when the brutes are hard pressed for food, and the
+deep snows are against a horse's speed, it would be a very different
+thing. Hurrah! here we are! Hurrah! fat Tom! ahoy! a-ho-oy!"
+
+
+THE SUPPER PARTY
+
+Blithe, loud and hearty was the welcome of fat Tom, when by the clear
+view halloa with which Harry drove up to the door at a spanking trot,
+the horses stopping willingly at the high well-known stoop, he learned
+who were these his nocturnal visitors. There was a slight tinge of
+frostiness in the evening air, and a bright blazing fire filled the
+whole bar-room with a cheerful merry light, and cast a long stream of
+red lustre from the tall windows, and half-open doorway, but in an
+instant all that escaped from the last mentioned aperture was totally
+obstructed, as if the door had been pushed to, by the huge body of mine
+host.
+
+"Why, darn it," he exclaimed, "if that beant Archer! and a hull grist of
+boys he's brought along with him, too, any how. How are you, Harry,
+who've you got along? It's so etarnal thunderin' dark as I carnt see 'em
+no how!"
+
+"Frank and the Commodore, that's all," Archer replied, "and how are you,
+old Corporation?"
+
+"Oh! oh! I'm most darned glad as you've brought A---; you might have
+left that other critter to home, though, jest as well--we doosn't want
+him blowin' out his little hide here; lazin' about, and doin' nothin'
+day nor night but eat and grumble; and drink, and drink, as if he'd got
+a meal-sack in his little guts. Why, Timothy, how be you?" he
+concluded, smiting him on the back a downright blow, that would have
+almost felled an ox, as he was getting out the baggage.
+
+"Doant thee noo, Measter Draa," expostulated Tim, "behaave thyself, man,
+or Ay'se give thee soomat thou woant loike, I'm thinking. Noo! send oot
+yan o' t' nagers, joost to stand till t' nags till Ay lift oot t'
+boxes!"
+
+"A nigger, is it? darn their black skins! there was a dozen here jest
+now, a blockin' up the fire-side, and stinkin' so no white man could
+come nearst it, till I got an axe-handle, half an hour or so since, and
+cleared out the heap of them! Niggers! they'll be here all of them
+torights, I warrant; where you sees Archer, there's never no scarceness
+of dogs and niggers. But come, walk in boys! walk in, anyhow--Jem'll be
+here to rights, and he's worth two niggers any day, though he's
+black-fleshed, I guess, if one was jest to skin the etarnal creatur."
+
+Very few minutes passed before they were all drawn up round the fire,
+Captain Reade and two or three more making room for them, as they pulled
+up their chairs about the glowing hearth--having hung up their coats and
+capes against the wall.
+
+"You'll be here best, boys," said Tom, "for a piece--the parlor fire's
+not been lit yet this fall, and it is quite cold nights now--but
+Brower'll kindle it up agin supper, for you'll be wantin' to eat, all of
+you, I reckon, you're sich darned everlastin' gormandizers."
+
+"That most undoubtedly we shall," said Frank, "for it's past eight now,
+and the deuce a mouthful have we put into our heads since twelve."
+
+"Barrin' the liquor, Frank! barrin' the liquor--now don't lie! don't
+lie, boy, so ridic'lous--as if I'd known you these six years, and then
+was a goin' to believe as you'd not drinked since noon!"
+
+"Why, you old hogshead, you! who wants you to believe anything of the
+kind--we had one drink at Tom's, your cousin's, when we started, but
+deuce the drop since."
+
+"That's just the reason why you're so snarlish, then, I reckon! Your
+coppers is got bilin', leastwise if they beant all biled out--you'd best
+drink stret away, I guess, afore the bottom of the biler gits left bare
+--for if it does, and it's red hot now, boy, you'll be a blowin' up,
+like an old steamboat, when you pumps in fresh water."
+
+"Well, Tom," said Archer, "I do not think it would be a bad move to take
+a drop of something, and a cracker; for I suppose we shall not get
+supper much short of two hours; and I'm so deuced hungry, that if I
+don't get something just to take off the edge, I shall not be able to
+eat when it does come!"
+
+"I'll make a pitcher of egg nog; A--- drinks egg nog, I guess, although
+he's the poorest drinkin' man I ever did see. Now, Brower, look alive--
+the fire's lit, is it? Well, then, jump now and feed them poor starvin'
+bags-a-bones, as Archer calls dogs, and tell your mother to git supper.
+Have you brought anything along to eat or drink, boys--I guess we
+haven't nothin' in the house!"
+
+"Oh! you be hanged," said Harry, "I've brought a round of cold spiced
+beef, but I'm not going to cut that up for supper; we shall want it to
+take along for luncheon--you must get something! Oh! by the way, you may
+let the girls pick half a dozen quail, and broil them, if you choose!"
+
+"Quail! do you say? and where'll I git quail, I'd be pleased to know?"
+
+"Out of that gamebag," answered Harry, deliberately, pointing to the
+well filled plump net which Timothy had just brought in and hung up on
+the pegs beside the box-coats. Without a word or syllable the old chap
+rushed to the wall, seized it, and scarcely pausing to sweep out of the
+way a large file of "The Spirit," and several numbers of "The Register,"
+emptied it on the table.
+
+"Where the plague, Archer, did you kill them?" he asked, "you didn't
+kill all them to-day, I guess! One, two, three--why, there's
+twenty-seven cock, and forty-nine quail! By gin! here's another; just
+fifty quail, three partridge, and six rabbits; well that's a most
+all-fired nice mess, I swon; if you killed them today you done right
+well, I tell you--you won't get no such mess of birds here now--but you
+was two days killing these, I guess!"
+
+"Not we, Tom! Frank and I drove up from York last night, and slept at
+young Tom's, down the valley--we were out just as soon as it was light,
+and got the quail, all except fifteen or sixteen, the ruffed grouse and
+four hares, before twelve o'clock. At twelve the Commodore came up from
+Nyack, where he left his yacht, and joined us; we got some luncheon,
+went out again at one, and between that and five bagged all the cock,
+the balance, as you would call it, of the quail, and the other two
+bunnies."
+
+"Well, then, you made good work of it, I tell you, and you won't do
+nothin' like that agin this winter--not in Warwick; but I won't touch
+them quail--it's a sin to break that bunch--but you don't never care to
+take the rabbits home, and the old woman's got some beautiful fresh
+onions--she'll make a stew of them--a smother, as you call it, in a
+little less than no time, Archer; and I've got half a dozen of them big
+gray snipe--English snipe--that I killed down by my little run'-side;
+you'll have them roasted with the guts in, I guess! and then there's a
+pork-steak and sassagers--and if you don't like that, you can jist go
+without. Here, Brower, take these to your mother, and tell her to git
+supper right stret off--and you tell Emma Jane to make some buckwheat
+cakes for A---! he can't sup no how without buckwheat cakes; and I sets
+a great store by A---! I does, by G--! and you needn't laugh, boys, for
+I doos a darned sight more than what I doos by you."
+
+"That's civil, at all events, and candid," replied Frank; "and it's
+consolatory, too, for I can fancy no greater reproach to a man, than to
+be set store on by you. I do not comprehend at all, how A--- bears up
+under it. But come, do make that egg-nog that you're chattering about."
+
+"How will I make it, Harry--with beer, or milk, or cider?"
+
+"All three! now be off, and don't jaw any more!" answered Archer--
+"asking such silly questions, as if you did not know better than any of
+us."
+
+In a few minutes the delicious compound was prepared, and, with a plate
+of toasted crackers and some right good Orange County butter, was set on
+a small round stand before the fire; while from the neighboring kitchen
+rich fumes began to load the air, indicative of the approaching supper.
+In the mean time, the wagon was unloaded; Timothy bustled to and fro;
+the parlor was arranged; the bed-rooms were selected by that worthy; and
+everything set out in its own place, so that they could not possibly
+have been more comfortable in their own houses. The horses had been duly
+cleaned, and clothed, and fed; the dogs provided with abundance of dry
+straw, and a hot mess of milk and meal; and now, in the far corner of
+the bar-room, the indefatigable varlet was cleaning the three double
+guns, as scientifically as though he had served his apprenticeship to a
+gunsmith.
+
+Just at this moment a heavy foot was heard upon the stoop, succeeded by
+a whining and a great scratching at the door. "Here comes that Indian,
+Jem," cried Tom, and as he spoke the door flew open, and in rushed old
+Whino, the tall black and tan foxhound, and Bonnybelle, and Blossom, and
+another large blue-mottled bitch, of the Southern breed. It was a
+curious sight to observe by how sudden and intuitive an instinct the
+hounds rushed up to Archer, and fawned upon him, jumping up with their
+forepaws upon his knees, and thrusting their bland smiling faces almost
+into his face; as he, nothing loath, nor repelling their caresses,
+discoursed most eloquent dog-language to them, until, excited beyond all
+measure, old Whino seated himself deliberately on the floor, raised his
+nose toward the ceiling, and set up a long, protracted, and most
+melancholy howl, which, before it had attained, however, to its grand
+climax, was brought to a conclusion by being converted into a sharp and
+treble yell! a consummation brought about by a smart application of
+Harry's double-thonged four-horse whip, wielded with all the power of
+Tom's right arm, and accompanied by a "Git out, now--the whole grist!
+Kennel! now, kennel! out with them, Jem, consarn you; out with them, and
+yourself, too! out of this, or I'll put the gad about you, you white
+Deckerin' nigger you!"
+
+"Come back, when you have put them up, Jem; and mind you don't let them
+be where they can get at the setters, or they'll be fighting like the
+devil," interposed Archer--"I want to have a chat with you. By-the-by,
+Tom, where's Dash--you'd better look out, or the Commodore's dog,
+Grouse, will eat him before morning--mine will not quarrel with him, but
+Grouse will to a certainty."
+
+"Then for a sartainty I'll shoot Grouse, and wallop Grouse's master, and
+that 'ill be two right things done one mornin'; the first would be a
+most darned right one, any how, and kind too! for then A--- would be
+forced to git himself a good, nice setter dog, and not go shootin' over
+a great old fat bustin' pinter, as isn't worth so much as I be to hunt
+birds!"
+
+"Ha! ha! ha!" shouted the Commodore, whom nothing can, by any earthly
+means, put out of temper, "ha! ha! ha! I should like to see you shoot
+Grouse, Tom, for all the store you set by me, you'd get the worst of
+that game. You had better take Archer's advice, I can tell you."
+
+"Archer's advice, indeed! it's likely now that I'd have left my nice
+little dog to be spiled by your big brutes, now aint it? Come, come,
+here's supper."
+
+"Get something to drink, Jem, along with Timothy, and come in when we've
+got through supper."
+
+"Yes, sir," replied the knight of the cut-throat; "I've got some news to
+tell you, too, Tom, if you'll wait a bit."
+
+"Cuss you, and your news too," responded Tom, "you're sich a thunderin'
+liar, there's no knowin' when you do speak truth. We'll not be losin'
+our supper for no lies, I guess! Leastways I won't! Come Archer."
