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.
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.