Blithe, loud and hearty was the welcome of fat Tom, when by the clear view halloa with which Harry drove up to the door at a spanking trot, the horses stopping willingly at the high well-known stoop, he learned who were these his nocturnal visitors. There was a slight tinge of frostiness in the evening air, and a bright blazing fire filled the whole bar-room with a cheerful merry light, and cast a long stream of red lustre from the tall windows, and half-open doorway, but in an instant all that escaped from the last mentioned aperture was totally obstructed, as if the door had been pushed to, by the huge body of mine host.
"Why, darn it," he exclaimed, "if that beant Archer! and a hull grist of boys he's brought along with him, too, any how. How are you, Harry, who've you got along? It's so etarnal thunderin' dark as I carnt see 'em no how!"
"Frank and the Commodore, that's all," Archer replied, "and how are you, old Corporation?"
"Oh! oh! I'm most darned glad as you've brought A---; you might have left that other critter to home, though, jest as well--we doosn't want him blowin' out his little hide here; lazin' about, and doin' nothin' day nor night but eat and grumble; and drink, and drink, as if he'd got a meal-sack in his little guts. Why, Timothy, how be you?" he concluded, smiting him on the back a downright blow, that would have almost felled an ox, as he was getting out the baggage.
"Doant thee noo, Measter Draa," expostulated Tim, "behaave thyself, man, or Ay'se give thee soomat thou woant loike, I'm thinking. Noo! send oot yan o' t' nagers, joost to stand till t' nags till Ay lift oot t' boxes!"
"A nigger, is it? darn their black skins! there was a dozen here jest now, a blockin' up the fire-side, and stinkin' so no white man could come nearst it, till I got an axe-handle, half an hour or so since, and cleared out the heap of them! Niggers! they'll be here all of them torights, I warrant; where you sees Archer, there's never no scarceness of dogs and niggers. But come, walk in boys! walk in, anyhow--Jem'll be here to rights, and he's worth two niggers any day, though he's black-fleshed, I guess, if one was jest to skin the etarnal creatur."
Very few minutes passed before they were all drawn up round the fire, Captain Reade and two or three more making room for them, as they pulled up their chairs about the glowing hearth--having hung up their coats and capes against the wall.
"You'll be here best, boys," said Tom, "for a piece--the parlor fire's not been lit yet this fall, and it is quite cold nights now--but Brower'll kindle it up agin supper, for you'll be wantin' to eat, all of you, I reckon, you're sich darned everlastin' gormandizers."
"That most undoubtedly we shall," said Frank, "for it's past eight now, and the deuce a mouthful have we put into our heads since twelve."
"Barrin' the liquor, Frank! barrin' the liquor--now don't lie! don't lie, boy, so ridic'lous--as if I'd known you these six years, and then was a goin' to believe as you'd not drinked since noon!"
"Why, you old hogshead, you! who wants you to believe anything of the kind--we had one drink at Tom's, your cousin's, when we started, but deuce the drop since."
"That's just the reason why you're so snarlish, then, I reckon! Your coppers is got bilin', leastwise if they beant all biled out--you'd best drink stret away, I guess, afore the bottom of the biler gits left bare --for if it does, and it's red hot now, boy, you'll be a blowin' up, like an old steamboat, when you pumps in fresh water."
"Well, Tom," said Archer, "I do not think it would be a bad move to take a drop of something, and a cracker; for I suppose we shall not get supper much short of two hours; and I'm so deuced hungry, that if I don't get something just to take off the edge, I shall not be able to eat when it does come!"
"I'll make a pitcher of egg nog; A--- drinks egg nog, I guess, although he's the poorest drinkin' man I ever did see. Now, Brower, look alive-- the fire's lit, is it? Well, then, jump now and feed them poor starvin' bags-a-bones, as Archer calls dogs, and tell your mother to git supper. Have you brought anything along to eat or drink, boys--I guess we haven't nothin' in the house!"
"Oh! you be hanged," said Harry, "I've brought a round of cold spiced beef, but I'm not going to cut that up for supper; we shall want it to take along for luncheon--you must get something! Oh! by the way, you may let the girls pick half a dozen quail, and broil them, if you choose!"
"Quail! do you say? and where'll I git quail, I'd be pleased to know?"
"Out of that gamebag," answered Harry, deliberately, pointing to the well filled plump net which Timothy had just brought in and hung up on the pegs beside the box-coats. Without a word or syllable the old chap rushed to the wall, seized it, and scarcely pausing to sweep out of the way a large file of "The Spirit," and several numbers of "The Register," emptied it on the table.
"Where the plague, Archer, did you kill them?" he asked, "you didn't kill all them to-day, I guess! One, two, three--why, there's twenty-seven cock, and forty-nine quail! By gin! here's another; just fifty quail, three partridge, and six rabbits; well that's a most all-fired nice mess, I swon; if you killed them today you done right well, I tell you--you won't get no such mess of birds here now--but you was two days killing these, I guess!"
"Not we, Tom! Frank and I drove up from York last night, and slept at young Tom's, down the valley--we were out just as soon as it was light, and got the quail, all except fifteen or sixteen, the ruffed grouse and four hares, before twelve o'clock. At twelve the Commodore came up from Nyack, where he left his yacht, and joined us; we got some luncheon, went out again at one, and between that and five bagged all the cock, the balance, as you would call it, of the quail, and the other two bunnies."