+
+And with a right good appetite they walked into the parlor; every thing
+was in order; every article placed just as it had been when Frank went
+up to spend his first week in the Woodlands; the gun-case stood on the
+same chairs below the window; the table by the door was laid out with
+the same display of powder-flasks, shot-pouches, and accoutrements of
+all sizes. The liquor-stand was placed by Harry's chair, open,
+containing the case-bottles, the rummers being duly ranged upon the
+board, which was well lighted by four tall wax candles, and being laid
+with Harry's silver, made quite a smart display. The rabbits smoked at
+the head, smothered in a rich sauce of cream, and nicely shredded
+onions; the pork chops, thin and crisply broiled, exhaled rich odors at
+the bottom; the English snipe, roasted to half a turn, and reposing on
+their neat squares of toast, were balanced by a dish of well-fried
+sausages, reclining on a bed of mashed potatoes; champagne was on the
+table, unresined and unwired, awaiting only one touch of the knife to
+release the struggling spirit from its transparent prison. Few words
+were spoken for some time, unless it were a challenge to champagne, the
+corks of which popped frequently and furious; or a request for another
+snipe, or another spoonful of the sauce; while all devoted themselves to
+the work in hand with a sincere and business-like earnestness of
+demeanor, that proved either the excellence of Tom Draw's cookery, or
+the efficacy of the Spartan sauce which the sportsmen had brought to
+assist them at their meal. The last rich drops of the fourth flask were
+trickling into Tom's wide-lipped rummer, when Harry said:
+
+"Come, we have done, I think, for one night; let's have the eatables
+removed, and we will have a pipe, and hear what Jem has got to say; and
+you have told us nothing about birds, either, you old elephant; what do
+you mean by it? That's right, Tim, now bring in my cigars, and Mr.
+Forester's cheroots, and cold iced water, and boiling-hot water, and
+sugar, out of my box, and lemons. The shrub is here, and the Scotch
+whiskey; will you have another bottle of champagne, Tom? No! Well, then,
+look sharp, Timothy, and send Jem in."
+
+And thereupon Jem entered, thumbing his hat assiduously, and sat down in
+the corner, by the window, where he was speedily accommodated with a
+supply of liquor, enough to temper any quantity of clay.
+
+"Well, Jem," said Archer, "unbutton your bag now; what's the news?"
+
+"Well, Mr. Aircher, it ben't no use to tell you on't, with Tom, there,
+puttin' a body out, and swearin' it's a lie, and dammin' a chap up and
+down. It ben't no use to tell you, and yet I'd kind o' like to, but then
+you won't believe a fellow, not one on you!"
+
+"In course not," answered Forester; and at the same instant Tom struck
+in likewise--
+
+"It's a lie, afore you tell it; it's a lie, cuss you, and you knows it.
+I'd sooner take a nigger's word than yours, Jem, any how, for the darned
+niggers will tell the truth when they can't git no good by lyin', but
+you, you will lie all times! When the truth would do the best, and you
+would tell it if you could, you can't help lyin'!"
+
+"Shut up, you old thief; shut up instantly, and let the man speak, will
+you; I can see by his face that he has got something to tell; and as for
+lying, you beat him at it any day."
+
+Tom was about to answer, when Harry, who had been eagerly engaged in
+mixing a huge tumbler-full of strong cold shrub punch, thrust it under
+his nose, and he, unable to resist the soft seductive odor, seized it
+incontinently, and neither spoke nor breathed again until the bottom of
+the rummer was brought parallel to the ceiling; then, with a deep
+heart-felt sigh, he set it down; and, with a calm placid smile,
+exclaimed, "Tell on, Jem." Whereupon that worthy launched into his full
+tide of narrative, as follows:
+
+"Well, you sees, Mr. Aircher, I tuk up this mornin' clean up the old
+crick side, nigh to Vernon, and then I turned in back of old Squire
+Vandergriff's, and druv the mountains clear down here till I reached
+Rocky Hill; I'd pretty good sport, too, I tell you; I shot a big gray
+fox on Round Top, and started a raal rouser of a red one down in the big
+swamp, in the bottom, and them sluts did keep the darndest ragin' you
+ever did hear tell on. Well, they tuk him clean out across the open,
+past Andy Joneses, and they skeart up in his stubbles three bevies, I
+guess, got into one like! there was a drove of them, I tell you, and
+then they brought him back to the hills agin, and run him twice clean
+round the Rocky Hill, and when they came round the last time, the
+English sluts warn't half a rod from his tail no how, and so he tried
+his last chance, and he holed; but my! now, Mr. Aircher, by darn, you
+niver did see nothin' like the partridges; they kept a brushin' up and
+brushin' up, and treein' every little while; I guess if I seen one I
+seen a hundred; why, I killed seven on 'em with coarse shot up in the
+pines, and I daredn't shoot exceptin' at their heads. If you'd go up
+there now, to-morrow, and take the dogs along, I know as you'll git
+fifty."
+
+"Well, if that's all your news, Jem, I won't give you much for it; and,
+as for going into the mountains to look after partridges, you don't
+catch me at it, that's all!" said Harry. "Is that all?"
+
+"Not by a great shot!" answered Jem, grinning, "but the truth is, I know
+you won't believe me; but I can tell you what, you can kill a big fat
+buck, if you'll git up a little afore daylight!"
+
+"A buck, Jem! a buck near here?" inquired Forester and Archer in a
+breath.
+
+"I told you, boys, the critter couldn't help it; he's stuck to truth
+just so long, and he was forced to lie, or else he would have busted!"
+
+"It's true, by thunder," answered Jem; "I wish I mayn't eat nor drink
+nother, if there's one bit of lie in it; d--n the bit, Tom! I'm in
+airnest, now, right down; and you knows as I wouldn't go to lie about
+it!"
+
+"Well! well! where was't, Jem?"
+
+"Why, he lies, I guess, now, in that little thickest swamp of all, jist
+in the eend of the swale atween Round Top and Rocky Hill, right in the
+pines and laurels; leastways I druv him down there with the dogs, and I
+swon that he never crossed into the open meadow; and I went round, and
+made a circle like clean round about him, and darn the dog trailed on
+him no how; and bein' as he's hard hot, I guess he'll stay there since
+he harbored."
+
+"Hard hit, is he! why, did you get a shot at him?"
+
+"A fair one," Jem replied; "not three rod off from me; he jumped up out
+of the channel of Stony Brook, where, in a sort o' bend, there was a lot
+of bushes, sumac and winter-green, and ferns; he skeart me, that's a
+fact, or I'd a killed him. He warn't ten yards off when he bounced up
+first, but I pulled without cocking, and when I'd got my gun fixed, he'd
+got off a little piece, and I'd got nauthen but fox-shot, but I hot him
+jist in the side of the flank; the blood flew out like winkin', and the
+hounds arter him like mad, up and down, and round and back, and he a
+kind of weak like, and they'd overhauled him once and again, and tackled
+him, but there was only four on them, and so he beat them off like every
+time, and onned again! They couldn't hold him no how, till I got up to
+them, and I couldn't fix it no how, so as I'd git another shot at him;
+but it was growin' dark fast, and I flogged off the sluts arter a deal
+o' work, and viewed him down the old blind run-way into th' swale eend,
+where I telled you; and then I laid still quite a piece; and then I
+circled round, to see if he'd quit it, and not one dog tuk track on him,
+and so I feels right sartain as he's in that hole now, and will be in
+the mornin', if so be we goes there in time, afore the sun's up.
+
+"That we can do easily enough," said Archer, "what do you say, Tom? Is
+it worth while?"
+
+"Why," answered old Draw instantly, "if so be only we could be sartain
+that the darned critter warn't lyin', there couldn't be no doubt about
+it; for if the buck did lay up there this night, why he'll be there
+to-morrow; and if so be he's there, why we can get him sure!"
+
+"Well, Jem, what have you got to say now," said the Commodore; "is it
+the truth or no?"
+
+"Why, darn it all," retorted Jem, "harn't I just told you it was true;
+it's most blamed hard a fellow can't be believed now--why, Mr. Aircher,
+did I ever lie to you?"
+
+"Oh! if you ask me that," said Harry, "you know I must say 'Yes!'--for
+you have, fifty times at the least computation. Do you remember the day
+you towed me up the Decker's run to look for woodcock?"
+
+"And you found nothing," interrupted Tom, "but..."
+
+"Oh shut up, do, Tom," broke in Forester, "and let us hear about this
+buck. If we agree to give you a five dollar bill, Jem, in case we do
+find him where you say, what will you be willing to forfeit if we do
+not?"
+
+"You may shoot at me!" answered Jem, "all on you--ivery one on you--at
+forty yards, with rifle or buckshot!"
+
+"It certainly is very likely that we should be willing to get hanged for
+the sake of shooting such a mangy hound as you Jem," answered Forester,
+"when one could shoot a good clean dog--Tom's Dash, for example--for
+nothing!"
+
+"Could you though?" Tom replied, "I'd like to catch you at it, my dear
+boy--I'd wax the little hide off of you. But come, let us be settling.
+Is it a lie now, Jem; speak out--is it a lie, consarn you? for if it be,
+you'd best jest say 't out now, and save your bones to-morrow. Well,
+boys, the critter's sulky, so most like it is true--and I guess we'll be
+arter him. We'll be up bright and airly, and go a horseback, and if he
+be there, we can kill him in no time at all, and be right back to
+breakfast. I'll start Jem and the captain here, and Dave Seers, with the
+dogs, an hour afore us! and let them come right down the swale, and
+drive him to the open--Harry and Forester, you two can ride your own
+nags, and I'll take old Roan, and A--- here shall have the colt."
+
+"Very well! Timothy, did they feed well to-night? if they did, give them
+their oats very early, and no water. I know it's too bad after their
+work to-day, but we shall not be out two hours!"
+
+
+"Weel! it's no matter gin they were oot six," responded Timothy, "they
+wadna be a pin the waur o't!"
+
+"Take out my rifle, then--and pick some buckshot cartridges to fit the
+bore of all the double guns. Frank's got his rifle; so you can take my
+heavy single gun--your gauge is 17, A---, quite too small for buckshot;
+mine is 11, and will do its work clean with Ely's cartridge and pretty
+heavy powder, at eighty-five to ninety yards. Tom's bore is twelve, and
+I've brought some to fit his old double, and some, too, for my own gun,
+though it is almost too small!"
+
+"What gauge is yours, Harry?"
+
+"Fourteen; which I consider the very best bore possible for general
+shooting. I think the gunsmiths are running headlong now into the
+opposite of their old error--when they found that fifteens and fourteens
+outshot vastly the old small calibres--fifty years since no guns were
+larger than eighteen, and few than twenty; they are now quite out-doing
+it. I have seen late-imported guns of seven pounds, and not above
+twenty-six inches long, with eleven and even ten gauge calibres! you
+might as well shoot with a blunderbus at once!"
+
+"They would tell at cock in close summer covert," answered A---.
+
+"For a man who can't cover his bird they might," replied Harry; "but you
+may rely on it they lose three times as much in force as they gain in
+the space they cover; at forty yards you could not kill even a woodcock
+with them once in fifty times, and a quail, or English snipe, at that
+distance never!"
+
+"What do you think the right length and weight, then, for an eleven
+bore?"
