A valued correspondent obliges the _Every-Day Book_ with an original
sketch, hasty and spirited as its hero, when the sports of the field
allured him from the pursuits of literature at college, and the domestic
comforts of wife and home.
_To the Editor._
To disemburthen oneself of ennui, and to find rational amusement for
every season of the year, is a grand desideratum in life. Luckily I have
hit on’t, and beg leave, as being the properest place, to give my recipe
in the Everlasting Calendar you are compiling. I contrive then to give
myself employment for every time of year. Neither lively Spring, glowing
Summer, sober Autumn, nor dreary Winter, come amiss to me; for I have
contrived to make myself an Universal Sportsman, and am become so
devoted a page of Diana, that I am dangling at her heels all the year
round without being tired of it. In bleak and frozen _January_, besides
sliding, skating in figures, and making men of snow to frighten children
with, by means of a lantern placed in a skull at the top of them, I now
and then get a day’s cock shooting when the frost breaks, or kill a few
small birds in the snow. In lack of other game, a neighbour’s duck, or
goose, or a chicken, shot and pocketed as I sally out to the club
dinner, are killed more easily than my dairymaid does it, poor things!
In _February_, the weather being rainy or mild, renders it worth my
while to send my stud into Leicestershire for hunting again; and so my
white horse Skyscraper, my old everlasting chestnut Silvertail, the only
good black in the hunt Sultan, and the brown mare Rosinante, together
with Alfana the king of the Cocktails, a hack or two, and a poney for
errands, are “pyked off” pack and baggage for Melton; and then from the
first purple dawn of daylight, when I set off to cover, to the
termination of the day with cards, I have plenty of rational amusement.
Next month, forbearing _March_ hares, I shoot a few snipes before they
are all gone, and at night prepare my fishing tackle for _April_, when
the verdant meadows again draw me to the riverside to angle.
My wife has now rational employment for the rest of the Summer in
catching and impaling the various flies of the season against my trout
mania comes, which is usual early in _May_, when all her maids assist in
this flyfowling sport. I have generally been successful in sport, but I
shall never forget my disappointment when on throwing in a flyline
which was not baited by myself, I found that Sally, mistaking her new
employment, had baited my hook with an earwig. In _June_ I neglected my
Grass for the same sport, and often let it stand till the Hay is spoiled
by Swithin, who wipes his watery eyes with what ought to be my Winter’s
fodder. This gives me rational, though troublesome, employment in buying
Hay or passing off the old at market. _July_, however, affords plenty of
bobfishing, as I call it, for roach, dace, perch, and bleak. I also
gudgeon some of my neighbours, and cast a line of an evening into their
carp and tench ponds. I have not, thank my stars, either stupidity or
patience enough for barbel. But in _August_, that is before the 12th, I
get my trolling tackle in order, and am reminded of my old vermin
college days, when shutting my room door, as if I was “sported in” and
cramming Euclid, I used to creep down to the banks of the Cam, and
clapping my hands on my old rod, with his long line to him, exclaimed,
in true Horatian measure, the only Latin line I ever cited in my life,
_Progenie longa gaudes captare Johannes._
But, oh! the 12th day of _August_, that mountain holiday, ushered in by
the ringing of the sheep bell--’tis then that, jacketed in fustian, with
a gun on my shoulder, and a powder horn belted to my side, I ramble the
rough highland hills in quest of blackcocks and red game, get now and
then a chance shot at a ptarmagan, and once winged a Capercaille on a
pine tree at Invercauld. In hurrying home for the _First of September_,
I usually pass through the fens of Lincolnshire, and there generally
kill a wild duck or two. You must know I have, besides my pointers,
setters, and spaniels, water dogs of every sort. Indeed my dog
establishment would astonish Acteon. There are my harriers, Rockwood,
Ringwood, Lasher, Jowler, Rallywood, and twenty more; my pointers, Ponto
and Carlo; my spaniels, Dash and Old Grizzle; Hedgehog and Pompey, my
water dogs. No one, I bet a crown, has better greyhounds than Fly and
Dart are, nor a surer lurcher than Groveller. I say nothing of those
inferior “Lares,” my terriers--ratcatching Busy, Snap, and Nimbletoes,
with whom, in the absense of other game, I go sometimes for a frolic to
a farmhouse, disguised as a ratcatcher, and take a shilling for ferret
work.
But now I come to thy shrine, O lovely _Septembria_, thou fairest nymyh
in Diana’s train, with rolling blue eyes as sharp and as true as those
of a signal lieutenant; I come to court thee again, and may thy path be
even paved with the skulls of partridges. Again I come to dine with thee
on the leveret’s back or pheasant’s wings. We’ve wildboars’ bladders for
wine bottles, ramshorns for corkscrews, bugles for funnels, gunpowder
for snuff, smoke for tobacco, woodcock’s bills for toothpicks, and shot
for sugar plums! I dare not proceed to tell you now many brace of birds
Ponto and I bag the first day of shooting, as the long bow, instead of
the fowling piece, might be called my weapon. But enough rodomontading.
I now come to _October_. Pheasants by all that’s volatile! And then,
after them, I go to my tailor and order two suits--scarlet for master
Reynard, and a bottlegreen jacket for the harriers, top-boots, white
corderoy inexpressibles, and a velvet cap. Then when the covers ring
again with the hallowed music of harriers, I begin skylarking the gates
and setting into wind to follow the foxhounds in _November_. When
_The dusky night rides down the sky,
And ushers in the morn,
The Hounds all make a jovial cry,
And the Huntsman winds his horn._
With three days in the week chace, and pretty little interludes of
hunting with beagles, or of snipe shooting, I manage to get through
_December_ to the year’s end. My snug Winter evenings are spent in
getting ready my guns, smacking new hunting whips, or trying on new
boots, while my old hall furnishes ample store of trophies, stags’ horns
hunted by my great grandfather, cross bows, guns, brushes won on rivals
of Pegasus, and all sorts of odd oldfashioned whips, horns, and
accoutrements, hanging up all round, which remind me of those days of
yore when I remember the old squire and his sporting chaplain casting
home on spent horses all bespattered from the chase, before I had ridden
any thing but my rocking horse. There then have I rational amusement all
the year round. And much and sincerely do I praise thee, O Diana!
greatest Diana of the Ephesians! at thy feet will I repose my old and
weatherbeaten carcass at last and invoke thy tutelary protection for my
old age, thou who art _Hunting_, _Shooting_, and _Fishing_ personified,
the true DIVA TRIFORMIS of Antiquity.
Imminens Villæ tua Pinus esto,
Quam per exactos ego lætus annos,
Verris obliquum meditantis ictum,
Sanguine donem.