"Well, then, you made good work of it, I tell you, and you won't do nothin' like that agin this winter--not in Warwick; but I won't touch them quail--it's a sin to break that bunch--but you don't never care to take the rabbits home, and the old woman's got some beautiful fresh onions--she'll make a stew of them--a smother, as you call it, in a little less than no time, Archer; and I've got half a dozen of them big gray snipe--English snipe--that I killed down by my little run'-side; you'll have them roasted with the guts in, I guess! and then there's a pork-steak and sassagers--and if you don't like that, you can jist go without. Here, Brower, take these to your mother, and tell her to git supper right stret off--and you tell Emma Jane to make some buckwheat cakes for A---! he can't sup no how without buckwheat cakes; and I sets a great store by A---! I does, by G--! and you needn't laugh, boys, for I doos a darned sight more than what I doos by you."
"That's civil, at all events, and candid," replied Frank; "and it's consolatory, too, for I can fancy no greater reproach to a man, than to be set store on by you. I do not comprehend at all, how A--- bears up under it. But come, do make that egg-nog that you're chattering about."
"How will I make it, Harry--with beer, or milk, or cider?"
"All three! now be off, and don't jaw any more!" answered Archer-- "asking such silly questions, as if you did not know better than any of us."
In a few minutes the delicious compound was prepared, and, with a plate of toasted crackers and some right good Orange County butter, was set on a small round stand before the fire; while from the neighboring kitchen rich fumes began to load the air, indicative of the approaching supper. In the mean time, the wagon was unloaded; Timothy bustled to and fro; the parlor was arranged; the bed-rooms were selected by that worthy; and everything set out in its own place, so that they could not possibly have been more comfortable in their own houses. The horses had been duly cleaned, and clothed, and fed; the dogs provided with abundance of dry straw, and a hot mess of milk and meal; and now, in the far corner of the bar-room, the indefatigable varlet was cleaning the three double guns, as scientifically as though he had served his apprenticeship to a gunsmith.
Just at this moment a heavy foot was heard upon the stoop, succeeded by a whining and a great scratching at the door. "Here comes that Indian, Jem," cried Tom, and as he spoke the door flew open, and in rushed old Whino, the tall black and tan foxhound, and Bonnybelle, and Blossom, and another large blue-mottled bitch, of the Southern breed. It was a curious sight to observe by how sudden and intuitive an instinct the hounds rushed up to Archer, and fawned upon him, jumping up with their forepaws upon his knees, and thrusting their bland smiling faces almost into his face; as he, nothing loath, nor repelling their caresses, discoursed most eloquent dog-language to them, until, excited beyond all measure, old Whino seated himself deliberately on the floor, raised his nose toward the ceiling, and set up a long, protracted, and most melancholy howl, which, before it had attained, however, to its grand climax, was brought to a conclusion by being converted into a sharp and treble yell! a consummation brought about by a smart application of Harry's double-thonged four-horse whip, wielded with all the power of Tom's right arm, and accompanied by a "Git out, now--the whole grist! Kennel! now, kennel! out with them, Jem, consarn you; out with them, and yourself, too! out of this, or I'll put the gad about you, you white Deckerin' nigger you!"
"Come back, when you have put them up, Jem; and mind you don't let them be where they can get at the setters, or they'll be fighting like the devil," interposed Archer--"I want to have a chat with you. By-the-by, Tom, where's Dash--you'd better look out, or the Commodore's dog, Grouse, will eat him before morning--mine will not quarrel with him, but Grouse will to a certainty."
"Then for a sartainty I'll shoot Grouse, and wallop Grouse's master, and that 'ill be two right things done one mornin'; the first would be a most darned right one, any how, and kind too! for then A--- would be forced to git himself a good, nice setter dog, and not go shootin' over a great old fat bustin' pinter, as isn't worth so much as I be to hunt birds!"
"Ha! ha! ha!" shouted the Commodore, whom nothing can, by any earthly means, put out of temper, "ha! ha! ha! I should like to see you shoot Grouse, Tom, for all the store you set by me, you'd get the worst of that game. You had better take Archer's advice, I can tell you."
"Archer's advice, indeed! it's likely now that I'd have left my nice little dog to be spiled by your big brutes, now aint it? Come, come, here's supper."
"Get something to drink, Jem, along with Timothy, and come in when we've got through supper."
"Yes, sir," replied the knight of the cut-throat; "I've got some news to tell you, too, Tom, if you'll wait a bit."
"Cuss you, and your news too," responded Tom, "you're sich a thunderin' liar, there's no knowin' when you do speak truth. We'll not be losin' our supper for no lies, I guess! Leastways I won't! Come Archer."
And with a right good appetite they walked into the parlor; every thing was in order; every article placed just as it had been when Frank went up to spend his first week in the Woodlands; the gun-case stood on the same chairs below the window; the table by the door was laid out with the same display of powder-flasks, shot-pouches, and accoutrements of all sizes. The liquor-stand was placed by Harry's chair, open, containing the case-bottles, the rummers being duly ranged upon the board, which was well lighted by four tall wax candles, and being laid with Harry's silver, made quite a smart display. The rabbits smoked at the head, smothered in a rich sauce of cream, and nicely shredded onions; the pork chops, thin and crisply broiled, exhaled rich odors at the bottom; the English snipe, roasted to half a turn, and reposing on their neat squares of toast, were balanced by a dish of well-fried sausages, reclining on a bed of mashed potatoes; champagne was on the table, unresined and unwired, awaiting only one touch of the knife to release the struggling spirit from its transparent prison. Few words were spoken for some time, unless it were a challenge to champagne, the corks of which popped frequently and furious; or a request for another snipe, or another spoonful of the sauce; while all devoted themselves to the work in hand with a sincere and business-like earnestness of demeanor, that proved either the excellence of Tom Draw's cookery, or the efficacy of the Spartan sauce which the sportsmen had brought to assist them at their meal. The last rich drops of the fourth flask were trickling into Tom's wide-lipped rummer, when Harry said:
"Come, we have done, I think, for one night; let's have the eatables removed, and we will have a pipe, and hear what Jem has got to say; and you have told us nothing about birds, either, you old elephant; what do you mean by it? That's right, Tim, now bring in my cigars, and Mr. Forester's cheroots, and cold iced water, and boiling-hot water, and sugar, out of my box, and lemons. The shrub is here, and the Scotch whiskey; will you have another bottle of champagne, Tom? No! Well, then, look sharp, Timothy, and send Jem in."
