That nobleman was stepping out upon a balcony to learn the cause of the disturbance below, but turned back on seeing Don Pedro.
“What brawl is this at my door?” he asked in no pleasant tone.
“I have taken it upon myself to disregard the passport of your excellency, and arrest the men you dismissed a moment ago.”
“Ha!” interrupted Santa Cruz, frowning. “And why, sir?”
“I suspect them to be the assassins of my colleague,” the knight returned; “I have proof to that effect by which you can judge if I have done more than my duty, señor.”
“Speak on,” the other said, and Padilh at once gave a brief narrative of the events within his knowledge.
At the end, the marquis said: “I was hasty in thinking you over zealous. These fellows must be brought face to face with their accuser, and to make that sure, their examination shall be immediate. Send quickly for the Moor you speak of—but how is it that you are without a cap, Don Pedro?”
“I met the viceroy bare-headed,” the knight answered, with honest bluntness.
At which Santa Cruz, something nettled, exclaimed:
“By the three kings! You will teach us presently to be worthy our spurs!”
The captors of the unfortunate viceroy returned to the presence of the marquis with no good grace.
“Answer no questions,” Hilo muttered to the captain, “and they can prove nothing.”
But both were startled by the appearance of a witness they believed beyond the power of lifting a finger, and leagues away. Hilo uttered a savage oath of surprise, and Wolfang stood staring at the former mute, with his villainous mouth agape. Both heard the deposition read through and affirmed, without interfering or replying a syllable to any questions asked. The captain’s animal spirits had quite deserted him, and sullenness gave his face strong resemblance to a bull’s, while his fellow prisoner’s sharp features suited the cat-like activity of his eyes.
“The evidence is complete enough,” the marquis exclaimed finally; “and, by Heaven, gentlemen, these villains shall swing within twenty-four hours. Off with their sorry disguises, and let us see if they will persist in their insolence still.”
But Hilo, without waiting for the enforcement of the order, threw his peasant’s frock from him.
“If you call yourself Don Pedro de Padilh,” he cried to the knight, “take this gall to your pride. All Spain shall know before I die whose uncle you are, and that you brought your own blood to this strait; I swear it here before all the saints, and can prove my words.”
“I beg you, sir, to make no account of my relationship,” Padilh said smiling to Santa Cruz. “In good season, gentlemen, you will understand this innuendo.”
“I am not to be led astray by such a fellow’s lies,” the marquis replied, with a contemptuous laugh. “We have had enough of their company, señores, and leave them to you, Padilh, to have cared for. Only see that escape is made impossible.”
“Stop!” Hilo exclaimed; “one word, my lord marquis, before I go. Knights and gentlemen here present, bear witness I hold in my hand the written parole of free conduct of this man—a thing no knight ever violated before. Santa Cruz I tear your worthless paper to atoms, thus, and proclaim you an infamous liar—a liar!” he reiterated, at the highest pitch of his voice, and stamping with impotent fury.
The marquis, a man of unbridled passions, lost all command of himself at this insolent speech; his stiff beard bristled from excess of rage, like a boar’s back, and his sword was in his hand in an instant. But a number of cavaliers placed themselves simultaneously between, and Padilh grasped his sword-arm.
“My lord—my lord, you forget yourself and justice!” he uttered, in that steady voice which asserted the true superiority of the man, and caused the blood to return to the face of the great captain. He looked at Don Pedro savagely a moment; but before dismissing his court he had recovered sufficient equanimity to pay a compliment to the latter, who was absent seeing to the disposal of the prisoners.
“No knight is more worthy the name,” he added with a grim smile, “although he is somewhat rough and unguarded in performance of his duty, at times.”
The day following the marquis and his maître-de-camp met in secret council. The former heard with surprise the history of De Ladron.
“The wretch has put a climax to his crimes in this last,” he cried, “and please Heaven it shall be also the last he commits.”
“I think,” the ample-hearted knight answered, “he would not have done such a wickedness knowingly. It is hard to believe so young a man could have so far fallen in villainy as to assassinate his own father, recognizing him as such. Doubtless the papers placed in De Haye’s hands never reached their destination. That unhappy gentleman fell in the first battle beyond Praya.”
“Possibly,” Santa Cruz replied, thoughtfully, “and out of love to Inique I reverse my sentence, and postpone the day of execution until after that faithful cavalier draws his last breath; a period not far distant, his surgeon tells me.”
“So near,” Padilh replied, “that I think, my lord, M. de Chaste, you and I, to whom only the secret of his life is known, should remain custodians of his honor, and preserve his name from vulgar censure after death.”
“I give my hand to the compact cheerfully,” the other responded, and Don Pedro repaired at once to the quarters of the French commandant to enlist his neutrality.
“You will comprehend M. de Chaste,” he said, among other things, to that weather-beaten pattern of chivalry, “by what knightly motives I have been impelled to shun no duty incumbent on my office. And had he been my own nephew, wicked as he is, I would not have screened him from the full weight of justice he deserves. Our strenuous aim now should be to save Inique the knowledge of his son’s fate, and if possible, of even his vicinity to himself.”
This was not easy to do where no visiter to Inique’s bedside saw any reason for withholding themost important news, and in the course of a few days the dying soldier knew the worst and mastered it, and quietly desired Padilh to obtain permission for a last interview with his—his son. The word stuck in his throat.