+
+"Certainly not less than nine pounds, and thirty inches; but I would
+prefer ten pounds and thirty-three inches; though, except for a fowl-gun
+to use in boat-shooting, such a piece would be quite too ponderous and
+clumsy. My single gun is eleven gauge, eight pounds and thirty-three
+inches; and even with loose shot executes superbly; but with Ely's green
+cartridge I have put forty BB shot into a square of two and a half feet
+at one hundred and twenty-five yards; sharply enough, too, to imbed the
+shot so firmly in the fence against which I had fixed my mark, that it
+required a good strong knife to get them out. This I propose that you
+should use to-morrow, with a 1 1/2 oz. SG cartridge, which contains
+eighteen buck-shot, and which, if you get a shot any where within a
+hundred yards, will kill him as dead, I warrant it, as an ounce bullet."
+
+"Which you intend to try, I fancy," added Frank.
+
+"Not quite! my rifle carries eighteen only to the pound; and yours, if I
+forget not, only thirty-two."
+
+"But mine is double."
+
+"Never mind that; thirty-two will not execute with certainty above a
+hundred and fifty yards!"
+
+"And how far in the devil's name would you have it execute, as you calls
+it," asked old Tom.
+
+"Three hundred!" replied Harry, coolly.
+
+"Thunder!" replied Draw, "don't tell me no sich thunderin' nonsense;
+I'll stand all day and be shot at, like a Christmas turkey, at sixty
+rods, for six-pence a shot, any how."
+
+"I'll bet you all the liquor we can drink while we are here, Tom,"
+answered Harry, "that I hit a four foot target at three hundred yards
+to-morrow!"
+
+"Off hand?" inquired Tom, with an attempt at a sneer.
+
+"Yes, off hand! and no shot to do that either; I know men--lots of them
+--who would bet to hit a foot square at that distance!"* [*When this was
+written strong exception was taken to it by a Southern writer in the
+Spirit of the Times. Had that gentleman known what is the practice of
+the heavy Tyrolese rifle he would not have written so confidently. But
+it is needless to go so far as to the Tyrol. There is a well known
+rifle-shot in New York, who can perform the feat, any day, which the
+Southern writer scoffed at as utterly impossible. Scrope on Deerstalking
+will show to any impartial reader's satisfaction, that stags in the
+Highlands are rarely killed within 200 and generally beyond 300 yards'
+distance.]
+
+"Well! you can't hit four, no how!"
+
+"Will you bet?"
+
+"Sartain!"
+
+"Very well--Done--Twenty dollars I will stake against all the liquor we
+drink while we're here. Is it a bet?"
+
+"Yes! Done!" cried Tom--"at the first shot, you know; I gives no second
+chances."
+
+"Very well, as you please!--I'm sure of it, that's all--Lord, Frank, how
+we will drink and treat--I shall invite all the town up here to-morrow--
+Come!--One more round for luck, and then to bed!"
+
+"Content!" cried A---; "but I mean Mr. Draw to have an argument
+to-morrow night about this point of Setter vs. Pointer! How do you say,
+Harry?--which is best?"
+
+"Oh! I'll be Judge and Jury,"--answered Archer--"and you shall plead
+before me; and I'll make up my mind in the meantime!"
+
+"He's for me, any how,"--shouted Tom--"Darn it all, Harry, you knows you
+wouldn't own a pinter--no, not if it was gin you!"
+
+"I believe you are about right there, old fellow, so far as this country
+goes at least!"--said Archer--"different dogs for different soils and
+seasons--and, in my judgment, setters are far the best this side the
+Atlantic--but it is late now, and I can't stand chattering here--good
+night--you shall have as much dog-talk as you like to-morrow."
+
+
+THE OUTLYING STAG
+
+It was still pitch dark, although the skies were quite clear and
+cloudless, when Harry, Frank, and the Commodore re-assembled on the
+following morning, in Tom's best parlor, preparatory to the stag hunt
+which, as determined on the previous night, was to be their first
+sporting move in the valley.
+
+Early, however, as it was, Timothy had contrived to make a glorious fire
+upon the hearth, and to lay out a slight breakfast of biscuits, butter,
+and cold beef, flanked by a square case-bottle of Jamaica, and a huge
+jorum of boiled milk. Tom Draw had not yet made his appearance, but the
+sound of his ponderous tramp, mixed with strange oaths and loud
+vociferations, showed that he was on foot, and ready for the field.
+
+"I'll tell you what, Master A---," said Archer as he stood with his back
+to the fire, mixing some rum with sugar and cold water, previous to
+pouring the hot milk into it--"You'll be so cold in that light jacket on
+the stand this morning, that you'll never be able to hold your gun true,
+if you get a shot. It froze quite hard last night, and there's some
+wind, too, this morning."
+
+"That's very true," replied the Commodore, "but devil a thing have I got
+else to wear, unless I put on my great coat, and that's too much the
+other way--too big and clumsy altogether. I shall do well enough, I dare
+say; and after all, my drilling jacket is not much thinner than your
+fustian."
+
+"No," said Harry, "but you don't fancy that I'm going out in this, do
+you? No! no! I'm too old a hand for that sort of thing--I know that to
+shoot well, a man must be comfortable, and I mean to be so. Why, man, I
+shall put on my Canadian hunting shirt over this,"--and with the word he
+slipped a loose frock, shaped much like a wagoner's smock, or a Flemish
+blouse, over his head, with large full sleeves, reaching almost to his
+knees, and belted round his waist, by a broad worsted sash. This
+excellent garment was composed of a thick coarse homespun woollen,
+bottle-green in color, with a fringe and bindings of dingy red, to match
+the sash about his waist. From the sash was suspended an otter skin
+pouch, containing bullets and patches, nipple wrench and turn-screw, a
+bit of dry tow, an oiled rag, and all the indispensables for rifle
+cleaning; while into it were thrust two knives--one a broad two-edged
+implement, with a stout buck-horn haft, and a blade of at least twelve
+inches--the other a much smaller weapon, not being, hilt and all, half
+the length of the other's blade, but very strong, sharp as a razor, and
+of surpassing temper. While he was fitting all these in their proper
+places, and slinging under his left arm a small buffalo horn of powder,
+he continued talking:
+
+"Now," he said, "if you take my advice, you'll go into my room, and
+there, hanging against the wall, you'll find my winter shooting jacket,
+I had it made last year when I went up to Maine, of pilot cloth, lined
+throughout with flannel. It will fit you just as well as your own, for
+we're pretty much of a size. Frank, there, will wear his old monkey
+jacket, the skirts of which he razeed last winter for the very purpose.
+Ah, here is Brower--just run up, Brower, and bring down my shooting
+jacket off the wall from behind the door--look sharp, will you! Now,
+then, I shall load, and I advise you both to do likewise; for it's bad
+work doing that same with cold fingers."
+
+Thus saying, he walked to the corner, and brought out his rifle, a short
+heavy double barrel, with two grooves only, carrying a bitted ball of
+twelve to the pound, quite plain but exquisitely finished. Before
+proceeding, however, to load, he tried the passage of the nipple with a
+fine needle--three or four of which, thrust into a cork, and headed with
+sealing wax, formed a portion of the contents of his pouch--brushed the
+cone, and the inside of the hammer, carefully, and wiped them, to
+conclude, with a small piece of clean white kid--then measuring his
+powder out exactly, into a little charger, screwed to the end of his
+ramrod, he inverted the piece, and introduced the rod upward till the
+cup reached the chamber; when, righting the gun, he withdrew it, leaving
+the powder all lodged safely at the breech, without the loss of a single
+grain in the groovings. Next, he chose out a piece of leather, the
+finest grained kid, without a seam or wrinkle, slightly greased with the
+best watch-maker's oil--selected a ball perfectly round and true--laid
+the patch upon the muzzle, and placing the bullet exactly in the centre
+over the bore, buried it with a single rap of a small lignum vita
+mallet, which hung from his button-hole; and then, with but a trifling
+effort, drove it home by one steady thrust of the stout copper-headed
+charging rod. This done, he again inspected the cone, and seeing that
+the powder was forced quite up into sight, picked out, with the same
+anxious scrutiny that had marked all of his proceedings, a copper cap,
+which he pronounced sure to go, applied it to the nipple, crushed it
+down firmly, with the hammer, which he then drew back to half-cock, and
+bolted. Then he set the piece down by the fireside, drained his hot
+jorum, and...
+
+"That fellow will do his work, and no mistake," said he. "Now A--- here
+is my single gun"--handing to him, as he spoke, one of the handsomest
+Westley Richards a sportsman ever handled--"thirty-three inches, nine
+pounds and eleven gauge. Put in one-third above that charger, which is
+its usual load, and one of those green cartridges, and I'll be bound
+that it will execute at eighty paces; and that is more than Master Frank
+there can say for his Manton Rifle, at least if he loads it with bullets
+patched in that slovenly and most unsportsmanlike fashion."
+
+"I should like to know what the deuce you mean by slovenly and
+unsportsmanlike," said Frank, pulling out of his breast pocket a couple
+of bullets, carefully sewed up in leather--"it is the best plan
+possible, and saves lots of time--you see I can just shove my balls in
+at once, without any bother of fitting patches."
+
+"Yes," replied Harry, "and five to one the seam, which, however neatly
+it is drawn, must leave a slight ridge, will cross the direction of the
+grooving, and give the ball a counter movement; either destroying
+altogether the rotatory motion communicated by the rifling, or causing
+it to take a direction quite out of the true line; accordingly as the
+counteraction is conveyed near the breech, or near the muzzle of the
+piece."
+
+"Will so trifling a cause produce so powerful an effect?" inquired the
+Commodore.
+
+"The least variation, whether of concavity or convexity in the bullet,
+will do so unquestionably--and I cannot see why the same thing in a
+covering superinduced to the ball should not have the same effect. Even
+a hole in a pellet of shot, will cause it to leave the charge, and fly
+off at a tangent. I was once shooting in the fens of the Isle of Ely,
+and fired at a mallard sixty or sixty-five yards off, with double B
+shot, when to my great amazement a workman--digging peat at about the
+same distance from me with the bird, but at least ninety yards to the
+right of the mallard--roared out lustily that I had killed him. I saw
+that the drake was knocked over as dead as a stone, and consequently
+laughed at the fellow, and set it down as a cool trick to extort money,
+not uncommon among the fen men, as applied to members of the University.
+I had just finished loading, and my retriever had just brought in the
+dead bird, which was quite riddled, cut up evidently by the whole body
+of the charge--both the wings broken, one in three places, one leg
+almost dissevered, and several shots in the neck and body--when up came
+my friend, and sure enough he was hit--one pellet had struck him on the
+cheek bone, and was imbedded in the skin. Half a crown, and a lotion of
+whiskey--not applied to the part, but taken inwardly--soon proved a
+sovereign medicine, and picking out the shot with the point of a needle,
+I found a hole in it big enough to admit a pin's head, and about the
+twentieth part of an inch in depth. This I should think is proof enough
+for you--but, besides this, I have seen bullets in pistol-shooting play
+strange vagaries, glancing off from the target at all sorts of queer
+angles."
+
+"Well! well!" replied Frank, "my rifle shoots true enough for me--true
+enough to kill generally--and who the deuce can be at the bother of your
+pragmatical preparations! I am sure it might be said of you, as it was
+of James the First, of most pacific and pedantic memory, that you are
+'Captain of arts and Clerk of arms'--at least you are a very pedant in
+gunnery."
+
+"No! no!" said A---; "you're wrong there altogether, Master Forester;
+there is nothing on earth that makes so great a difference in
+sportsmanship as the observation of small things. I don't call him a
+sportsman who can walk stoutly, and kill well, unless he can give causes
+for effects--unless he knows the haunts and habits both of his game and
+his dogs--unless he can give a why for every wherefore!"