And thereupon Jem entered, thumbing his hat assiduously, and sat down in the corner, by the window, where he was speedily accommodated with a supply of liquor, enough to temper any quantity of clay.
"Well, Jem," said Archer, "unbutton your bag now; what's the news?"
"Well, Mr. Aircher, it ben't no use to tell you on't, with Tom, there, puttin' a body out, and swearin' it's a lie, and dammin' a chap up and down. It ben't no use to tell you, and yet I'd kind o' like to, but then you won't believe a fellow, not one on you!"
"In course not," answered Forester; and at the same instant Tom struck in likewise--
"It's a lie, afore you tell it; it's a lie, cuss you, and you knows it. I'd sooner take a nigger's word than yours, Jem, any how, for the darned niggers will tell the truth when they can't git no good by lyin', but you, you will lie all times! When the truth would do the best, and you would tell it if you could, you can't help lyin'!"
"Shut up, you old thief; shut up instantly, and let the man speak, will you; I can see by his face that he has got something to tell; and as for lying, you beat him at it any day."
Tom was about to answer, when Harry, who had been eagerly engaged in mixing a huge tumbler-full of strong cold shrub punch, thrust it under his nose, and he, unable to resist the soft seductive odor, seized it incontinently, and neither spoke nor breathed again until the bottom of the rummer was brought parallel to the ceiling; then, with a deep heart-felt sigh, he set it down; and, with a calm placid smile, exclaimed, "Tell on, Jem." Whereupon that worthy launched into his full tide of narrative, as follows:
"Well, you sees, Mr. Aircher, I tuk up this mornin' clean up the old crick side, nigh to Vernon, and then I turned in back of old Squire Vandergriff's, and druv the mountains clear down here till I reached Rocky Hill; I'd pretty good sport, too, I tell you; I shot a big gray fox on Round Top, and started a raal rouser of a red one down in the big swamp, in the bottom, and them sluts did keep the darndest ragin' you ever did hear tell on. Well, they tuk him clean out across the open, past Andy Joneses, and they skeart up in his stubbles three bevies, I guess, got into one like! there was a drove of them, I tell you, and then they brought him back to the hills agin, and run him twice clean round the Rocky Hill, and when they came round the last time, the English sluts warn't half a rod from his tail no how, and so he tried his last chance, and he holed; but my! now, Mr. Aircher, by darn, you niver did see nothin' like the partridges; they kept a brushin' up and brushin' up, and treein' every little while; I guess if I seen one I seen a hundred; why, I killed seven on 'em with coarse shot up in the pines, and I daredn't shoot exceptin' at their heads. If you'd go up there now, to-morrow, and take the dogs along, I know as you'll git fifty."
"Well, if that's all your news, Jem, I won't give you much for it; and, as for going into the mountains to look after partridges, you don't catch me at it, that's all!" said Harry. "Is that all?"
"Not by a great shot!" answered Jem, grinning, "but the truth is, I know you won't believe me; but I can tell you what, you can kill a big fat buck, if you'll git up a little afore daylight!"
"A buck, Jem! a buck near here?" inquired Forester and Archer in a breath.
"I told you, boys, the critter couldn't help it; he's stuck to truth just so long, and he was forced to lie, or else he would have busted!"
"It's true, by thunder," answered Jem; "I wish I mayn't eat nor drink nother, if there's one bit of lie in it; d--n the bit, Tom! I'm in airnest, now, right down; and you knows as I wouldn't go to lie about it!"
"Well! well! where was't, Jem?"
"Why, he lies, I guess, now, in that little thickest swamp of all, jist in the eend of the swale atween Round Top and Rocky Hill, right in the pines and laurels; leastways I druv him down there with the dogs, and I swon that he never crossed into the open meadow; and I went round, and made a circle like clean round about him, and darn the dog trailed on him no how; and bein' as he's hard hot, I guess he'll stay there since he harbored."
"Hard hit, is he! why, did you get a shot at him?"
"A fair one," Jem replied; "not three rod off from me; he jumped up out of the channel of Stony Brook, where, in a sort o' bend, there was a lot of bushes, sumac and winter-green, and ferns; he skeart me, that's a fact, or I'd a killed him. He warn't ten yards off when he bounced up first, but I pulled without cocking, and when I'd got my gun fixed, he'd got off a little piece, and I'd got nauthen but fox-shot, but I hot him jist in the side of the flank; the blood flew out like winkin', and the hounds arter him like mad, up and down, and round and back, and he a kind of weak like, and they'd overhauled him once and again, and tackled him, but there was only four on them, and so he beat them off like every time, and onned again! They couldn't hold him no how, till I got up to them, and I couldn't fix it no how, so as I'd git another shot at him; but it was growin' dark fast, and I flogged off the sluts arter a deal o' work, and viewed him down the old blind run-way into th' swale eend, where I telled you; and then I laid still quite a piece; and then I circled round, to see if he'd quit it, and not one dog tuk track on him, and so I feels right sartain as he's in that hole now, and will be in the mornin', if so be we goes there in time, afore the sun's up.