The knight replied—“As soon as your recovery is advanced, or failing that, when you feel death drawing on, I will oppose nothing to your wish, Inique. But for the present spare yourself so agitating an encounter.”
“Don Pedro,” the wounded maître-de-camp answered, smiling faintly, “I wish to make my peace with the boy and acknowledge my sins, but you well understand where my most affectionate thoughts rest.”
To which Padilh assented gravely. He was thinking at the moment in what manner the tidings of the dispersion of the fleet at Praya, could be suppressed without equivocation.
“I will be compelled to confess the truth at last,” the honest gentleman said despairingly when alone, and still weighing the even balance of duty in his mind. “But it sadly perplexes a mortal intellect, Heaven knows, to distinguish between what is due one’s friend and one’s soul.”
Indeed, the last words spoken that evening by Don Augustino were to this effect: “Send a courier to Praya and let the boy be brought here immediately. Imustsee him once more, and I haven’t many hours to live.”
But succor came unexpectedly to the upright knight, the succeeding morning.
It was his custom to pace a quay, looking seaward every dawn, in anxious hope of the appearance of the missing ship, the others having already made harbor at Praya and elsewhere; and for the first time he saw a sail on the northwestern horizon. Some hours later Padilh himself, boarded the vessel and was surprised beyond measure to find his countess and her protegée on board. His gratification, however, was even greater, and so he told her, on hearing the somewhat vague account of the object of this voyage.
“It was a madcap enterprise,” he said, smiling, “but the end is undoubtedly good; I would have sent for Doña Viola, if there had been the least probability of her arriving in time.”
A speech which greatly reassured Doña Hermosa, who had been considering during the voyage, what good reason she could offer her lord, for sanctioning the expedition, and had found with dismay there would be none forthcoming. As ladies generally do they had laid their hearts together in the first instance, instead of their heads, and mistook sentiment for conviction, after their usual fashion.
With a more disturbed mind, the knight listened to the recital of the shipwreck, and subsequently cross questioned the old woman accompanying them, who made no favorable impression. “I don't like her,” he told his countess; “she sheds too many crocodile tears, over a disaster, which to only one person concerned, can appear in any other light, than a cessation of pain. I have cautioned her to keep out of sight for the present, as the knowledge would assuredly kill Don Augustino.”
It was necessary to break the news of her father’s situation, and its antecedents to poor Viola, who by imagining the occurrence of all manner of evils during the few past weeks, had arrived at a state of mind not entirely unprepared for any thing, and the two ladies mingled their tears freely together, while Don Pedro returned to prepare his associate for the meeting. Little preparation was needed in this quarter, the dying man’s thoughts being occupied by a single object. Who of us can fix a bound to the justice of Heaven, and blasphemously call all beyond it harsh exercise of omnipotent power. It seems to me even retribution, that this soldier who had prided himself above all things, on his honor and the world’s applause, should die without one scrip of either, if what was conceded in acknowledgement of his tardy confession be excepted, and from compassion had, step by step, arrived at such a state of infatuation for the witness of his passionate pride at St. Quentin, that natural affection for his own offspring seemed almost wholly stifled, and the ignominious fate of his accredited son, gave occasion to scarce any emotion. People are apt to attribute such perverseness to want of sanity, much as a coroner’s jury gives in a like verdict in cases of suicide; yet Inique was as collected as you or I, and his weakness merely physical. The man’s nature had received a wrench in youth, and the tree retained the twist, only shifting the direction of its growth as it worked around. If he had lived long enough, he might have been more penitent or less, nearer a saint or more openly a sinner. How many mercies, and how many lies, our lives will example at the last great day, none of us living can compute.
The soldier was, therefore, not much agitated by the sobs of his daughter, but without agitation, life was fast ebbing now, and in accordance with his promise, Padilh brought Hilo from his prison for a final interview. That young gentleman had been whiling away the time at dice, and left the captain in no good humor at the interruption to his run of luck.
“Why am I brought here?” he asked after a supercilious glance around. “Is avenging an injury so uncommon? If this man had not withheld my dues he would not have received his own as you see.”
“Wretched young man,” the dying maître-de-camp said feebly, rather than sternly, “I had hoped to learn in the haste of the trial, some error had been made, and that it was not from your hand this ball came.”
“It was not from my hand,” Hilo interrupted.
“Heaven be praised, for as all here can witness you are my son and not De Ladron’s.”
At these words, Hilo started and turned pale, but his face was instantly flushed with passion.
“It is a base lie—a lie,” he exclaimed through his teeth, scowling around. “It is a shallow trick to cheat me out of my inheritance at the last gasp.”
“Brother!” sobbed out Viola, deprecatingly.
“Sir—son,” Inique cried, “I cannot disprove your bitter words by leaving you a fortune of my own; for the real son of De Ladron, whom I made an idiot, is the heir of the estate I hold. Forgive what actual wrong I have done you as a parent, remembering how soon the end of us both must be.”
Before he ceased speaking, a figure, coming no one knew whence, in the consternation of the moment, hobbled between, and cast a baneful look on Inique from a pair of ferret eyes sparkling with rage and malice. Her rage was so great that she mouthed and champed with her old toothless jaws, before a word could be emitted. The wounded knight sat bolt upright in bed, gazing at her wildly.
