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.