"That we can do easily enough," said Archer, "what do you say, Tom? Is it worth while?"
"Why," answered old Draw instantly, "if so be only we could be sartain that the darned critter warn't lyin', there couldn't be no doubt about it; for if the buck did lay up there this night, why he'll be there to-morrow; and if so be he's there, why we can get him sure!"
"Well, Jem, what have you got to say now," said the Commodore; "is it the truth or no?"
"Why, darn it all," retorted Jem, "harn't I just told you it was true; it's most blamed hard a fellow can't be believed now--why, Mr. Aircher, did I ever lie to you?"
"Oh! if you ask me that," said Harry, "you know I must say 'Yes!'--for you have, fifty times at the least computation. Do you remember the day you towed me up the Decker's run to look for woodcock?"
"And you found nothing," interrupted Tom, "but..."
"Oh shut up, do, Tom," broke in Forester, "and let us hear about this buck. If we agree to give you a five dollar bill, Jem, in case we do find him where you say, what will you be willing to forfeit if we do not?"
"You may shoot at me!" answered Jem, "all on you--ivery one on you--at forty yards, with rifle or buckshot!"
"It certainly is very likely that we should be willing to get hanged for the sake of shooting such a mangy hound as you Jem," answered Forester, "when one could shoot a good clean dog--Tom's Dash, for example--for nothing!"
"Could you though?" Tom replied, "I'd like to catch you at it, my dear boy--I'd wax the little hide off of you. But come, let us be settling. Is it a lie now, Jem; speak out--is it a lie, consarn you? for if it be, you'd best jest say 't out now, and save your bones to-morrow. Well, boys, the critter's sulky, so most like it is true--and I guess we'll be arter him. We'll be up bright and airly, and go a horseback, and if he be there, we can kill him in no time at all, and be right back to breakfast. I'll start Jem and the captain here, and Dave Seers, with the dogs, an hour afore us! and let them come right down the swale, and drive him to the open--Harry and Forester, you two can ride your own nags, and I'll take old Roan, and A--- here shall have the colt."
"Very well! Timothy, did they feed well to-night? if they did, give them their oats very early, and no water. I know it's too bad after their work to-day, but we shall not be out two hours!"
"Weel! it's no matter gin they were oot six," responded Timothy, "they wadna be a pin the waur o't!"
"Take out my rifle, then--and pick some buckshot cartridges to fit the bore of all the double guns. Frank's got his rifle; so you can take my heavy single gun--your gauge is 17, A---, quite too small for buckshot; mine is 11, and will do its work clean with Ely's cartridge and pretty heavy powder, at eighty-five to ninety yards. Tom's bore is twelve, and I've brought some to fit his old double, and some, too, for my own gun, though it is almost too small!"
"What gauge is yours, Harry?"
"Fourteen; which I consider the very best bore possible for general shooting. I think the gunsmiths are running headlong now into the opposite of their old error--when they found that fifteens and fourteens outshot vastly the old small calibres--fifty years since no guns were larger than eighteen, and few than twenty; they are now quite out-doing it. I have seen late-imported guns of seven pounds, and not above twenty-six inches long, with eleven and even ten gauge calibres! you might as well shoot with a blunderbus at once!"
"They would tell at cock in close summer covert," answered A---.
"For a man who can't cover his bird they might," replied Harry; "but you may rely on it they lose three times as much in force as they gain in the space they cover; at forty yards you could not kill even a woodcock with them once in fifty times, and a quail, or English snipe, at that distance never!"
"What do you think the right length and weight, then, for an eleven bore?"
"Certainly not less than nine pounds, and thirty inches; but I would prefer ten pounds and thirty-three inches; though, except for a fowl-gun to use in boat-shooting, such a piece would be quite too ponderous and clumsy. My single gun is eleven gauge, eight pounds and thirty-three inches; and even with loose shot executes superbly; but with Ely's green cartridge I have put forty BB shot into a square of two and a half feet at one hundred and twenty-five yards; sharply enough, too, to imbed the shot so firmly in the fence against which I had fixed my mark, that it required a good strong knife to get them out. This I propose that you should use to-morrow, with a 1 1/2 oz. SG cartridge, which contains eighteen buck-shot, and which, if you get a shot any where within a hundred yards, will kill him as dead, I warrant it, as an ounce bullet."
"Which you intend to try, I fancy," added Frank.
"Not quite! my rifle carries eighteen only to the pound; and yours, if I forget not, only thirty-two."
"But mine is double."
"Never mind that; thirty-two will not execute with certainty above a hundred and fifty yards!"
"And how far in the devil's name would you have it execute, as you calls it," asked old Tom.
"Three hundred!" replied Harry, coolly.
"Thunder!" replied Draw, "don't tell me no sich thunderin' nonsense; I'll stand all day and be shot at, like a Christmas turkey, at sixty rods, for six-pence a shot, any how."
"I'll bet you all the liquor we can drink while we are here, Tom," answered Harry, "that I hit a four foot target at three hundred yards to-morrow!"
"Off hand?" inquired Tom, with an attempt at a sneer.
"Yes, off hand! and no shot to do that either; I know men--lots of them --who would bet to hit a foot square at that distance!"* [*When this was written strong exception was taken to it by a Southern writer in the Spirit of the Times. Had that gentleman known what is the practice of the heavy Tyrolese rifle he would not have written so confidently. But it is needless to go so far as to the Tyrol. There is a well known rifle-shot in New York, who can perform the feat, any day, which the Southern writer scoffed at as utterly impossible. Scrope on Deerstalking will show to any impartial reader's satisfaction, that stags in the Highlands are rarely killed within 200 and generally beyond 300 yards' distance.]