“Where is my boy—speak woman, speak?” he cried, with a sudden return of strength and voice.
“Food for fishes—ah ha! food for fishes!” She mumbled out, pointing with her crooked finger mockingly.
“Oh, heaven be merciful! he is dying—Hermosa—Don Pedro—help!” Viola exclaimed, receiving the cavalier’s weight in her quickly opened arms.
“Yes, yes, he’s dying at last,” the crone screamed “I killed him—me and my son. He’s cheated us both, but we’ve paid him back, and I’ve got money enough saved up to keep you in pocket money, my pretty game-chick.”
“Hag!” Hilo ejaculated, shaking loose the old woman’s clutch on his sleeve.
“Hey now,” she retorted, threatening him with her finger, “mind what I say. I’ve gold enough for both, without that swindler’s there. I wanted you to have that too. I would have been an honest girl, but for him, and he owed you a living; so I put you in place of your namesake, when a baby. I’ve been caring for you ever since. I wouldn’t let you marry who you wanted, because I wanted you to marry somebody richer than your French countess.”
“She devil—I spit on you,” her son broke in furiously.
“Is this my reward?” she shrieked, “mind, I have gold which you’ll never handle—you might if you were dutiful.”
And mutually vilifying each other, the mother and her offspring, were carried out from the ante-chamber by the guards of the latter.
Reader, thefootlights begin to burn dim—one of the chief personages of this story, without so much will left of all his willfulness, to put his blind arms about his daughter, and confess his short-comings, and without a tatter hanging about him of former arrogance, lies expiring—the orchestra plays a dirge—the drop scene comes slowly down—all is over.
One act more, and a short one closes the drama.
Captain Wolfang Carlo, it may be borne in mind, had retained about his person, the papers taken from De Haye’s doublet, and from time to time, as opportunity offered, spelled out the meaning in private.—He was not inclined to think them of much value, and felt only a lazy curiosity in regard to the contents, but a reference to his comrade, he had met with during his last perusal, joined to the expressions let fall by Padilh, at the examination before the marquis, excited intolerable suspicions in his avaricious soul. What! after months and years of watching and following about like a dog; to find himself swindled and his debtor an impostor and penniless. He must see. And the captain eagerly embraced the rare interval of privacy afforded by theabsence of De Ladron with Inique, to find in the MS. in hispossession some warrant for his doubts. As the honest free soldier read laboriously, the veins in his forehead and cheeks swelled and purpled; he churned his tusks like any other savage boar, and finally threw himself on the stone floor, howling and beating the flags with his clenched fists. This frenzy was in full vigor, when Hilo entered, unguardedly and in no amiable mood.
“Get up, Flemish hog!” he cried imperiously, applying his foot to the other’s ribs.
He did get up; with a yell heard by the guard through the thick wall.
In the time it took to unbar and unclose the door, Wolfang had added one more to his list of crimes, and the wretched old woman, who had been placed in the same cell at her own stipulation, was discovered vainly endeavoring to break the hold of the former on her son’s throat.
Come children; cries the great exhibiter of vanity-fair, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out.
I THINK OF THEE.
———
BY GEO. D. PRENTICE.
———
I think of thee when eve’s last blushFalls mournfully on heart and eye;Of thee when morn’s first glories gushIn gold and crimson o’er the sky;My thoughts are thine ’mid toil and strife,Thine when from all life’s perils free—Ay, thine—forever thine—my lifeIs but a living thought of thee.I think of thee ’mid spring’s sweet flowers,And in the summer’s brighter glow,Of thee in autumn’s purple bowers,And gloomy winter’s waste of snow;My thoughts are thine when joys depart,And thine when all life’s sorrows flee—Ay, thine—forever thine—my heartIs but a throbbing thought of thee.
I think of thee when eve’s last blushFalls mournfully on heart and eye;Of thee when morn’s first glories gushIn gold and crimson o’er the sky;My thoughts are thine ’mid toil and strife,Thine when from all life’s perils free—Ay, thine—forever thine—my lifeIs but a living thought of thee.I think of thee ’mid spring’s sweet flowers,And in the summer’s brighter glow,Of thee in autumn’s purple bowers,And gloomy winter’s waste of snow;My thoughts are thine when joys depart,And thine when all life’s sorrows flee—Ay, thine—forever thine—my heartIs but a throbbing thought of thee.
I think of thee when eve’s last blush
Falls mournfully on heart and eye;
Of thee when morn’s first glories gush
In gold and crimson o’er the sky;
My thoughts are thine ’mid toil and strife,
Thine when from all life’s perils free—
Ay, thine—forever thine—my life
Is but a living thought of thee.
I think of thee ’mid spring’s sweet flowers,
And in the summer’s brighter glow,
Of thee in autumn’s purple bowers,
And gloomy winter’s waste of snow;
My thoughts are thine when joys depart,
And thine when all life’s sorrows flee—
Ay, thine—forever thine—my heart
Is but a throbbing thought of thee.
RUFFED GROUSE SHOOTING.
———
BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, AUTHOR OF FRANK FORESTER’S “FIELD SPORTS,” “FISH AND FISHING,” ETC.
———
THE RUFFED GROUSE.(Tetrao Umbellus.)