+
+"Then devil a bit will you ever call me one,"--answered Frank--"For I
+can't be at the trouble of thinking about it."
+
+"Stuff--humbug--folly"--interrupted Archer--"you know a great deal
+better than that--and so do we, too!--you're only cranky! a little
+cranky, Frank, and given to defending any folly you commit without
+either rhyme or reason--as when you tried to persuade me that it is the
+safest thing in nature to pour gunpowder out of a canister into a pound
+flask, with a lighted cigar between your teeth; to demonstrate which you
+had scarcely screwed the top of the horn on, before the lighted ashes
+fell all over it--had they done so a moment sooner, we should all have
+been blown out of the room."
+
+By this time, the Commodore had donned Harry's winter jacket, and Frank,
+grumbling and paradoxizing all the while, had loaded his rifle, and
+buttoned up his pea-jacket, when in stalked Tom, swathed up to his chin
+in a stout dreadnought coat.
+
+"What are ye lazin' here about!" he shouted, "you're niver ready no how.
+Jem's been agone these two hours, and we'll jest be too late, and miss
+gittin' a shot--if so be there be a buck--which I'll be sworn there
+arn't!"
+
+"Ha! ha!" the Commodore burst out; "ha! ha! ha! I should like to know
+which side the laziness has been on this morning, Mister Draw."
+
+"On little wax skin's there," answered the old man, as quick as
+lightning; "the little snoopin' critter carn't find his gloves now;
+though the nags is at the door, and we all ready. We'll drink, boys,
+while he's lookin' arter 'em--and then when he's found them, and's jest
+a gittin' on his horse, he'll find he's left his powder-horn or knife,
+or somethin' else, behind him; and then we'll drink agin, while he
+snoops back to fetch it."
+
+"You be hanged, you old rascal," replied Forester, a little bothered by
+the huge shouts of laughter which followed this most strictly accurate
+account of his accustomed method of proceeding; an account which, by the
+way, was fully justified not twenty minutes afterward, by his galloping
+back, neck or nothing, to get his pocket handkerchief, which he had left
+"in course," as Tom said, in his dressing-gown beside the fire.
+
+"Come, bustle--bustle!" Harry added, as he put on his hunting cap and
+pulled a huge pair of fen boots on, reaching to the midthigh, which
+Timothy had garnished with a pair of bright English spurs. In another
+minute they were all on horseback, trotting away at a brisk pace toward
+the little glen, wherein, according to Jem's last report, the stag was
+harbored. It was in vain that during their quick ride the old man was
+entreated to inform them where they were to take post, or what they were
+to do, as he would give them no reply, nor any information whatever.
+
+At last, however, when Forester rejoined them, after his return to the
+village, he turned short off from the high road to the left, and as he
+passed a set of bars into a wild hill pasture, struck into a hard
+gallop.
+
+Before them lay the high and ridgy head of Round Top, his flanks sloping
+toward them, in two broad pine-clad knobs, with a wild streamlet
+brawling down between them, and a thick tangled swamp of small extent,
+but full of tall dense thornbushes, matted with vines and cat-briers,
+and carpeted with a rich undergrowth of fern and wintergreen, and
+whortleberries. To the right and left of the two knobs or spurs just
+mentioned, were two other deep gorges, or dry channels, bare of
+brushwood, and stony--rockwalled, with steep precipitous ledges toward
+the mountain, but sloping easily up to the lower ridges. As they reached
+the first of these, Tom motioned Forester to stop.
+
+"Stand here," he whispered, "close in here, jest behind this here crag--
+and look out hereaways toward the village. If he comes down this runway,
+kill him, but mind you doosn't show a hair out of this corner; for
+Archer, he'll stand next, and if so be he crosses from the swamp hole
+hereaways, you'll chance to get a bullet. Be still, now, as a mouse, and
+tie your horse here in the cove!--Now, lads"
+
+And off he set again, rounded the knob, and making one slight motion
+toward the nook, wherein he wished that Harry should keep guard, wheeled
+back in utter silence, and very slowly--for they were close to the spot
+wherein, as they supposed, the object of their chase was laid up; and as
+yet but two of his paths were guarded toward the plain; Jem and his
+comrades having long since got with the hounds into his rear, and
+waiting only for the rising of the sun to lay them on, and push along
+the channel of the brook.
+
+This would compel him to break covert, either directly from the swamp,
+or by one of the dry gorges mentioned. Now, therefore, was the crisis of
+the whole matter; for if--before the other passes were made good--the
+stag should take alarm, he might steal off without affording a chance of
+a shot, and get into the mountains to the right, where they might hunt
+him for a week in vain.
+
+No marble statue could stand more silently or still than Harry and his
+favorite gray, who, with erected ears and watchful eye, trembling a
+little with excitement, seemed to know what he was about, and to enjoy
+it no less keenly than his rider. Tom and the Commodore, quickening
+their pace as they got out of ear-shot, retraced their steps quite back
+to the turnpike road, along which Harry saw them gallop furiously, in a
+few minutes, and turn up, half a mile off, toward the further gulley--he
+saw no more, however; though he felt certain that the Commodore was,
+scarce ten minutes after he lost sight of them, standing within twelve
+paces of him, at the further angle of the swamp--Tom having warily
+determined that the two single guns should take post together, while the
+two doubles should be placed where the wild quarry could get off
+encountering but a single sportsman.
+
+It was a period of intense excitement before the sun rose though it was
+of short duration--but scarcely had his first rays touched the open
+meadow, casting a huge gray shadow from the rounded hill which covered
+half the valley, while all the farther slope was laughing in broad
+light, the mist wreaths curling up, thinner and thinner every moment,
+from the broad streamlet in the bottom, which here and there flashed out
+exultingly from its wood-covered margins--scarcely had his first rays
+topped the hill, before a distant shout came swelling on the air, down
+the ravine, announcing Jem's approach. No hound gave tongue, however,
+nor did a rustle in the brake, or any sound of life, give token of the
+presence of the game--louder and nearer drew the shouts--and now Harry
+himself began to doubt if there were any truth in Jem's relation, when
+suddenly the sharp, quick crack of Forester's rifle gave token that the
+game was afoot--a loud yell from that worthy followed.
+
+"Look out! Mark--back--mark back!"
+
+And keenly Archer did look out, and warily did he listen--once he
+detected, or fancied he detected, a rustling of the under-wood, and the
+crack of a dry stick, and dropping his reins on the horse's neck, he
+cocked his rifle--but the sound was not repeated, nor did any thing come
+into sight--so he let down the hammer once again, and resumed his silent
+watch, saying to himself...
+
+"Frank fired too quick, and he has headed up the brook to Jem. If he is
+forward enough now, we shall have him back instantly, with the hounds at
+his heels; but if he has loitered and hung back, `over the hills and far
+away' is the word for this time."
+
+But Jem was in his place, and in another moment a long whoop came
+ringing down the glen, and the shrill yelping rally of the hounds as
+they all opened on a view together! Fiercer and wilder grew the hubbub!
+And now the eager watcher might hear the brushwood torn in all
+directions by the impetuous passage of the wild deer and his inveterate
+pursuers.
+
+"Now, then, it is old Tom's chance, or ours," he thought, "for he will
+not try Forester again, I warrant him, and we are all down wind of him--
+so he can't judge of our whereabouts."
+
+In another second the bushes crashed to his left hand, and behind him,
+while the dogs were raving scarcely a pistol-shot off, in the tangled
+swamp. Yet he well knew that if the stag should break there it would be
+A---'s shot, and, though anxious, he kept his eye fixed steadily on his
+own point, holding his good piece cocked and ready.
+
+"Mark! Harry, mark him!"--a loud yell from the Commodore.
+
+The stag had broken midway between them, in full sight of A---, and
+seeing him, had wheeled off to the right. He was now sweeping onward
+across the open field with high graceful bounds, tossing his antlered
+head aloft, as if already safe, and little hurt, if anything, by Jem
+Lyn's boasted shot of the last evening. The gray stood motionless,
+trembling, however, palpably, in every limb, with eagerness--his ears
+laid flat upon his neck, and cowering a little, as if he feared the
+shot, which it would seem his instinct told him to expect. Harry had
+dropped his reins once more, and leveled his unerring rifle--yet for a
+moment's space he paused, waiting for A--- to fire; there was no hurry
+for himself, nay a few seconds more would give him a yet fairer shot,
+for the buck now was running partially toward him, so that a moment more
+would place him broadside on, and within twenty paces.
+
+"Bang!" came the full and round report of A---'s large shotgun, fired
+before the beast was fifteen yards away from him. He had aimed at the
+head, as he was forced to do, lest he should spoil the haunches, for he
+was running now directly from him--and had the buck been fifty paces off
+he would have killed him dead, lodging his whole charge, or the best
+part of it, in the junction of the neck and skull--but as it was, the
+cartridge--the green cartridge--had not yet spread at all; nor had one
+buckshot left the case! Whistling like a single ball, as it passed
+Harry's front eight or nine yards off, it drove, as his quick eye
+discovered, clean through the stag's right ear, almost dissevering it,
+and making the animal bound six feet off the green sward.
+
+Just as he touched the earth again, alighting from his mighty spring,
+with an aim sure and steady, and a cool practiced finger, the marksman
+drew his trigger, and, quick, as light, the piece--well loaded, as its
+dry crack announced--discharged its ponderous missile! But, bad luck on
+it, even at that very instant, just in the point of time wherein the
+charge was ignited, eighteen or twenty quail, flushed by the hubbub of
+the hounds, rose with a loud and startling whirr, on every side of the
+gray horse, under his belly and about his ears, so close as almost to
+brush him with their wings--he bolted and reared up--yet even at that
+disadvantage the practiced rifleman missed not his aim entirely, though
+he erred somewhat, and the wound in consequence was not quite deadly.
+
+The ball, which he had meant for the heart, his sight being taken under
+the fore-shoulder, was raised and thrown forward by the motion of the
+horse, and passed clean through the neck close to the blade bone.
+Another leap, wilder and loftier than the last! yet still the stag
+dashed onward, with the blood gushing out in streams from the wide
+wound, though as yet neither speed nor strength appeared to be impaired,
+so fleetly did he scour the meadow.
+
+"He will cross, Frank yet!" cried Archer. "Mark! mark him, Forester!"
+
+But, as he spoke, he set his rifle down against the fence, and halloaed
+to the hounds, which instantly, obedient to his well known and cheery
+whoop, broke covert in a body, and settled, heads up and sterns down, to
+the blazing scent.
+
+At the same moment A--- came trotting out from his post, gun in hand;
+while at a thundering gallop, blaspheming awfully as he came on, and
+rating them for "know-nothins, and blunderin' etarnal spoil-sports," Tom
+rounded the farther hill, and spurred across the level. By this time
+they were all in sight of Forester, who stood on foot, close to his
+horse, in the mouth of the last gorge, the buck running across him sixty
+yards off, and quartering a little from him toward the road; the hounds
+were, however, all midway between him and the quarry, and as the ground
+sloped steeply from the marksman, he was afraid of firing low--but took
+a long, and, as it seemed, sure aim at the head.
+
+The rifle flashed--a tine flew, splintered by the bullet, from the brow
+antler, not an inch above the eye.
+
+"Give him the other!" shouted Archer. "Give him the other barrel!"