"Well! you can't hit four, no how!"
"Will you bet?"
"Sartain!"
"Very well--Done--Twenty dollars I will stake against all the liquor we drink while we're here. Is it a bet?"
"Yes! Done!" cried Tom--"at the first shot, you know; I gives no second chances."
"Very well, as you please!--I'm sure of it, that's all--Lord, Frank, how we will drink and treat--I shall invite all the town up here to-morrow-- Come!--One more round for luck, and then to bed!"
"Content!" cried A---; "but I mean Mr. Draw to have an argument to-morrow night about this point of Setter vs. Pointer! How do you say, Harry?--which is best?"
"Oh! I'll be Judge and Jury,"--answered Archer--"and you shall plead before me; and I'll make up my mind in the meantime!"
"He's for me, any how,"--shouted Tom--"Darn it all, Harry, you knows you wouldn't own a pinter--no, not if it was gin you!"
"I believe you are about right there, old fellow, so far as this country goes at least!"--said Archer--"different dogs for different soils and seasons--and, in my judgment, setters are far the best this side the Atlantic--but it is late now, and I can't stand chattering here--good night--you shall have as much dog-talk as you like to-morrow."
It was still pitch dark, although the skies were quite clear and cloudless, when Harry, Frank, and the Commodore re-assembled on the following morning, in Tom's best parlor, preparatory to the stag hunt which, as determined on the previous night, was to be their first sporting move in the valley.
Early, however, as it was, Timothy had contrived to make a glorious fire upon the hearth, and to lay out a slight breakfast of biscuits, butter, and cold beef, flanked by a square case-bottle of Jamaica, and a huge jorum of boiled milk. Tom Draw had not yet made his appearance, but the sound of his ponderous tramp, mixed with strange oaths and loud vociferations, showed that he was on foot, and ready for the field.
"I'll tell you what, Master A---," said Archer as he stood with his back to the fire, mixing some rum with sugar and cold water, previous to pouring the hot milk into it--"You'll be so cold in that light jacket on the stand this morning, that you'll never be able to hold your gun true, if you get a shot. It froze quite hard last night, and there's some wind, too, this morning."
"That's very true," replied the Commodore, "but devil a thing have I got else to wear, unless I put on my great coat, and that's too much the other way--too big and clumsy altogether. I shall do well enough, I dare say; and after all, my drilling jacket is not much thinner than your fustian."
"No," said Harry, "but you don't fancy that I'm going out in this, do you? No! no! I'm too old a hand for that sort of thing--I know that to shoot well, a man must be comfortable, and I mean to be so. Why, man, I shall put on my Canadian hunting shirt over this,"--and with the word he slipped a loose frock, shaped much like a wagoner's smock, or a Flemish blouse, over his head, with large full sleeves, reaching almost to his knees, and belted round his waist, by a broad worsted sash. This excellent garment was composed of a thick coarse homespun woollen, bottle-green in color, with a fringe and bindings of dingy red, to match the sash about his waist. From the sash was suspended an otter skin pouch, containing bullets and patches, nipple wrench and turn-screw, a bit of dry tow, an oiled rag, and all the indispensables for rifle cleaning; while into it were thrust two knives--one a broad two-edged implement, with a stout buck-horn haft, and a blade of at least twelve inches--the other a much smaller weapon, not being, hilt and all, half the length of the other's blade, but very strong, sharp as a razor, and of surpassing temper. While he was fitting all these in their proper places, and slinging under his left arm a small buffalo horn of powder, he continued talking:
"Now," he said, "if you take my advice, you'll go into my room, and there, hanging against the wall, you'll find my winter shooting jacket, I had it made last year when I went up to Maine, of pilot cloth, lined throughout with flannel. It will fit you just as well as your own, for we're pretty much of a size. Frank, there, will wear his old monkey jacket, the skirts of which he razeed last winter for the very purpose. Ah, here is Brower--just run up, Brower, and bring down my shooting jacket off the wall from behind the door--look sharp, will you! Now, then, I shall load, and I advise you both to do likewise; for it's bad work doing that same with cold fingers."
Thus saying, he walked to the corner, and brought out his rifle, a short heavy double barrel, with two grooves only, carrying a bitted ball of twelve to the pound, quite plain but exquisitely finished. Before proceeding, however, to load, he tried the passage of the nipple with a fine needle--three or four of which, thrust into a cork, and headed with sealing wax, formed a portion of the contents of his pouch--brushed the cone, and the inside of the hammer, carefully, and wiped them, to conclude, with a small piece of clean white kid--then measuring his powder out exactly, into a little charger, screwed to the end of his ramrod, he inverted the piece, and introduced the rod upward till the cup reached the chamber; when, righting the gun, he withdrew it, leaving the powder all lodged safely at the breech, without the loss of a single grain in the groovings. Next, he chose out a piece of leather, the finest grained kid, without a seam or wrinkle, slightly greased with the best watch-maker's oil--selected a ball perfectly round and true--laid the patch upon the muzzle, and placing the bullet exactly in the centre over the bore, buried it with a single rap of a small lignum vita mallet, which hung from his button-hole; and then, with but a trifling effort, drove it home by one steady thrust of the stout copper-headed charging rod. This done, he again inspected the cone, and seeing that the powder was forced quite up into sight, picked out, with the same anxious scrutiny that had marked all of his proceedings, a copper cap, which he pronounced sure to go, applied it to the nipple, crushed it down firmly, with the hammer, which he then drew back to half-cock, and bolted. Then he set the piece down by the fireside, drained his hot jorum, and...