THE RUFFED GROUSE.(Tetrao Umbellus.)
The beautiful bird which is depicted above, is that known as the Partridge, in New Jersey, and all the States east and north of the Delaware, and as the Pheasant everywhere to the westward of that fine stream; and by these provincial vulgarisms it is like to be known and designated, until sportsmen will take the trouble of acquiring a little knowledge of their own trade, and will cease to regard naturalists as mere theorizing bookmen, and scientific names and distinctions as supererogatory humbug. The distinction between the Grouse and other birds of the gallinaceous order, is that the former are invariably, the latter never, feathered below the knee. This distinction never fails, and is very easily noted; although, in different species of the genus, the extent of the feathering differs. In the Ruffed Grouse the soft fleecy feathering of the leg is sparse, and descends only to the middle of the shank. In the Pinnated Grouse, Prairie Hen of the West, and Grouse of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, the legs are feathered the whole way down the shank, to the insertion of the toes; and the same is the case of the Canada Grouse, or Spruce Partridge of the remote Eastern States. In all those species of Grouse, which are known as Ptarmigan, dwellers of the extreme north, or in the northern temperature of iced mountain-tops, the feathering continues the whole length of the toes quite to the insertion of the claws—this I merely mentionpar parenthese, as there is but one of the Ptarmigans likely to fall within reach of the sportsman; namely, the Willow-Grouse, or Red-Necked Partridge of the extreme parts of Maine, and the Easternmost British provinces, and thence so far as to the Arctic Circle.
These distinctions are easily borne in mind, nor will be found all-sufficient to the discriminating woodsman, who desires to be able to call things by their right names, and to give a reason for doing so.
ThetruePheasant is a native of Asia originally, though it has been naturalized in Europe, since a very early period, and is now abundant in France and England. No species of this bird, which is distinguished by a pointed tail, above half a yard in length, and by its splendidly gorgeous coloring, little inferior in intensity to that of the Peacock, has ever been found, or is believed to exist in any portion of the Western hemisphere; although those singular and showy birds, theCuraçoasof South America, have some relation to it.
The same is true of therealPartridge; although theQuail of this continent would seem to be its equivalent; being as it were a connecting link between the European Quail, and the Partridge of Europe.
The Ruffed Grouse ranges over a very wide portion of the United States and British provinces, from the 51st degree of north latitude to the Atlantic sea-board, although it is much more scarce in the Southern States than in the midland and northern regions. It is remarkable also that it varies exceedingly in color; those to the northward being comparatively dull and gray, to those of Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and more genial regions.
The distinctive feature, whence this bird derives his title ofRuffedGrouse, is the tuft or tippet of jet-black feathers, glossed with metallic hues, which are shown more or less distinctly in each of the figures in the woodcut at the head of this paper, but the most decidedly in the cock-bird, represented as standing on a fallen log, in the act of drumming, with these ruffs elevated, and his tail erected and expanded after the manner of a Turkey or Peacock, in the season of his amorous phantasies.
This drumming, a sound sufficiently familiar to all ears accustomed to the sights and noises of the forest, is no less than the call of the male bird to his harem of attendant wives; for the Ruffed Grouse, unlike our pretty, constant, and domestic Quail, selects himself no one fond partner, whom to cheer with his loved notes, to comfort and amuse during the breeding season, but rejoices like a veritable grand Signor in a multiplicity of fair sultanas, whom so soon as they betake themselves to the cares of maternity, he abandons, like arouéas he is, and passes the remainder of the season, until the broods disperse in the autumn, in company with small packs of his own faithless sex, reveling and enjoying himself on the mountain sides, in his loved pines and hemlocks, while his forgotten loves brood patient over the hopes of the coming season.
“This drumming,” says Wilson, in his eloquent and animated page, “is most common in spring, and is the call of the cock to a favorite female. It is produced in the following manner: the bird, standing on an old prostrate log, generally in a retired situation, lowers his wings, erects his expanded tail, contracts his throat, elevates the two tufts of feathers on the neck, and inflates his whole body something in the manner of a Turkey cock strutting and wheeling about in great stateliness. After a few manœuvres of this kind, he begins to strike his stiffened wings in short and quick strokes, which become more and more rapid until they run into each other, resembling the rumbling sound of very distant thunder dying away gradually on the ear. After a few minutes’ pause, this is again repeated, and in a calm day may be heard nearly a mile off. This is most common in the morning and evening, though I have heard them drumming at all hours of the day.”
It is singular, that so exact an authority as Wilson has proved himself to be, should fall into the strange error of speaking of this singular amorous sound as a call to asinglefemale; and elsewhere of thePheasant, as he erroneously calls it, paining; when it is notorious to all who have closely observed the habits of this bird, that it is polygamous. Such, I believe, will be found the case with all those gallinaceous birds which have on especial summons, or peculiar display of attitudes, airs, and splendors by which to attract the females; as may be observed of the common Game-cock, the Turkey, the Peacock, and the European Pheasant; no one of which takes to himself an especial and chosen partner, but disports himself in his wanton seraglio.