+
+But Frank shook his head spitefully, and dropped the muzzle of his
+piece.
+
+"By thunder! then, he's forgot his bullets--and hadn't nothen to load up
+agen, when he missed the first time!"
+
+"Ha! ha! ha!" roared once again the Commodore--"ha! ha! hah!--ha! ha!"
+till rock and mountain rang again.
+
+"By the Etarnal" exclaimed Draw, perfectly frantic with passion and
+excitement--"By thunder! A---, I guess you'd laugh if your best friends
+was all a dyin' at your feet. You would for sartain! But look, look!
+what the plague's Harry goin' at?"
+
+For when he saw that Forester had now, for some reason or other, no
+farther means of stopping the stag's career, Archer had set spurs to his
+horse, and dashed away at a hard furious gallop after the wounded buck.
+The hounds, which had lost sight of it as it leaped a high stone wall
+with much brush round the base of it, were running fast and furious on
+the scent--but still, though flagging somewhat in his speed, the stag
+was leaving them. He had turned, as the last shot struck his horns, down
+hill, as if to cross the valley; but immediately, as if perceiving that
+he had passed the last of his enemies, turned up again toward the
+mountain, describing an arc, almost, in fact, a semi-circle, from the
+point where he had broken covert to that--another gully, at perhaps a
+short mile's distance--from which he was now aiming.
+
+Across the chord, then, of this arc, Harry was driving furiously, with
+the intent, as it would seem, to cut him off from the gully--the stone
+wall crossed his line, but not a second did he pause for it, but gave
+his horse both spurs, and lifting him a little, landed him safely at the
+other side. Frank mounted rapidly, dashed after him, and soon passed
+A---, who was less aptly mounted for a chase--he likewise topped the wall,
+and disappeared beyond it, though the stones flew, where the bay struck
+the coping with his heels.
+
+All pluck to the back-bone, the Commodore craned not nor hesitated, but
+dashed the colt, for the first time in his life, at the high barrier--he
+tried to stop, but could not, so powerfully did his rider cram him--
+leaped short, and tumbled head over heels, carrying half the wall away
+with him, and leaving a gap as if a wagon had passed through it--to
+Tom's astonishment and agony--for he supposed the colt destroyed
+forever.
+
+Scarcely, however, had A--- gained his feet, before a sight met his
+eyes, which made him leave the colt, and run as fast as his legs could
+carry him toward the scene of action.
+
+The stag, seeing his human enemy so near, had strained every nerve to
+escape, and Harry, desperately rash and daring, seeing he could not turn
+or head him, actually spurred upon him counter to broadside, in hope to
+ride him down; foiled once again, in this--his last hope, as it seemed--
+he drew his longest knife, and as--a quarter of a second too late only--
+he crossed behind the buck, he swung himself half out of his saddle, and
+striking a full blow, succeeded in hamstringing him; while the gray,
+missing the support of the master-hand, stumbled and fell upon his head.
+
+Horse, stag, and man, all rolled upon the ground within the compass of
+ten yards--the terrified and wounded deer striking out furiously in all
+directions--so that it seemed impossible that Archer could escape some
+deadly injury--while, to increase the fury and the peril of the scene,
+the hounds came up, and added their fresh fierceness to the fierce
+confusion. Before, however, A--- came up, Harry had gained his feet,
+drawn his small knife--the larger having luckily flown many yards as he
+fell--and running in behind the struggling quarry, had seized the brow
+antler, and at one strong and skilful blow, severed the weasand and the
+jugular. One gush of dark red gore--one plunging effort, and the superb
+and stately beast lay motionless forever--while the loud death halloo
+rang over the broad valley--all fears, all perils, utterly forgotton in
+the strong rapture of that thrilling moment.
+
+
+SNIPE ON THE UPLAND
+
+"Now then, boys, we've no time to loose," said Archer, as he replaced
+his knives, which he had been employed in wiping with great care, in
+their respective scabbards, "it's getting toward eight o'clock, and I
+feel tolerably peckish, the milk punch and biscuits notwithstanding; we
+shall not be in the field before ten o'clock, do our best for it. Now,
+Jem," he continued, as that worthy, followed by David Seers and the
+Captain made their appearance, hot and breathless, but in high spirits
+at the glorious termination of the morning's sport--"Now, Jem, you and
+the Captain must look out a good strong pole, and tie that fellow's
+legs, and carry him between you as far as Blain's house--you can come up
+with the wagon this afternoon and bring him down to the village. What
+the deuce are you pottering at that colt about, Tom? He's not hurt a
+pin's value, on the contrary--"
+
+"Better for 't, I suppose, you'll be a tellin' me torights; better for
+that all-fired etarnal tumble, aint he?" responded the fat chap, with a
+lamentable attempt at an ironical smile, put on to hide his real
+chagrin.
+
+"In course he is," replied Frank, who had recovered his wonted
+equanimity, and who, having been most unmercifully rallied by the whole
+party for leaving his bullets at home, was glad of an opportunity to
+carry the war into the enemy's country, "in course he is a great deal
+better--if a thing can be said to be better which, under all
+circumstances, is so infernally bad, as that brute. I should think he
+was better for it. Why, by the time he's had half a dozen more such
+purls, he'll leap a six foot fence without shaking a loose rail. In
+fact, I'll bet a dollar I carry him back over that same wall without
+touching a stone." And, as he spoke, he set his foot into the stirrup,
+as if he were about to put his threat into immediate execution.
+
+"Quit, Forester--quit, I say--quit, now--consarn the hide on you"--
+shouted the fat man, now in great tribulation, and apprehending a second
+edition of the tumble--"quit foolin', or by h--l I'll put a grist of
+shot, or one of they green cartridges into you stret away--I will, by
+the Etarnal!" and as he spoke he dropped the muzzle of his gun, and put
+his thumb upon the cock.
+
+"I say quit foolin', too," cried Harry, "both of you quit it; you old
+fool, Tom, do you really suppose he is mad enough to ride that brute of
+yours again at the wall?"
+
+"Mad enough!--Yes, I swon he be," responded Tom; "both of you be as mad
+as the hull Asylum down to York. If Frank arn't mad, then there aint
+such a word as mad!" But as he spoke he replaced his gun under his arm,
+and walked off to his horse, which he mounted, without farther words,
+his example being followed by the whole party, who set off on the spur,
+and reached the village in less than half an hour.
+
+Breakfast was on the table when they got there--black tea, produced from
+Harry's magazine of stores, rich cream, hot bread, and Goshen butter--
+eggs in abundance, boiled, roasted, fried with ham--an omelet au fines
+herbes, no inconsiderable token of Tim's culinary skill--a cold round of
+spiced beef, and last, not least, a dish of wood-duck hot from the
+gridiron.
+
+"By George," said Harry, "here's a feast for an epicure, and I can find
+the appetite."
+
+"Find it"--said Forester, grinning, who, pretending to eat nothing, or
+next to nothing, and not to care what was set before him, was really the
+greatest gourmet and heaviest feeder of the party--"Find it, Harry? it's
+quite new to me that you ever lost it. When was it, hey?"
+
+"Arter he'd eat a hull roast pig, I reckon--leastwise that might make
+Harry lose his'n; but I'll be darned if two would be a sarcumstance to
+set before you, Frank, no how. Here's A---, too, he don't never eat."
+
+"These wood-duck are delicious," answered the Commodore, who was very
+busily employed in stowing away his provant, "What a capital bird it is,
+Harry."
+
+"Indeed, is it," said he, "and this is, me judice, the very best way to
+eat it, red hot from the gridiron, cooked very quick, and brown on the
+outside, and full of gravy when you cut; with a squeeze of a lemon and a
+dash of cayenne it is sublime. What say you, Forester?"
+
+"Oh, you wont ketch him sayin' nauthen, leastwise not this half hour--
+but the way he'll keep a feedin' wont be slow, I tell you--that's the
+way to judge how Forester likes his grub--jest see how he takes hold on
+'t."
+
+"Are there many wood-duck about this season, Tom?" asked Forester,
+affecting to be perfectly careless and indifferent to all that had
+passed. "Did you kill these yourself?"
+
+"There was a sight on them a piece back, but they're gittin' scase--
+pretty scase now, I tell you. Yes, I shot these down by Aunt Sally's big
+spring-hole a Friday. I'd been a lookin' round, you see, to find where
+the quail kept afore you came up here--for I'd a been expectin' you a
+week and better--and I'd got in quite late, toward sundown, with an
+outsidin' bevy, down by the cedar swamp, and druv them off into the big
+bog meadows, below Sugarloaf, and I'd killed quite a bunch on them--
+sixteen, I reckon, Archer; and there wasn't but eighteen when I lit on
+'em--and it was gittin' pretty well dark when I came to the big spring,
+and little Dash was worn dead out, and I was tired, and hot, and
+thunderin' thirsty, so I sets down aside the outlet where the spring
+water comes in good and cool, and I was mixin' up a nice long drink in
+the big glass we hid last summer down in the mudhole, with some great
+cider sperrits--when what should I hear all at once but whistle,
+whistlin' over head, the wings of a whole drove on 'em, so up I buckled
+the old gun; but they'd plumped down into the crick fifteen rod off or
+better, down by the big pin oak, and there they sot, seven ducks and two
+big purple-headed drakes--beauties, I tell you. Well, boys, I upped gun
+and tuck sight stret away, but just as I was drawin', I kind o' thought
+I'd got two little charges of number eight, and that to shoot at ducks
+at fifteen rod wasn't nauthen. Well, then, I fell a thinkin', and then I
+sairched my pockets, and arter a piece found two green cartridges of
+number three, as Archer gave me in the Spring, so I drawed out the small
+shot, and inned with these, and put fresh caps on to be sarten. But jest
+when I'd got ready, the ducks had floated down with the stream, and
+dropped behind the pint--so I downed on my knees, and crawled, and Dash
+along side on me, for all the world as if the darned dog knowed; well, I
+crawled quite a piece, till I'd got under a bit of alder bush, and then
+I seen them--all in a lump like, except two--six ducks and a big drake--
+feedin', and stickin' down their heads into the weeds, and flutterin' up
+their hinder eends, and chatterin' and jokin'--I could have covered them
+all with a handkercher, exceptin' two, as I said afore, one duck and the
+little drake, and they was off a rod or better from the rest, at the two
+different sides of the stream--the big bunch warn't over ten rods off
+me, nor so far; so I tuck sight right at the big drake's neck. The water
+was quite clear and still, and seemed to have caught all the little
+light as was left by the sun, for the skies had got pretty dark, I tell
+you; and I could see his head quite clear agin the water--well, I draw'd
+trigger, and the hull charge ripped into 'em--and there was a scrabblin'
+and a squatterin' in the water now, I tell you--but not one on 'em riz--
+not the darned one of the hull bunch; but up jumped both the others, and
+I drawed on the drake--more by the whistlin' of his wings, than that I
+seen him--but I drawed stret, Archer, any ways; and arter I'd pulled
+half a moment I hard him plump down into the creek with a splash, and
+the water sparkled up like a fountain where he fell. So then I didn't
+wait to load, but ran along the bank as hard as I could strick it, and
+when I'd got down to the spot, I tell you, little Dash had got two on
+'em out afore I came, and was in with a third. Well, sich a cuttin' and
+a splashin' as there was you niver did see, none on you--I guess, for
+sartin--leastwise I niver did. I'd killed, you see, the drake and two
+ducks, dead at the first fire, but three was only wounded, wing-tipped,
+and leg-broken, and I can't tell you what all. It was all of nine
+o'clock at night, and dark as all out doors, afore I gathered them three
+ducks, but I did gather 'em; Lord, boys, why I'd stay till mornin, but
+I'd a got them, sarten. Well, the drake I killed flyin' I couldn't find
+him that night, no how, for the stream swept him down, and I hadn't got
+no guide to go by, so I let him go then, but I was up next mornin'
+bright and airly, and started up the stream clean from the bridge here,
+up through Garry's backside, and my boghole, and so on along the meadows
+to Aunt Sally's run--and looked in every willow bush that dammed the
+waters back, like, and every bunch of weeds, and brier-brake, all the
+way, and sure enough I found him, he'd been killed dead, and floated
+down the crick, and then the stream had washed him up into a heap of
+broken sticks and briers, and when the waters fell, for there had been a
+little freshet, they left him there breast uppermost--and I was glad to
+find him--for I think, Archer, as that shot was the nicest, prettiest,
+etarnal, darndest, long good shot, I iver did make, anyhow; and it was
+so dark I couldn't see him."