"That fellow will do his work, and no mistake," said he. "Now A--- here is my single gun"--handing to him, as he spoke, one of the handsomest Westley Richards a sportsman ever handled--"thirty-three inches, nine pounds and eleven gauge. Put in one-third above that charger, which is its usual load, and one of those green cartridges, and I'll be bound that it will execute at eighty paces; and that is more than Master Frank there can say for his Manton Rifle, at least if he loads it with bullets patched in that slovenly and most unsportsmanlike fashion."
"I should like to know what the deuce you mean by slovenly and unsportsmanlike," said Frank, pulling out of his breast pocket a couple of bullets, carefully sewed up in leather--"it is the best plan possible, and saves lots of time--you see I can just shove my balls in at once, without any bother of fitting patches."
"Yes," replied Harry, "and five to one the seam, which, however neatly it is drawn, must leave a slight ridge, will cross the direction of the grooving, and give the ball a counter movement; either destroying altogether the rotatory motion communicated by the rifling, or causing it to take a direction quite out of the true line; accordingly as the counteraction is conveyed near the breech, or near the muzzle of the piece."
"Will so trifling a cause produce so powerful an effect?" inquired the Commodore.
"The least variation, whether of concavity or convexity in the bullet, will do so unquestionably--and I cannot see why the same thing in a covering superinduced to the ball should not have the same effect. Even a hole in a pellet of shot, will cause it to leave the charge, and fly off at a tangent. I was once shooting in the fens of the Isle of Ely, and fired at a mallard sixty or sixty-five yards off, with double B shot, when to my great amazement a workman--digging peat at about the same distance from me with the bird, but at least ninety yards to the right of the mallard--roared out lustily that I had killed him. I saw that the drake was knocked over as dead as a stone, and consequently laughed at the fellow, and set it down as a cool trick to extort money, not uncommon among the fen men, as applied to members of the University. I had just finished loading, and my retriever had just brought in the dead bird, which was quite riddled, cut up evidently by the whole body of the charge--both the wings broken, one in three places, one leg almost dissevered, and several shots in the neck and body--when up came my friend, and sure enough he was hit--one pellet had struck him on the cheek bone, and was imbedded in the skin. Half a crown, and a lotion of whiskey--not applied to the part, but taken inwardly--soon proved a sovereign medicine, and picking out the shot with the point of a needle, I found a hole in it big enough to admit a pin's head, and about the twentieth part of an inch in depth. This I should think is proof enough for you--but, besides this, I have seen bullets in pistol-shooting play strange vagaries, glancing off from the target at all sorts of queer angles."
"Well! well!" replied Frank, "my rifle shoots true enough for me--true enough to kill generally--and who the deuce can be at the bother of your pragmatical preparations! I am sure it might be said of you, as it was of James the First, of most pacific and pedantic memory, that you are 'Captain of arts and Clerk of arms'--at least you are a very pedant in gunnery."
"No! no!" said A---; "you're wrong there altogether, Master Forester; there is nothing on earth that makes so great a difference in sportsmanship as the observation of small things. I don't call him a sportsman who can walk stoutly, and kill well, unless he can give causes for effects--unless he knows the haunts and habits both of his game and his dogs--unless he can give a why for every wherefore!"
"Then devil a bit will you ever call me one,"--answered Frank--"For I can't be at the trouble of thinking about it."
"Stuff--humbug--folly"--interrupted Archer--"you know a great deal better than that--and so do we, too!--you're only cranky! a little cranky, Frank, and given to defending any folly you commit without either rhyme or reason--as when you tried to persuade me that it is the safest thing in nature to pour gunpowder out of a canister into a pound flask, with a lighted cigar between your teeth; to demonstrate which you had scarcely screwed the top of the horn on, before the lighted ashes fell all over it--had they done so a moment sooner, we should all have been blown out of the room."
By this time, the Commodore had donned Harry's winter jacket, and Frank, grumbling and paradoxizing all the while, had loaded his rifle, and buttoned up his pea-jacket, when in stalked Tom, swathed up to his chin in a stout dreadnought coat.
"What are ye lazin' here about!" he shouted, "you're niver ready no how. Jem's been agone these two hours, and we'll jest be too late, and miss gittin' a shot--if so be there be a buck--which I'll be sworn there arn't!"
"Ha! ha!" the Commodore burst out; "ha! ha! ha! I should like to know which side the laziness has been on this morning, Mister Draw."
"On little wax skin's there," answered the old man, as quick as lightning; "the little snoopin' critter carn't find his gloves now; though the nags is at the door, and we all ready. We'll drink, boys, while he's lookin' arter 'em--and then when he's found them, and's jest a gittin' on his horse, he'll find he's left his powder-horn or knife, or somethin' else, behind him; and then we'll drink agin, while he snoops back to fetch it."
"You be hanged, you old rascal," replied Forester, a little bothered by the huge shouts of laughter which followed this most strictly accurate account of his accustomed method of proceeding; an account which, by the way, was fully justified not twenty minutes afterward, by his galloping back, neck or nothing, to get his pocket handkerchief, which he had left "in course," as Tom said, in his dressing-gown beside the fire.
"Come, bustle--bustle!" Harry added, as he put on his hunting cap and pulled a huge pair of fen boots on, reaching to the midthigh, which Timothy had garnished with a pair of bright English spurs. In another minute they were all on horseback, trotting away at a brisk pace toward the little glen, wherein, according to Jem's last report, the stag was harbored. It was in vain that during their quick ride the old man was entreated to inform them where they were to take post, or what they were to do, as he would give them no reply, nor any information whatever.
At last, however, when Forester rejoined them, after his return to the village, he turned short off from the high road to the left, and as he passed a set of bars into a wild hill pasture, struck into a hard gallop.