On many occasions, during this particular season, I have stolen up to within a few yards of the log, whereon the Ruffed Grouse was so busily employed in summoning his dames and demoiselles around him, that he had no ears or eyes for my approach, which at any other period he would have discovered long before, and whirred away tumultuous on terrified and sounding pinions. I have lain concealed, for an hour at a time, watching with intense gratification the beautiful and animated gestures of the cock, now strutting and drumming on his log, proud as an eastern despot, now descending to caress and dally with his numerous Roxolanas, and then reascending to his post of pride, to send his resonant call far through the haunted echoes of the umbrageous pine-woods. On one such chance, I saw no less than seven hen birds gathered around a single male, all in turn expectant of his looked-for attentions, and all gratified by a share of his notice. If this be not Polygamy, I should like to receive the Grand Turk’s opinion on the subject, as I confess myself, if it be any thing less, in a state of absolute benightedness.
The Ruffed Grouse begins her nest very early in May, and lays from eight to fifteen brownish-white, unspotted eggs, nearly the size of those of a pullet. With the exact period of this bird’s incubation I am not acquainted; the young birds run the instant they clip the shell; obey the cluck of the mother, as chickens that of the hen; and are tended by her with extreme care and solicitude. In case of her being surprised with her young about her, she resorts to all the artifices practiced by the Quail, and even by the comparatively dull and stolid Woodcock, to draw away the intruder from the vicinity, feigning lameness and incapacity to fly, until she shall have lured away the pursuer far from the hiding-place of her fledglings. Then she shall whirr away on resonant and powerful pinions, up, up above the tops of the tall pines and hemlocks, and thence skate homeward noiseless on balanced wings, where she will find them close ensconced among the sheltering fern-tufts, or the matted winter-greens and whortleberry bushes, viewless to the most prying eye, and undiscoverable, save to the nose of the unerring spaniel. But once returned, you shall see them emerge, chirping feebly at the soft maternal cluck, and hurrying to enshroud them under the shelter of her guardian wing, and nestle, happy younglings, among the downy plumage of her maternal breast. Curses upon the sacrilegious hand that would interrupt that sweet and tender scene by the sharp click of the murderous trigger; yet there be brutes, in the guise of men, who scruple not to butcher the drumming cock, taken at fatal disadvantage, amid his admiring harem; scruple not to slaughter the brooding mother above her miserable younglings—but to such we cry avaunt! to such we deny the name of sportsmen, nay, but of Christians, or of men! Get ye behind us, murderous pot-hunters!
The young broods grow rapidly; and by the time they have reached the size of the Quail, fly well and strongly on the wing. By the middle, or latter end of August, they are three parts grown, and fully feathered, with the exception of the tail, which is not yet complete, and retains a pointed form. The blundering legislation of this country in general, on the subject of the game-laws, has, in this instance, to my ideas, exceeded itself; for during the months of September and October, when the broods are still united under the care of the mother, the birds lying well to the setter, and when flushed scattering themselves singly here and there among low undergrowth or bushes, and rarely or never taking to the tree, we are prohibited from shooting this bold, hardy, rambling, and shy bird; this, at a later season, wild hunter of inaccessible rock-ledges, impenetrable rhododendron brakes, and deep sequestered hemlock-swamps; this, the most uncomatable and self-protecting bird of all the varieties of American game; the only variety, perhaps, which nevercan by any means, fair or unfair, be exterminated from among us, so long us the rock-ribbed mountains tower toward the skies, and the forests clothe them with foliage never sere.
At this period they would afford rare sport, as at all other seasons they afford none; and are, moreover, in far the best condition for the table, as the old birds are apt to be dry, unless hung up for several weeks before being cooked, which can, of course, only be done in winter, when the coldness of the weather prevents their becoming tainted, without absolutely freezing them.
In my opinion, therefore, this, the only bird of American game, which might well exist apart from almost all protection, is now so protected as to be almost rendered impossible to the gun of the fair sportsman; while for others, the tamest, the most easily killed, and the most rapidly decreasing of all our winged tribes, as the Woodcock, for example, the mock protection afforded to them is but another word for the license to slaughter them half-fledged and half-grown, while the second brood is yet in the black-down, and unable to exist without the parent’s care.
I would myself desire to see the legitimate season for Ruffed Grouse-shooting made to commence with the first day of September, the young birds by that time, and in truth much earlier, being quite fit for the gun, and to cease on the fifteenth of December, or at Christmas at the latest, before the snows of winter admit of their being snared and trapped by thousands.