+
+"A sweet shot, Tom," responded Forester, "a sweet pretty shot, if there
+had only been one word of truth in it, which there is not--don't answer
+me, you old thief--shut up instantly, and get your traps; for we've done
+feeding, and you've done lying for the present, at least I hope so--and
+now we'll out, and see whether you've poached up all the game in the
+country."
+
+"Well, it be gettin' late for sartain," answered Tom, "and that'll save
+your little wax skin for the time; but see, jest see, boy, if I doesn't
+sarve you out, now, afore sundown!"
+
+"Which way shall we beat, Tom," asked Harry, as he changed his riding
+boots for heavy shooting shoes and leggins; "which course to-day?"
+
+"Why, Timothy's gittin' out the wagon, and we'll drive up the old road
+round the ridge, and so strike in by Minthorne's, and take them ridges
+down, and so across the hill--there's some big stubbles there, and nice
+thick brush holes along the fence sides, and the boys does tell us there
+be one or two big bevies--but, cuss them, they will lie!--and over back
+of Gin'ral Bertolf's barns, and so acrost the road, and round the upper
+eend of the big pond, and down the long swamp into Hell hole, and Tim
+can meet us with the wagon at five o'clock, under Bill Wisner's white
+oak--does that suit you?"
+
+"Excellently well, Tom," replied Harry, "I could not have cut a better
+day's work out myself, if I had tried. Well, all the traps are in, and
+the dogs, Timothy, is it not so?"
+
+"Ey! ey! Sur," shouted that worthy from without, "all in, this
+half-hour, and all roight!"
+
+"Light your cigars then, quick, and let us start--hurrah!"
+
+Within two minutes, they were all seated, Fat Tom in the post of honor
+by Harry's side upon the driving box, the Commodore and Frank, with
+Timothy, on the back seat, and off they rattled--ten miles an hour
+without the whip, up hill and down dale all alike, for they had but
+three miles to go, and that was gone in double quick time.
+
+"What mun Ay do wi' t' horses, Sur?" asked Tim, touching his castor as
+he spoke.
+
+"Take them home, to be sure," replied Harry, "and meet us with them
+under the oak tree, close to Mr. Wisner's house, at five o'clock this
+evening."
+
+"Nay! nay! Sur!" answered Tim, with a broad grin, eager to see the
+sport, and hating to be sent so unceremoniously home, "that winna do,
+I'm thinking--who'll hug t' gam bag, and carry t' bottles, and make t'
+loonchun ready; that winna do, Sur niver. If you ple-ease, Sur, Ay'll
+pit oop t' horses i' Measter Minthorne's barn here, and shak' doon a
+bite o' hay tull 'em, and so gang on wi' you, and carry t' bag whaile
+four o' t' clock, and then awa back and hitch oop, and draive doon to t'
+aik tree!"
+
+"I understand, Tim," said his master, laughing; "I understand right
+well! you want to see the sport."
+
+"Ayse oophaud it!" grinned Timothy, seeing at once that he should gain
+his point.
+
+"Well! well! I don't care about it; will Minthorne let us put up the
+beasts in his barn, Tom?"
+
+"Let us! let us!" exclaimed the fat man; "by gad I'd like to see Joe
+Minthorne, or any other of his breed, a tellin' me I should'nt put my
+cattle where I pleased; jest let me ketch him at it!"
+
+"Very well; have it your own way, Tim, take care of the beasts, and
+overtake us as quick as you can!" and as he spoke, he let down the bars
+which parted a fine wheat stubble from the road, and entered the field
+with the dogs at heel. "We must part company to beat these little woods,
+must we not, Tom?"
+
+"I guess so--I'll go on with A---; his Grouse and my Dash will work well
+enough, and you and Frank keep down the valley hereaways; we'll beat
+that little swamp-hole, and then the open woods to the brook side, and
+so along the meadows to the big bottom; you keep the hill-side coverts,
+and look the little pond-holes well on Minthorne's Ridge, you'll find a
+cock or two there anyhow; and beat the bushes by the wall; I guess
+you'll have a bevy jumpin' up; and try, boys, do, to git 'em down the
+hill into the boggy bottom, for we can use them, I tell you!" and so
+they parted.
+
+Archer and Forester, with Shot and Chase at heel, entered the little
+thicket indicated, and beat it carefully, but blank; although the dogs
+worked hard, and seemed as if about to make game more than once. They
+crossed the road, and came into another little wood, thicker and wetter
+than the first, with several springy pools, although it was almost upon
+the summit of the hill. Here Harry took the left or lower hand, bidding
+Frank keep near the outside at top, and full ten yards ahead of him.
+
+"And mind, if you hear Tom shoot, or cry 'mark,' jump over into the open
+field, and be all eyes, for that's their line of country into the swamp,
+where we would have them. Hold up, good dogs, hold up!"
+
+And off they went, crashing and rattling through the dry matted briers,
+crossing each other evenly, and quartering the ground with rare
+accuracy. Scarcely, however, had they beat ten paces, before Shot
+flushed a cock as he was in the very act of turning at the end of his
+beat, having run in on him down wind, without crossing the line of
+scent. Flip--flip--flap rose the bird, but as the dog had turned, and
+was now running from him, he perceived no cause for alarm, fluttered a
+yard or two onward, and alighted. The dog, who had neither scented nor
+seen the bird, caught the sound of his wing, and stood stiff on the
+instant, though his stern was waved doubtfully, and though he turned his
+sagacious knowing phiz over his shoulder, as if to look out for the
+pinion, the flap of which had arrested his quick ear. The bird had
+settled ere he turned, but Shot's eye fell upon his master, as with his
+finger on the trigger-guard, and thumb on the hammer, he was stepping
+softly up in a direct line, with eye intently fixed, toward the place
+where the woodcock had dropped; he knew as well as though he had been
+blessed with human intellect, that game was in the wind, and remained
+still and steady. Flip--flap again up jumped the bird.
+
+"Mark cock," cried Forester, from the other side of the wood, not having
+seen any thing, but hearing the sound of the timber doodle's wing
+somewhere or other; and at the self-same moment bang! boomed the full
+report of Harry's right hand barrel, the feathers drifting off down wind
+toward Frank, told him the work was done, and he asked no question; but
+ere the cock had struck the ground, which he did within half a second,
+completely doubled up--whirr, whirr-r-r! the loud and startling hubbub
+of ruffed grouse taking wing at the report of Harry's gun, succeeded--
+and instantly, before that worthy had got his eye about from marking the
+killed woodcock, bang! bang! from Forester. Archer dropped butt, and
+loaded as fast as it was possible, and bagged his dead bird quietly, but
+scarcely had he done so before Frank hailed him.
+
+"Bring up the dogs, old fellow; I knocked down two, and I've bagged one,
+but I'm afraid the other's run!"
+
+"Stand still, then--stand still, till I join you. He-here, he-here good
+dogs," cried Harry, striding away through the brush like a good one.
+
+In a moment he stood by Frank, who was just pocketing his first, a fine
+hen grouse.
+
+"The other was the cock," said Frank, "and a very large one, too; he was
+a long shot, but he's very hard hit; he flew against this tree before he
+fell, and bounded off it here; look at the feathers!"
+
+"Ay! we'll have him in a moment; seek dead, Shot; seek, good dogs; ha!
+now they wind him; there! Chase has him--no! he draws again--now Shot is
+standing; hold up, hold up, lads, he's running like the mischief, and
+won't stop till he reaches some thick covert."
+
+Bang! bang! "Mark--ma-ark!" bang! bang! "mark, Harry Archer, mark," came
+down the wind in quick succession from the other party, who were beating
+some thick briers by the brook side, at three or four fields' distance.
+
+"Quick, Forester, quick!" shouted Archer; "over the wall, lad, and mark
+them! those are quail; I'm man enough to get this fellow by myself.
+Steady, lads! steady-y-y!" as they were roading on at the top of their
+pace. "Toho! toho-o-o, Chase; fie, for shame--don't you see, sir, Shot's
+got him dead there under his very nose in those cat-briers. Ha! dead!
+good lads--good lads; dead! dead! fetch him, good dog; by George but he
+is a fine bird. I've got him, Forester; have you marked down the quail?"
+
+"Ay! ay! in the bog bottom!"
+
+"How many?"
+
+"Twenty-three!"
+
+"Then we'll have sport, by Jove!" and, as he spoke, they entered a wide
+rushy pasture, across which, at some two or three hundred yards, A---
+and fat Tom were seen advancing toward them. They had not made three
+steps before both dogs stood stiff as stones in the short grass, where
+there was not a particle of covert.
+
+"Why, what the deuce is this, Harry?"
+
+"Devil a know know I," responded he; "but step up to the red dog, Frank
+--I'll go to the other--they've got game, and no mistake!"
+
+"Skeap--ske-eap!" up sprang a couple of English snipe before Shot's
+nose, and Harry cut them down, a splendid double shot, before they had
+flown twenty yards, just as Frank dropped the one which rose to him at
+the same moment. At the sound of the guns a dozen more rose hard by, and
+fluttering on in rapid zig-zags, dropped once again within a hundred
+yards--the meadow was alive with them.
+
+"Did you ever see snipe here before, Tom? asked Harry, as he loaded.
+
+"Never in all my life--but it's full now--load up! load up! for heaven's
+sake!"
+
+"No hurry, Tom! Tom--steady! the birds are tame and lie like stones. We
+can get thirty or forty here, I know, if you'll be steady only--but if
+we go in with these four dogs, we shall lose all. Here comes Tim with
+the couples, and we'll take up all but two!"
+
+"That's right," said A---; "take up Grouse and Tom's dog, for they won't
+hunt with yours--and yours are the steadiest, and fetch--that's it, Tim,
+couple them, and carry them away. What have you killed, Archer?" he
+added, while his injunctions were complied with.
+
+"One woodcock and a brace of ruffed grouse! and Frank has marked down
+three-and-twenty quail into that rushy bottom yonder, where we can get
+every bird of them. We are going to have great sport to-day!"
+
+"I think so. Tom and I each killed a double shot out of that bevy!"
+
+"That was well! Now, then, walk slowly and far apart--we must beat this
+three or four times, at least--the dogs will get them up!"