Before them lay the high and ridgy head of Round Top, his flanks sloping toward them, in two broad pine-clad knobs, with a wild streamlet brawling down between them, and a thick tangled swamp of small extent, but full of tall dense thornbushes, matted with vines and cat-briers, and carpeted with a rich undergrowth of fern and wintergreen, and whortleberries. To the right and left of the two knobs or spurs just mentioned, were two other deep gorges, or dry channels, bare of brushwood, and stony--rockwalled, with steep precipitous ledges toward the mountain, but sloping easily up to the lower ridges. As they reached the first of these, Tom motioned Forester to stop.
"Stand here," he whispered, "close in here, jest behind this here crag-- and look out hereaways toward the village. If he comes down this runway, kill him, but mind you doosn't show a hair out of this corner; for Archer, he'll stand next, and if so be he crosses from the swamp hole hereaways, you'll chance to get a bullet. Be still, now, as a mouse, and tie your horse here in the cove!--Now, lads"
And off he set again, rounded the knob, and making one slight motion toward the nook, wherein he wished that Harry should keep guard, wheeled back in utter silence, and very slowly--for they were close to the spot wherein, as they supposed, the object of their chase was laid up; and as yet but two of his paths were guarded toward the plain; Jem and his comrades having long since got with the hounds into his rear, and waiting only for the rising of the sun to lay them on, and push along the channel of the brook.
This would compel him to break covert, either directly from the swamp, or by one of the dry gorges mentioned. Now, therefore, was the crisis of the whole matter; for if--before the other passes were made good--the stag should take alarm, he might steal off without affording a chance of a shot, and get into the mountains to the right, where they might hunt him for a week in vain.
No marble statue could stand more silently or still than Harry and his favorite gray, who, with erected ears and watchful eye, trembling a little with excitement, seemed to know what he was about, and to enjoy it no less keenly than his rider. Tom and the Commodore, quickening their pace as they got out of ear-shot, retraced their steps quite back to the turnpike road, along which Harry saw them gallop furiously, in a few minutes, and turn up, half a mile off, toward the further gulley--he saw no more, however; though he felt certain that the Commodore was, scarce ten minutes after he lost sight of them, standing within twelve paces of him, at the further angle of the swamp--Tom having warily determined that the two single guns should take post together, while the two doubles should be placed where the wild quarry could get off encountering but a single sportsman.
It was a period of intense excitement before the sun rose though it was of short duration--but scarcely had his first rays touched the open meadow, casting a huge gray shadow from the rounded hill which covered half the valley, while all the farther slope was laughing in broad light, the mist wreaths curling up, thinner and thinner every moment, from the broad streamlet in the bottom, which here and there flashed out exultingly from its wood-covered margins--scarcely had his first rays topped the hill, before a distant shout came swelling on the air, down the ravine, announcing Jem's approach. No hound gave tongue, however, nor did a rustle in the brake, or any sound of life, give token of the presence of the game--louder and nearer drew the shouts--and now Harry himself began to doubt if there were any truth in Jem's relation, when suddenly the sharp, quick crack of Forester's rifle gave token that the game was afoot--a loud yell from that worthy followed.
"Look out! Mark--back--mark back!"
And keenly Archer did look out, and warily did he listen--once he detected, or fancied he detected, a rustling of the under-wood, and the crack of a dry stick, and dropping his reins on the horse's neck, he cocked his rifle--but the sound was not repeated, nor did any thing come into sight--so he let down the hammer once again, and resumed his silent watch, saying to himself...
"Frank fired too quick, and he has headed up the brook to Jem. If he is forward enough now, we shall have him back instantly, with the hounds at his heels; but if he has loitered and hung back, `over the hills and far away' is the word for this time."
But Jem was in his place, and in another moment a long whoop came ringing down the glen, and the shrill yelping rally of the hounds as they all opened on a view together! Fiercer and wilder grew the hubbub! And now the eager watcher might hear the brushwood torn in all directions by the impetuous passage of the wild deer and his inveterate pursuers.
"Now, then, it is old Tom's chance, or ours," he thought, "for he will not try Forester again, I warrant him, and we are all down wind of him-- so he can't judge of our whereabouts."
In another second the bushes crashed to his left hand, and behind him, while the dogs were raving scarcely a pistol-shot off, in the tangled swamp. Yet he well knew that if the stag should break there it would be A---'s shot, and, though anxious, he kept his eye fixed steadily on his own point, holding his good piece cocked and ready.
"Mark! Harry, mark him!"--a loud yell from the Commodore.
The stag had broken midway between them, in full sight of A---, and seeing him, had wheeled off to the right. He was now sweeping onward across the open field with high graceful bounds, tossing his antlered head aloft, as if already safe, and little hurt, if anything, by Jem Lyn's boasted shot of the last evening. The gray stood motionless, trembling, however, palpably, in every limb, with eagerness--his ears laid flat upon his neck, and cowering a little, as if he feared the shot, which it would seem his instinct told him to expect. Harry had dropped his reins once more, and leveled his unerring rifle--yet for a moment's space he paused, waiting for A--- to fire; there was no hurry for himself, nay a few seconds more would give him a yet fairer shot, for the buck now was running partially toward him, so that a moment more would place him broadside on, and within twenty paces.
"Bang!" came the full and round report of A---'s large shotgun, fired before the beast was fifteen yards away from him. He had aimed at the head, as he was forced to do, lest he should spoil the haunches, for he was running now directly from him--and had the buck been fifty paces off he would have killed him dead, lodging his whole charge, or the best part of it, in the junction of the neck and skull--but as it was, the cartridge--the green cartridge--had not yet spread at all; nor had one buckshot left the case! Whistling like a single ball, as it passed Harry's front eight or nine yards off, it drove, as his quick eye discovered, clean through the stag's right ear, almost dissevering it, and making the animal bound six feet off the green sward.