Toward the middle of October, the old hens drive off the broods, or the young birds now perfectly mature, stray from them of their own accord; and thenceforth they are found sometimes in little companies of two, three, or four, but far more often singly, in wild, difficult upland woods, through which they love to ramble deviously for miles, as they are led in search of their favorite food, or sometimes, as it would seem, by mere whim. On one occasion, many years since, when I was but a young sportsman on this side the Atlantic, I remember footing a small party of five birds, in a light snow, for above ten miles among the Wawayanda mountains, in Orange County, New York, without getting up to them; although it was easily seen by their hurried and agitated tracks that for a great part of the distance, they were within hearing of me, and were running from my pursuit. I had no dogs with me. Had I been out with setters, the Grouse would have trailed them for miles, and unquestionably risen at last out of shot. With spaniels, or curs, trained to run in upon them, and pursue, yelping loudly, as the mode is in the backwoods where men do not shoot but gun, they would have taken to the trees, and would have sat close to the trunk with their bodies erect, and their necks elongated, and might have been killed easily, the only difficulty being that of perceiving them, a difficulty far more considerable than would be imagined to an unpracticed eye. To shoot birds sitting, however, whether on trees or on the ground, is not sport for a sportsman; the only case where it is everallowable, is to the woodsman on a tramp through the primitive and boundless forest, where his camp-kettle must be filled by the contents of his bag, and where to throw away a chance is, perhaps, in the end to go supperless to bed. In such a case, while canoeing it last Autumn “with a goodly companye” up the northern rivers that debouche into Lake Huron, we shot many, while portaging around cataracts or rapids on the Severn; and on one occasion a gentlemen of the party shot three birds, out of one small pine-tree, without any of them moving or appearing alarmed at the gun-shots. This has often been related as a constant and ordinary habit of the bird; and from that occurrence, I am induced to believe that when the bird is in its natural solitudes, unacquainted with man and his murderous weapons, such may be the case; in the settlements, however, it might have been when they were rare and sparse, this is the habit of the Ruffed Grouse no longer. I have never in my life, save in the instance mentioned, observed any thing of the kind; on the contrary, I have ever found them the wildest, the most wary, and, unless by some mere chance, the least approachable of all wild birds.
During the latter autumn, they eschew flat, bushy tracts, and even swamps with heavy thicket, their instinct probably telling them that in such covert they are liable to be taken napping. If, however, one have the fortune to find them in such tracts, he is likely to have sport over setters; and in no other sort of ground do I deem that possible, as the law now stands. Once, many years since, sporting in the heavy thorn-brakes around Pine Brook, in New Jersey, I found them with a friend in low underwood, and we had great sport, bagging eight brace of Ruffed Grouse over points, in addition to some eighteen or twenty brace of Quail.
In general, however, they frequent either open groves of tall, thrifty timber, with a carpet of wintergreens, cranberries and whortleberries, which constitute their favorite food; or the steep mountain-ledges, under the interlaced branches of tall evergreen trees, among brakes of mountain rhododendron, or, as it is commonly called, though erroneously, laurel. In both these species of ground, all being clear below, the birds can hear and see the sportsman long before he can approach them, and take wing, for the most part, entirely out of gun-shot range. If, however, they are surprised unawares, they have a singular tact of dodging behind the first bush, or massive trunk, and flying off in a right line, keeping the obstacle directly between the sportsman and themselves, so as to frustrate all his efforts to obtain a shot; this I have seen done so often as to satisfy me that it is the result, not of chance, but of a deliberate instinct.
The Ruffed Grouse rises, at first, when surprised, with a heavy whirring and laborious flutter, and if taken at that moment within range, is easily shot; he rises for the most part a little higher than the head of a tall man, and goes away swift and strong nearly in a horizontal line. If struck behind, he will carry away a heavy load of shot, and he has a trick of flying until his breath leaves him in the air, and then falls dead before he strikes the ground. Occasionally he towers up with the wind, and then setting his wings, skates down before it at a prodigious rate, without moving a feather; and if you get a shot at him, gentle reader, under such circumstances, crossing you at long range, be sure that you shoot two, or by ’r lady three feet ahead of him, or you may cut off his extreme tail-feathers, but of a surety kill him you shall not.
The Ruffed Grouse usually flies in a perfectly right line, so that if you flush one without getting a shot, and can preserve his line exactly, you may find him, if he have not treed, which it is ten to one he has; wherefore I advise you not to follow him. The exception to this right line of flight, is when the ground is broken into ridges with parallel ravines, in which case the bird, on crossing a ridge at right angles, will rarely cross the ravine also, but will dive up or down, as the covert may invite.
When birds lie in narrow ravines, filled with good covert, by throwing the guns forward on the brow of the ridges a hundred yards ahead of the dogs, which must be left behind with a person to hunt and restrain them, and letting the sportsmen carefully keep that distance in advance, going very gingerly and silently, sport may be had; and so I think only—especially over slow, mute, cocking spaniels, for as the birds, after running before the dogs, will be likely to take wing abreast of, or perhaps even behindthe unexpected shooter, who has thus stolen a march on them, and as they rarely, if ever, cross the ridges, but fly straight along the gorge, they so afford fair shots.
For my own part, I do not consider it worth the while, as the law now stands, to go out in pursuit of Ruffed Grouse with dogs, where you expect to find no other species of game; for, in the first place, they ramble so widely, that there is no certainty of finding them within ten miles of the spot where you may have seen them daily for a month; and, secondly, if you do find them, there is no certainty of having sport with them, but rather a probability of reverse. As an adjunct to other kinds of shooting they are excellent, but as sole objects of pursuit, I think, worthless. I have often blundered on them by chance while hunting for other game; but when I have gone out expressly in pursuit of them, I have never had even tolerable sport.
If the law were altered, and September shooting permitted, the case would be altered also; and in many regions of our country, as the Kaatskill Mountains, and some parts of Columbia and Saratoga counties, in New York; the Pocono Mountains, and the Blue Ridge, generally, in Pennsylvania; and many districts of Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, rare sport might be had. For September shooting, No. 8 shot will be found sufficient; but after that, No. 7; and very late in the season, Eley’s wire cartridges will be found the most effective.