+
+It was not a moment before the first bird rose, but it was quite two
+hours, and all the dinner horns had long blown for noon, before the last
+was bagged--the four guns having scored, in that one meadow, forty-nine
+English snipe--fifteen for Harry Archer--thirteen for Tom Draw--twelve
+for the Commodore, and only nine for Forester, who never killed snipe
+quite so well as he did cock or quail.
+
+"And now, boys," exclaimed Tom, as he flung his huge carcase on the
+ground, with a thud that shook it many a rod around--"there's a cold
+roast fowl, and some nice salt pork and crackers, in that 'ar game bag--
+and I'm a whale now, I tell you, for a drink!"
+
+"Which will you take to drink, Tom?" inquired Forester, very gravely--
+"fowl, pork, or crackers? Here they are, all of them! I prefer whiskey
+and water, myself!" qualifying, as he spoke, a moderate cup with some of
+the ice-cold water which welled out in a crystal stream from a small
+basin under the wreathed roots of the sycamore which overshadowed them.
+
+"None of your nonsense, Forester--hand us the liquor, lad--I'm dry, I
+tell you!"
+
+"I wish you'd tell me something I don't know, then, if you feel
+communicative; for I know that you're dry--now and always! Well! don't
+be mad, old fellow, here's the bottle--don't empty it--that's all!"
+
+"Well! now I've drinked," said Tom, after a vast potation, "now I've
+drinked good--we'll have a bite and rest awhile, and smoke a pipe; and
+then we'll use them quail, and we'll have time to pick up twenty cock in
+Hell-hole arterwards, and that won't be a slow day's work, I reckon."
+
+
+THE QUAIL
+
+"Certainly this is a very lovely country," exclaimed the Commodore
+suddenly, as he gazed with a quiet eye, puffing his cigar the while,
+over the beautiful vale, with the clear expanse of Wickham's Pond in the
+middle foreground, and the wild hoary mountains framing the rich
+landscape in the distance.
+
+"Truly, you may say that," replied Harry; "I have traveled over a large
+part of the world, and for its own peculiar style of loveliness, I must
+say that I never have seen any thing to match with the vale of Warwick.
+I would give much, very much, to own a few acres, and a snug cottage
+here, in which I might pass the rest of my days, far aloof from the
+Fumum et opes strepitumque Romae."
+
+"Then, why the h--l don't you own a few acres?" put in ancient Tom; "I'd
+be right glad to know, and gladder yit to have you up here, Archer."
+
+"I would indeed, Tom," answered Harry; "I'm not joking at all; but there
+are never any small places to be bought hereabout; and, as for large
+ones, your land is so confounded good, that a fellow must be a nabob to
+think of buying."
+
+"Well, how would Jem Burt's place suit you, Archer?" asked the fat man.
+"You knows it--just a mile and a half 'tother side Warwick, by the crick
+side? I guess it will have to be sold anyhow next April; leastways the
+old man's dead, and the heirs want the estate settled up like."
+
+"Suit me!" cried Harry, "by George! it's just the thing, if I recollect
+it rightly. But how much land is there?"
+
+"Twenty acres, I guess--not over twenty-five, no how."
+
+"And the house?" "Well, that wants fixin' some; and the bridge over the
+crick's putty bad, too, it will want putty nigh a new one. Why, the
+house is a story and a half like; and it's jist an entry stret through
+the middle, and a parlor on one side on't, and a kitchen on the t'other;
+and a chamber behind both on 'em."
+
+"What can it be bought for, Tom?"
+
+"I guess three thousand dollars; twenty-five hundred, maybe. It will go
+cheap, I reckon; I don't hear tell o' no one lookin' at it.
+
+"What will it cost me more to fix it, think you?"
+
+"Well, you see, Archer, the land's ben most darned badly done by, this
+last three years, since old 'squire's ben so low; and the bridge,
+that'll take a smart sum; and the fences is putty much gone to rack; I
+guess it'll take hard on to a thousand more to fix it up right, like
+you'd like to have it, without doin' nothin' at the house."
+
+"And fifteen hundred more for that and the stables. I wish to heaven I
+had known this yesterday; or rather before I came up hither," said
+Harry.
+
+"Why so?" asked the Commodore.
+
+"Why, as the deuce would have it, I told my broker to invest six
+thousand, that I have got loose, in a good mortgage, if he could find
+one, for five years; and I have got no stocks that I can sell out; all
+that I have but this, is on good bond and mortgage, in Boston, and
+little enough of it, too."
+
+"Well, if that's all," said Forester, "we can run down tomorrow, and you
+will be in time to stop him."
+
+"That's true, too," answered Harry, pondering. "Are you sure it can be
+bought, Tom?"
+
+"I guess so," was the response.
+
+"That means, I suppose, that you're perfectly certain of it. Why the
+devil can't you speak English?"
+
+"English!" exclaimed Frank; "Good Lord! why don't you ask him why he
+can't speak Greek? English! Lord! Lord! Lord! Tom Draw and English!"
+
+"I'll jist tell Archer what he warnts to know, and then see you, my dear
+little critter, if I doosn't English you some!" replied the old man,
+waxing wroth. "Well, Archer, to tell heaven's truth, now, I doos know
+it; but it's an etarnal all-fired shame of me to be tellin' it, bein' as
+how I knows it in the way of business like. It's got to be selled by
+vandoo in April*. [*Vendue. Why the French word for a public auction has
+been adopted throughout the Northern and Eastern States, as applied to a
+Sheriff's sale, deponent saith not.]
+
+"Then, by Jove! I will buy it," said Harry; "and down I'll go to-morrow.
+But that need not take you away, boys; you can stay and finish out the
+week here, and go home in the Ianthe; Tom will send you down to Nyack."
+
+"Sartain," responded Tom; "but now I'm most darned glad I told you that,
+Archer. I meant to a told you on't afore, but it clean slipped out of my
+head; but all's right, now. Hark! hark! don't you hear, boys? The quails
+hasn't all got together yit--better luck! Hush, A--- and you'll hear
+them callin'--whew-wheet! whew-wheet! whe-whe-whe;" and the old Turk
+began to call most scientifically; and in ten minutes the birds were
+answering him from all quarters, through the circular space of
+Bog-meadow, and through the thorny brake beyond it, and some from a large
+ragwort field further yet.
+
+"How is this, Frank--did they scatter so much when they dropped?" asked
+Harry.
+
+"Yes; part of them 'lighted in the little bank on this edge, by the
+spring, you know; and some, a dozen or so, right in the middle of the
+bog, by the single hickory; and five or six went into the swamp, and a
+few over it."
+
+"That's it! that's it! and they've been running to try to get together,"
+said the Commodore.
+
+"But was too skeart to call, till we'd quit shootin'!" said Tom. "But
+come, boys, let's be stirrin', else they'll git together like; they
+keeps drawin', drawin', into one place now, I can hear."
+
+No sooner said than done; we were all on foot in an instant, and ten
+minutes brought us to the edge of the first thicket; and here was the
+truth of Harry's precepts tested by practice in a moment; for they had
+not yet entered the thin bushes, on which now the red leaves hung few
+and sere, before old Shot threw his nose high into the air, straightened
+his neck and his stern, and struck out at a high trot; the other setter
+evidently knowing what he meant, though as yet he had not caught the
+wind of them. In a moment they both stood steady; and, almost at the
+same instant, Tom Draw's Dash, and A---'s Grouse come to the point, all
+on different birds, in a bit of very open ground, covered with
+wintergreen about knee deep, and interspersed with only a few scattered
+bushes.
+
+Whir-r-r-r--up they got all at once! what a jostle--what a hubbub! Bang!
+bang! crack! bang! crack! bang! Four barrels exploded in an instant,
+almost simultaneously; and two sharp unmeaning cracks announced that, by
+some means or other, Frank Forester's gun had missed fire with both
+barrels.
+
+"What the deuce is the matter, boys" cried Harry, laughing, as he threw
+up his gun, after the hubbub had subsided, and dropped two birds--the
+only two that fell, for all that waste of shot and powder.
+
+"What the deuce ails you?" he repeated, no one replying, and all hands
+looking bashful and crest-fallen. "Are you all drunk? or what is the
+matter? I asked merely for information."
+
+"Upon my life! I believe I am!" said Frank Forester. "For I have not
+loaded my gun at all, since I killed those two last snipe. And, when we
+got up from luncheon, I put on the caps just as if all was right--but
+all is right now," he added, for he had repaired his fault, and loaded,
+before A--- or fat Tom had done staring, each in the other's face, in
+blank astonishment.
+
+"Step up to Grouse, then," said Archer, who had never taken his eye off
+the old brown pointer, while he was loading as fast as he could. "He has
+got a bird, close under his nose; and it will get up, and steal away
+directly. That's a trick they will play very often."
+
+"He haint got no bird," said Tom, sulkily. And Frank paused doubtful.
+
+"Step up, I tell you, Frank," said Harry, "the old Turk's savage;
+that's all."
+
+And Frank did step up, close to the dog's nose; and sent his foot
+through the grass close under it. Still the dog stood perfectly stiff;
+but no bird rose.
+
+"I telled you there warn't no quails there;" growled Tom.
+
+"And I tell you there are!" answered Archer, more sharply than he often
+spoke to his old ally; for, in truth, he was annoyed at his obstinate
+pertinacity.
+
+"What do you say, Commodore? Is Grouse lying? Kick that tussock--kick it
+hard, Frank."
+
+"Not he," replied A---; "I'll bet fifty to one, there's a bird there."
+
+"It's devilish odd, then, that he won't get up!" said Frank.
+
+Whack! whack! and he gave the hard tussock two kicks with his heavy
+boot, that fairly made it shake. Nothing stirred. Grouse still kept his
+point, but seemed half inclined to dash in. Whack! a third kick that
+absolutely loosened the tough hassock from the ground, and then,
+whirr-r, from within six inches of the spot where all three blows had
+been delivered, up got the bird, in a desperate hurry; and in quite as
+desperate a hurry Forester covered it--covered it before it was six
+yards off! His finger was on the trigger, when Harry quietly said,
+"Steady, Frank!" and the word acted like magic.
+
+He took the gun quite down from his shoulder, nodded to his friend,
+brought it up again, and turned the bird over very handsomely, at twenty
+yards, or a little further.
+
+"Beautifully done, indeed, Frank," said Harry. "So much for coolness!"
+
+"What do you say to that, Tom?" said the Commodore, laughing.
+
+But there was no laugh in Tom; he only muttered a savage growl, and an
+awful imprecation; and Harry's quick glance warned A--- not to plague
+the old Trojan further.
+
+All this passed in a moment; and then was seen one of those singular
+things that will at times happen; but with regard to quail only, so far
+as I have ever seen or heard tell. For as Forester was putting down the
+card upon the powder in the barrel which he had just fired, a second
+bird rose, almost from the identical spot whence the first had been so
+difficultly flushed, and went off in the same direction. But not in the
+least was Frank flurried now. He dropped his ramrod quietly upon the
+grass, brought up his piece deliberately to his eye, and killed his bird
+again.
+
+"Excellent--excellent! Frank," said Harry again. "I never saw two
+prettier shots in all my life. Nor did I ever see birds lie harder."
