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.