This widely extended bird is too well known to require any peculiar description; and I shall content myself with observing, in aid of my portraiture of the Ruffed Grouse, that the upper part of its head and hind neck are reddish-brown, the back rich chestnut, mottled with heart-shaped spots of white, edged with black. The tail is bright reddish-yellow, barred and speckled with black, and bordered by a broad, black belt between two narrow white bands, one at the extremity of the tail. The iris of the eye hazel, bill brown, feet brownish gray. Loral band cream color. Throat and fore neck, brownish-yellow. Upper ruff-feathers barred with brown. Wings brownish-red, streaked with black. Breast and abdomen cream colored, closely barred above, and laterally spotted below, with dark chocolate. Length 18 inches, spread of wings 2 feet. The Ruffed Grouse is a capital bird on the table. The breast white meat, back and thighs brown. It should be roasted quickly, eaten with bread sauce and fried crumbs, and washed down with sherry or red wine.
REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.
Astræa; The Balance of Delusions. A Poem Delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Yale College, Aug 14, 1850. By Oliver Wendall Holmes. Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 1 vol. 16mo.
Astræa; The Balance of Delusions. A Poem Delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Yale College, Aug 14, 1850. By Oliver Wendall Holmes. Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 1 vol. 16mo.
Few college poems have attained, at the period of their delivery, so fluttering a fame as did this last product of Dr. Holmes’s forgetive and flashing brain; and it is now published “by request of the Society,” and demand of the public. Though it has not the geniality of “Urania,” nor its sustained sweetness and subtility of sentiment, it is the greatest of the author’s long poems in decision and depth both of feeling and satire, and exhibits, perhaps, more than his usual command of the powers and delicacies of expression. The verse is a study for all heroic rhymers, being fully equal to all the purposes of wit, fancy, imagination and passion, and combining the utmost finish in separate lines with a bounding movement in the whole. The poem is a succession of beautiful pictures, grave and mirthful, each of which symbolizes some powerful thought or tender feeling, and some of which are hardly matched in our poetry for brilliancy of effect. The satire is less frolicksome than usual; here and there, indeed, its sting draws blood; and the whole poem is conceived and executed in a sterner and more earnest spirit than is common with Dr. Holmes.
The opening paragraphs contain a most beautiful and delicate tribute to the author’s father, who was educated at Yale. The following lines refer, we suppose, to Dr. Stiles, the president of the college at the time the elder Holmes was a student, and contain an exquisite picture of the filial relations of master and pupil:
How the greatMaster, reverend, solemn, wise,Fixed on his face those calm, majestic eyes,Full of grave meaning, where a child might readThe Hebraist’s patience and the Pilgrim’s creed.But warm with flashes of parental fireThat drew the stripling to his second sire;How kindness ripened, till the youth might dareTake the low seat beside his sacred chair,While the gray scholar, bending o’er the young,Spelled the square types of Abraham’s ancient tongue,Or with mild rapture stooped devoutly o’erHis small coarse leaf, alive with curious lore;Tales of grim judges, at whose awful beckFlashed the broad blade across a royal neck,Or learned dreams of Israel’s long lost childFound in the wanderer of the western wild.
How the greatMaster, reverend, solemn, wise,Fixed on his face those calm, majestic eyes,Full of grave meaning, where a child might readThe Hebraist’s patience and the Pilgrim’s creed.But warm with flashes of parental fireThat drew the stripling to his second sire;How kindness ripened, till the youth might dareTake the low seat beside his sacred chair,While the gray scholar, bending o’er the young,Spelled the square types of Abraham’s ancient tongue,Or with mild rapture stooped devoutly o’erHis small coarse leaf, alive with curious lore;Tales of grim judges, at whose awful beckFlashed the broad blade across a royal neck,Or learned dreams of Israel’s long lost childFound in the wanderer of the western wild.
How the greatMaster, reverend, solemn, wise,
Fixed on his face those calm, majestic eyes,
Full of grave meaning, where a child might read
The Hebraist’s patience and the Pilgrim’s creed.
But warm with flashes of parental fire
That drew the stripling to his second sire;
How kindness ripened, till the youth might dare
Take the low seat beside his sacred chair,
While the gray scholar, bending o’er the young,
Spelled the square types of Abraham’s ancient tongue,
Or with mild rapture stooped devoutly o’er
His small coarse leaf, alive with curious lore;
Tales of grim judges, at whose awful beck
Flashed the broad blade across a royal neck,
Or learned dreams of Israel’s long lost child
Found in the wanderer of the western wild.