+
+During all this time, amidst all the kicking of tussocks, threshing of
+bog-grass, and banging of guns, and, worst of all, bouncing up of fresh
+birds, from the instant when they dropped at the first shot, neither one
+of Harry's dogs, nor Tom's little Dash, had budged from their down
+charge. Now, however, they got up quickly, and soon retrieved all the
+dead birds. "Now, then, we will divide into two parties," said Harry.
+"Frank, you go with Tom; and you come with me, Commodore. It will never
+do to have you two jealous fellows together, you wont kill a bird all
+day," he added, in a lower voice. "That is the worst of old Tom, when he
+gets jealous he's the very devil. Frank is the only fellow that can get
+along with him at all. He puts me out of temper, and if we both got
+angry, it would be very disagreeable. For, though he is the very best
+fellow in the world, when he is in a rage he is untamable. I cannot
+think what has put him out, now; for he has shot very well to-day. It is
+only when he gets behindhand, that he is usually jealous in his
+shooting; but he has got the deuce into him now."
+
+By this time the two parties were perhaps forty yards apart, when Dash
+came to a point again. Up got a single bird, the old cock, and flew
+directly away from Tom, across Frank's face; but not for that did the
+old chap pause. Up went his cannon to his shoulder, there was a flash
+and a roar, and the quail, which was literally not twelve feet from him,
+disappeared as if it had been resolved into thin air. The whole of Tom's
+concentrated charge had struck the bird endwise, as it flew from him;
+and except the extreme tips of his wings and one foot, no part of him
+could be found.
+
+"The devil!" cried Harry, "that is too bad!"
+
+"Never mind," said the Commodore, "Frank will manage him."
+
+As he spoke a second bird got up, and crossed Forester in the same
+manner, Draw doing precisely as he had done before; but, this time,
+missing the quail clear, which Forester turned over.
+
+"Load quick! and step up to that fellow. He will run, I think!" said
+Archer.
+
+"Ay! ay!" responded Frank, and, having rammed down his charge like
+lightning, moved forward, before he had put the cap on the barrel he had
+fired.
+
+Just as he took the cap out of his pocket between his finger and thumb,
+a second quail rose. As cool and self-possessed as it is possible to
+conceive, Frank cocked the left hand barrel with his little finger,
+still holding the cap between his forefinger and thumb, and actually
+contrived to bring up the gun, some how or other, and to kill the bird,
+pulling the trigger with his middle finger.
+
+At the report a third quail sprang, close under his feet; and, still
+unshaken, he capped the right hand barrel, fired, and the bird towered!
+
+"Mark! mark! Tom--ma-ark Timothy!" shouted Harry and A--- in a breath.
+
+"That bird is as dead as Hannibal now!" added Archer, as, having spun up
+three hundred feet into the air, and flown twice as many hundred yards,
+it turned over, and fell plumb, like a stone, through the clear
+atmosphere.
+
+"Ayse gotten that chap marked doon roight, ayse warrant un!" shouted
+Timothy from the hill side, where with some trouble, he was holding in
+the obstreperous spaniels. "He's doon in a roight laine atwixt 't gray
+stean and yon hoigh ashen tree."
+
+"Did you ever see such admirable shooting, though?" asked A---, in a low
+voice. "I did not know Forester shot like that."
+
+"Some times he does. When he's cool. He is not certain; that is his only
+fault. One day he is the coolest man I ever saw in a field, and the next
+the most impetuous; but when he is cool, he shoots splendidly. As you
+say, A---, I never saw anything better done in my life. It was the
+perfection of coolness and quickness combined."
+
+"I cannot conceive how it was done at all. How he brought up and fired
+that first barrel with a cap between his thumb and forefinger! Why, I
+could not fire a gun so, in cold blood!"
+
+"Nor could he, probably. Deliberate promptitude is the thing! Well, Tom,
+what do you think of that? Wasn't that pretty shooting?"
+
+"It was so, pretty shootin'," responded the fat man, quite delighted out
+of his crusty mood. "I guess the darned little critter's got three
+barrels to his gun somehow; leastwise it seems to me, I swon, 'at he
+fired her off three times without loadin' I guess I'll quit tryin' to
+shoot agin Frank, to-day."
+
+"I told you so!" said Harry to the Commodore, with a low laugh, and then
+added aloud--"I think you may as well, Tom--for I don't believe the
+fellow will miss another bird to-day."
+
+And in truth, strange to say, it fell out, in reality, nearly as Archer
+had spoken in jest. The whole party shot exceedingly well. The four
+birds, which Tom and the Commodore had missed at the first start, were
+found again in an old ragwort field, and brought to bag; and of the
+twenty-three quail which Forester had marked down into the bog meadow,
+not one bird escaped, and of that bevy not one bird did Frank miss,
+killing twelve, all of them double shots, to his own share, and beating
+Archer in a canter.
+
+But that sterling sportsman cared not a stiver; too many times by far
+had he had the field, too sure was he of doing the same many a time
+again, to dislike being beaten once. Besides this, he was always the
+least jealous shot in the world, for a very quick one; and, in this
+instance, he was perhaps better pleased to see his friend "go in and
+win," than he would have been to do the like himself.
+
+Exactly at two o'clock, by A---'s repeater, the last bird was bagged;
+making twenty-seven quail, forty-nine snipe, two ruffed grouse, and one
+woodcock, bagged in about five hours.
+
+"So far, this is the very best day's sport I ever saw," said Archer;
+"and two things I have seen which I never saw before; a whole bevy of
+quail killed without the escape of one bird, and a whole bevy killed
+entirely by double shots, except the odd bird. You, A---, have killed
+three double shots--I have killed three--Tom Draw one double shot, and
+the odd bird; and Master Frank there, confound him, six double shots
+running--the cleverest thing I ever heard of, and, in Forester's case,
+the best shooting possible. I have missed one bird, you two, and Tom
+three."
+
+"But Tom beant a goin' to miss no more birds, I can tell you, boy. Tom's
+drinked agin, and feels kind o' righter than he did--kind o' first best!
+You'd best all drink, boys--the spring's handy, close by here; and after
+we gits down acrost the road into the big swamp, and Hell-Hole, there
+arn't a drop o' water fit to drink, till we gits way down to Aunt
+Sally's big spring-hole, jest to home."
+
+"I second the motion," said Harry; "and then let us be quick, for the
+day is wearing away, and we have got a long beat yet before us. I wish
+it were a sure one. But it is not. Once in three or four years we get a
+grand day's sport in the big swamp; but for one good day we have ten bad
+ones. However, we are sure to find a dozen birds or so in Hell-Hole; and
+a bevy of quail in the Captain's swamp, shan't we, Tom?"
+
+"Yes, if we gits so far; but somehow or other I rather guess we'll find
+quite a smart chance o' cock. Captain Reed was down there a' Satterday,
+and he saw heaps on 'em."
+
+"That's no sure sign. They move very quickly now. Here today and there
+to-morrow," said Archer. "In the large woods especially. In the small
+places there are plenty of sure finds."
+
+"There harn't been nothing of frosts yet keen enough to stir them," said
+Tom. "I guess we'll find them. And there harn't been a gun shot off this
+three weeks there. Hoel's wife's ben down sick all the fall, and
+Halbert's gun busted in the critter's hand."
+
+"Ah! did it hurt him?"
+
+"Hurt him some--skeart him considerable, though. I guess he's quit
+shootin' pretty much. But come--here we be, boys. I'll keep along the
+outside, where the walkin's good. You git next me, and Archer next with
+the dogs, and A--- inside of all. Keep right close to the cedars, A---;
+all the birds 'at you flushes will come stret out this aways. They never
+flies into the cedar swamp. Archer, how does the ground look?"
+
+"I never saw it look so well, Tom. There is not near so much water as
+usual, and yet the bottom is all quite moist and soft."
+
+"Then we'll get cock for sartain."
+
+"By George!" cried A--- "the ground is like a honey-comb, with their
+borings; and as white in places with their droppings, as if there had
+been a snow fall!"
+
+"Are they fresh droppings, A---?"
+
+"Mark! Ah! Grouse! Grouse! for shame. There he is down. Do you see him,
+Harry?"
+
+"Ay! ay! Did Grouse flush him?"
+
+"Deliberately, at fifty yards off. I must lick him."
+
+"Pray do; and that mercifully."
+
+"And that soundly," suggested Frank, as an improvement.
+
+"Soundly is mercifully," said Harry, "because one good flogging settles
+the business; whereas twenty slight ones only harass a dog, and do
+nothing in the way of correction or prevention."
+
+"True, oh king" said Frank, laughing. "Now let us go on; for, as the
+bellowing of that brute is over, I suppose 'chastisement has hidden her
+head.'"
+
+And on they did go; and sweet shooting they had of it; all the way down
+to the thick deep spot, known by the pleasing sobriquet of Hell-Hole.
+
+The birds were scattered everywhere throughout the swamp, so excellent
+was the condition of the ground; scattered so much, that, in no instance
+did two rise at once; but one kept flapping up after another, large and
+lazy, at every few paces; and the sportsmen scored them fast, although
+scarcely aware how fast they were killing them. At length, when they
+reached the old creek-side, and the deep black mud-holes, and the
+tangled vines and leafy alders, dogs were thrown into it, Frank was sent
+forward to the extreme point, and the Commodore out into the open field,
+on the opposite side from that occupied by fat Tom.
+
+On the signal of a whistle, from each of the party, Harry drove into the
+brake with the spaniels, the setters being now consigned to the care of
+Timothy; and in a moment, his loud "Hie cock! Hie cock! Pur-r-r--Hie
+cock! good dogs!" was succeeded by the shrill yelping of the cockers,
+the flap of the fast rising birds, and the continuous rattling of shots.
+
+In twenty minutes the work was done; and it was well that it was done;
+for, within a quarter of an hour afterwards, it was too dark to shoot at
+all.
+
+In that last twenty minutes twenty-two cock were actually brought to
+bag, by the eight barrels; twenty-eight had been picked up, one by one,
+as they came down the long swamp, and one Harry had killed in the
+morning. When Timothy met them, with the horses, at the big oak tree,
+half an hour afterward--for he had gone off across the fields, as hard
+as he could foot it to the farm, as soon as he had received the setters
+--it was quite dark; and the friends had counted their game out
+regularly, and hung it up secundum artem in the loops of the new game
+bag.
+
+It was a huge day's sport--a day's sport to talk about for years
+afterward--Tom Draw does talk about it now!
+
+Fifty-one woodcock, forty-nine English snipe, twenty-seven quail, and a
+brace of ruffed grouse. A hundred and twenty-nine head in all, on
+unpreserved ground, and in very wild walking. It is to be feared it will
+never be done any more in the vale of Warwick. For this, alas! was ten
+years ago.
+
+When they reached Tom's it was decided that they should all return home
+on the morrow; that Harry should attend to the procuring his purchase
+money; and Tom to the cheapening of the purchase.
+
+In addition to this, the old boy swore, by all his patron saints, that
+he would come down in spring, and have a touch at the snipe he had heerd
+Archer tell on at Pine Brook.
+
+A capital supper followed; and of course lots of good liquor, and the
+toast, to which the last cup was quaffed, was LONG LIFE TO HARRY ARCHER,
+AND LUCK TO HIS SHOOTING BOX, to which Frank Forester added: "I wish he
+may get it."
+
+And so that party ended; all of its members hoping to enjoy many more
+like it, and that very speedily.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Warwick Woodlands, by 
+Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
+
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