Just as he touched the earth again, alighting from his mighty spring, with an aim sure and steady, and a cool practiced finger, the marksman drew his trigger, and, quick, as light, the piece--well loaded, as its dry crack announced--discharged its ponderous missile! But, bad luck on it, even at that very instant, just in the point of time wherein the charge was ignited, eighteen or twenty quail, flushed by the hubbub of the hounds, rose with a loud and startling whirr, on every side of the gray horse, under his belly and about his ears, so close as almost to brush him with their wings--he bolted and reared up--yet even at that disadvantage the practiced rifleman missed not his aim entirely, though he erred somewhat, and the wound in consequence was not quite deadly.
The ball, which he had meant for the heart, his sight being taken under the fore-shoulder, was raised and thrown forward by the motion of the horse, and passed clean through the neck close to the blade bone. Another leap, wilder and loftier than the last! yet still the stag dashed onward, with the blood gushing out in streams from the wide wound, though as yet neither speed nor strength appeared to be impaired, so fleetly did he scour the meadow.
"He will cross, Frank yet!" cried Archer. "Mark! mark him, Forester!"
But, as he spoke, he set his rifle down against the fence, and halloaed to the hounds, which instantly, obedient to his well known and cheery whoop, broke covert in a body, and settled, heads up and sterns down, to the blazing scent.
At the same moment A--- came trotting out from his post, gun in hand; while at a thundering gallop, blaspheming awfully as he came on, and rating them for "know-nothins, and blunderin' etarnal spoil-sports," Tom rounded the farther hill, and spurred across the level. By this time they were all in sight of Forester, who stood on foot, close to his horse, in the mouth of the last gorge, the buck running across him sixty yards off, and quartering a little from him toward the road; the hounds were, however, all midway between him and the quarry, and as the ground sloped steeply from the marksman, he was afraid of firing low--but took a long, and, as it seemed, sure aim at the head.
The rifle flashed--a tine flew, splintered by the bullet, from the brow antler, not an inch above the eye.
"Give him the other!" shouted Archer. "Give him the other barrel!"
But Frank shook his head spitefully, and dropped the muzzle of his piece.
"By thunder! then, he's forgot his bullets--and hadn't nothen to load up agen, when he missed the first time!"
"Ha! ha! ha!" roared once again the Commodore--"ha! ha! hah!--ha! ha!" till rock and mountain rang again.
"By the Etarnal" exclaimed Draw, perfectly frantic with passion and excitement--"By thunder! A---, I guess you'd laugh if your best friends was all a dyin' at your feet. You would for sartain! But look, look! what the plague's Harry goin' at?"
For when he saw that Forester had now, for some reason or other, no farther means of stopping the stag's career, Archer had set spurs to his horse, and dashed away at a hard furious gallop after the wounded buck. The hounds, which had lost sight of it as it leaped a high stone wall with much brush round the base of it, were running fast and furious on the scent--but still, though flagging somewhat in his speed, the stag was leaving them. He had turned, as the last shot struck his horns, down hill, as if to cross the valley; but immediately, as if perceiving that he had passed the last of his enemies, turned up again toward the mountain, describing an arc, almost, in fact, a semi-circle, from the point where he had broken covert to that--another gully, at perhaps a short mile's distance--from which he was now aiming.
Across the chord, then, of this arc, Harry was driving furiously, with the intent, as it would seem, to cut him off from the gully--the stone wall crossed his line, but not a second did he pause for it, but gave his horse both spurs, and lifting him a little, landed him safely at the other side. Frank mounted rapidly, dashed after him, and soon passed A---, who was less aptly mounted for a chase--he likewise topped the wall, and disappeared beyond it, though the stones flew, where the bay struck the coping with his heels.
All pluck to the back-bone, the Commodore craned not nor hesitated, but dashed the colt, for the first time in his life, at the high barrier--he tried to stop, but could not, so powerfully did his rider cram him-- leaped short, and tumbled head over heels, carrying half the wall away with him, and leaving a gap as if a wagon had passed through it--to Tom's astonishment and agony--for he supposed the colt destroyed forever.
Scarcely, however, had A--- gained his feet, before a sight met his eyes, which made him leave the colt, and run as fast as his legs could carry him toward the scene of action.
The stag, seeing his human enemy so near, had strained every nerve to escape, and Harry, desperately rash and daring, seeing he could not turn or head him, actually spurred upon him counter to broadside, in hope to ride him down; foiled once again, in this--his last hope, as it seemed-- he drew his longest knife, and as--a quarter of a second too late only-- he crossed behind the buck, he swung himself half out of his saddle, and striking a full blow, succeeded in hamstringing him; while the gray, missing the support of the master-hand, stumbled and fell upon his head.
Horse, stag, and man, all rolled upon the ground within the compass of ten yards--the terrified and wounded deer striking out furiously in all directions--so that it seemed impossible that Archer could escape some deadly injury--while, to increase the fury and the peril of the scene, the hounds came up, and added their fresh fierceness to the fierce confusion. Before, however, A--- came up, Harry had gained his feet, drawn his small knife--the larger having luckily flown many yards as he fell--and running in behind the struggling quarry, had seized the brow antler, and at one strong and skilful blow, severed the weasand and the jugular. One gush of dark red gore--one plunging effort, and the superb and stately beast lay motionless forever--while the loud death halloo rang over the broad valley--all fears, all perils, utterly forgotton in the strong rapture of that thrilling moment.