The revival of nature at the approach of spring has been often described by poets, but the following passage prints the scenes fresh and bright on the heart and imagination, as if it had never before found its painter. The reader cannot fail to notice the nice propriety of the descriptive epithets, and the combination of the naturalist’s minute observation with the poet’s suggestive imagination, in the whole representation:
Winter is past; the heart of Nature warmsBeneath the wrecks of unresisted storms;Doubtful at first, suspected more than seen,The southern slopes are fringed with tender green;On sheltered banks, beneath the dripping eaves,Spring’s earliest nurslings spread their glowing leaves,Bright with the hues from wider pictures won,White, azure, golden—drift, or sky, or sun;—The snowdrop, bearing on herpatient breastThe frozen trophy torn from winter’s crest;The violet, gazing on the arch of blueTill her own iris wears its deepened hue;The spendthrift crocus, bursting through the mouldNaked and shivering with his cup of gold.Swelled with new life, the darkening elm on highPrints her thick buds against the spotted sky;On all her boughs the stately chestnut cleavesThe gummy shroud that wraps her embryo leaves;The house-fly, stealing from his narrow grave,Drugged with the opiate that November gave,From shaded chinks of lichen-crusted walls,In languid curves, the gliding serpent crawls;The bog’s green harper, thawing from his sleep,Twangs a hoarse note and tries a shortened leap;On floating rails that face the softening noonsThe still shy turtles range their dark platoons,Or toiling, aimless, o’er the mellowing fields,Trail through the grass their tessellated shields.At last young April, ever frail and fair,Wooed by her playmate with the golden hair,Chased to the margin of receding floodsO’er the soft meadows starred with opening buds,In tears and blushes sighs herself away,And hides her cheek beneath the flowers of May.Then the proud tulip lights her beacon blaze,Her clustering curls the hyacinth displays,O’er her tall blades the crested fleur-de-lis,Like blue-eyed Pallas, towers erect and free;With yellower flames the lengthened sunshine glows,And love lays bare the passion-breathing rose;Queen of the lake, along its reedy vergeThe rival lily hastens to emerge,Her snowy shoulders glistening as she stripsTill morn is sultan of her parted lips.
Winter is past; the heart of Nature warmsBeneath the wrecks of unresisted storms;Doubtful at first, suspected more than seen,The southern slopes are fringed with tender green;On sheltered banks, beneath the dripping eaves,Spring’s earliest nurslings spread their glowing leaves,Bright with the hues from wider pictures won,White, azure, golden—drift, or sky, or sun;—The snowdrop, bearing on herpatient breastThe frozen trophy torn from winter’s crest;The violet, gazing on the arch of blueTill her own iris wears its deepened hue;The spendthrift crocus, bursting through the mouldNaked and shivering with his cup of gold.Swelled with new life, the darkening elm on highPrints her thick buds against the spotted sky;On all her boughs the stately chestnut cleavesThe gummy shroud that wraps her embryo leaves;The house-fly, stealing from his narrow grave,Drugged with the opiate that November gave,From shaded chinks of lichen-crusted walls,In languid curves, the gliding serpent crawls;The bog’s green harper, thawing from his sleep,Twangs a hoarse note and tries a shortened leap;On floating rails that face the softening noonsThe still shy turtles range their dark platoons,Or toiling, aimless, o’er the mellowing fields,Trail through the grass their tessellated shields.At last young April, ever frail and fair,Wooed by her playmate with the golden hair,Chased to the margin of receding floodsO’er the soft meadows starred with opening buds,In tears and blushes sighs herself away,And hides her cheek beneath the flowers of May.Then the proud tulip lights her beacon blaze,Her clustering curls the hyacinth displays,O’er her tall blades the crested fleur-de-lis,Like blue-eyed Pallas, towers erect and free;With yellower flames the lengthened sunshine glows,And love lays bare the passion-breathing rose;Queen of the lake, along its reedy vergeThe rival lily hastens to emerge,Her snowy shoulders glistening as she stripsTill morn is sultan of her parted lips.
Winter is past; the heart of Nature warms
Beneath the wrecks of unresisted storms;
Doubtful at first, suspected more than seen,
The southern slopes are fringed with tender green;
On sheltered banks, beneath the dripping eaves,
Spring’s earliest nurslings spread their glowing leaves,
Bright with the hues from wider pictures won,
White, azure, golden—drift, or sky, or sun;—
The snowdrop, bearing on herpatient breast
The frozen trophy torn from winter’s crest;
The violet, gazing on the arch of blue
Till her own iris wears its deepened hue;
The spendthrift crocus, bursting through the mould
Naked and shivering with his cup of gold.
Swelled with new life, the darkening elm on high
Prints her thick buds against the spotted sky;
On all her boughs the stately chestnut cleaves
The gummy shroud that wraps her embryo leaves;
The house-fly, stealing from his narrow grave,
Drugged with the opiate that November gave,
From shaded chinks of lichen-crusted walls,
In languid curves, the gliding serpent crawls;
The bog’s green harper, thawing from his sleep,
Twangs a hoarse note and tries a shortened leap;
On floating rails that face the softening noons
The still shy turtles range their dark platoons,
Or toiling, aimless, o’er the mellowing fields,
Trail through the grass their tessellated shields.
At last young April, ever frail and fair,
Wooed by her playmate with the golden hair,
Chased to the margin of receding floods
O’er the soft meadows starred with opening buds,
In tears and blushes sighs herself away,
And hides her cheek beneath the flowers of May.
Then the proud tulip lights her beacon blaze,
Her clustering curls the hyacinth displays,
O’er her tall blades the crested fleur-de-lis,
Like blue-eyed Pallas, towers erect and free;
With yellower flames the lengthened sunshine glows,
And love lays bare the passion-breathing rose;
Queen of the lake, along its reedy verge
The rival lily hastens to emerge,
Her snowy shoulders glistening as she strips
Till morn is sultan of her parted lips.
We have not space for what follows in celebration of the birds, though we cannot resist the temptation to extract four intoxicating couplets: