Part 4 (2/2)
”And pray,” said I, ”is this your method of proceeding?”
”You shall see, you shall see; come get to horse, or it will be late before we get our breakfast, and I a.s.sure you I don't wish to lose either that, or my day's quail-shooting. This hunt is merely for a change, and to get something of an appet.i.te for breakfast. Now, Tim, be sure that every thing is ready by eight o'clock at the latest--we shall be in by that time with a furious appet.i.te.”
Thus saying he mounted, without more delay, his favorite, the gray; while I backed, nothing loth, the chestnut horse; and at the same time to my vast astonishment, from under the long shed out rode the mighty Tom, bestriding a tall powerful brown mare, showing a monstrous deal of blood combined with no slight bone--equipped with a cavalry bridle, and strange to say, without the universal martingal; he was rigged just as usual, with the exception of a broad-brimmed hat in place of his fur cap, and grasped in his right hand a heavy smooth-bored rifle, while with the left he wheeled his mare, with a degree of active skill, which I should certainly have looked for any where rather than in so vast a ma.s.s of flesh as that which was exhibited by our worthy host.
Two other sportsmen, grave, sober-looking farmers, whom Harry greeted cheerily by name, and to whom in all due form I was next introduced, well-mounted, and armed with long single-barreled guns, completed our party; and away we went at a rattling trot, the hounds following at Archer's heels, as steadily as though he hunted them three times a week.
”Now arn't it a strange thing,” said Tom, ”arn't it a strange thing, Mr.
Forester, that every critter under Heaven takes somehow nat'rally to that are Archer--the very hounds--old Whino there! that I have had these eight years, and fed with my own hands, and hunted steady every winter, quits me the very moment he claps sight on him; by the eternal, I believe he is half dog himself.”
”You hunted them indeed,” interrupted Harry, ”you old rhinoceros, why hang your hide, you never so much as heard a good view-holloa till I came up here--you hunted them--a man talk of hunting, that carries a cannon about with him on horseback; but come, where are we to try first, on Rocky Hill, or in the Spring Swamps?”
”Why now I reckon, Archer, we'd best stop down to Sam Blain's--by the blacksmith's--he was telling t'other morning of an eternal sight of them he'd seen down hereaway--and we'll be there to rights!--Jem, cus you, out of my way, you dumb n.i.g.g.e.r--out of my way, or I'll ride over you”-- for, traveling along at a strange shambling run, that worthy had contrived to keep up with us, though we were going fully at the rate of eight or nine miles in the hour.
”Hurrah!” cried Tom, suddenly pulling up at the door of a neat farm-house on the brow of a hill, with a clear streamlet sweeping round its base, and a fine piece of woodland at the farther side. ”Hurrah! Sam Blain, we've come to make them foxes, you were telling of a Sunday, smell h-ll right straight away. Here's Archer, and another Yorker with him--leastwise an Englisher I should say--and Squire Conklin, and Bill Speers, and that white n.i.g.g.e.r Jem! Look sharp, I say! Look sharp, cuss you, else we'll pull off the ruff of the old humstead.”
In a few minutes Sam made his appearance, armed, like the rest, with a Queen Ann's tower-musket.
”Well! well!” he said, ”I'm ready. Quit making such a clatter! Lend me a load of powder, one of you; my horn's leaked dry, I reckon!”
Tom forthwith handed him his own, and the next thing I heard was Blain exclaiming that it was ”desperate pretty powder,” and wondered if it shot strong.
”Shoot strong? I guess you'll find it strong enough to sew you up, if you go charging your old musket that ways!” answered Tom. ”By the Lord, Archer, he's put in three full charges!”
”Well, it will kill him, that's all!” answered Harry, very coolly; ”and there'll be one less of you. But come! come! let's be bustling; the sun's going to get up already. You'll leave your horses here, I suppose, gentlemen, and get to the old stands. Tom Draw, put Mr. Forester at my old post down by the big pin-oak at the creek side; and you stand there, Frank, still as a church-mouse. It's ten to one, if some of those fellows don't shoot him first, that he'll break covert close by you, and run the meadows for a mile or two, up to the turnpike road, and over it to Rocky hill--that black k.n.o.b yonder, covered with pine and hemlock.
There are some queer snake fences in the flat, and a big brook or two, but Peac.o.c.k has been over every inch of it before, and you may trust in him implicitly. Good bye! I'm going up the road with Jem to drive it from the upper end.”
And off he went at a merry trot, with the hounds gamboling about his stirrups, and Jem Lyn running at his best pace to keep up with him. In a few minutes they were lost behind a swell of woodland, round which the road wheeled suddenly. At the same moment Tom and his companions reappeared from the stables where they had been securing their four-footed friends; and, after a few seconds, spent in running ramrods down the barrels to see that all was right, inspecting primings, knapping flints, or putting on fresh copper caps, it was announced that all was ready; and pa.s.sing through the farm-yard, we entered, through a set of bars, a broad bright buckwheat stubble. Scarcely an hundred yards had we proceeded, before we sprung the finest bevy of the largest quail I had yet seen, and flying high and wild crossed half-a-dozen fields in the direction of the village, whence we had started, and pitched at length into an alder brake beside the stream.
”Them chaps has gone the right way,” Tom exclaimed, with a deep sigh, who had with wondrous difficulty refrained from firing into them, though he was loaded with buckshot; ”right in the course we count to take this forenoon. Now, Squire, keep to the left here, take your station by the old earths there away, under the tall dead pine; and you, Bill, make tracks there, straight through the middle cart-way, down to the other meadow, and sit you down right where the two streams fork; there'll be an old red snooping down that side afore long, I reckon. We'll go on, Mr. Forester; here's a big rail fence now; I'll throw off the top rail, for be darned if I climb any day when I can creep--there, that'll do, I reckon; leastwise if you can ride like Archer--he d--ns me always if I so much as shakes a fence afore he jumps it--you've got the best horse, too, for lepping. Now let's see! Well done! well done!” he continued, with a most boisterous burst of laughter--”well done, horse, any how!”-- as Peac.o.c.k, who had been chafing ever since he parted from his comrade Bob, went at the fence as though he were about to take it in his stroke --stopped short when within a yard of it, and then bucked over it, without touching a splinter, although it was at least five feet, and shaking me so much, that, greatly to Tom's joy, I showed no little glimpse of day-light.
”I reckon if they run the meadows, you'll hardly ride them, Forester,”
he grinned; ”but now away with you. You see the tall dark pin oak, it hasn't lost one leaf yet; right in the nook there of the bars you'll find a quiet shady spot, where you can see clear up the rail fence to this k.n.o.b, where I'll be. Off with you, boy--and mind you now, you keep as dumb as the old woman when her husband cut her tongue out, 'cause she had too much jaw.”
Finis.h.i.+ng his discourse, he squatted himself down on the stool of a large hemlock, which, being recently cut down, c.u.mbered the woodside with its giant stem, and secured him, with its evergreen top now lowly laid and withering, from the most narrow scrutiny; while I, giving the gallant horse his head, went at a brisk hand-gallop across the firm short turf of the fair sloping hill-side, taking a moderate fence in my stroke, which Peac.o.c.k cleared in a style that satisfied me Harry had by no means exaggerated his capacity to act as hunter, in lieu of the less glorious occupation, to which in general he was doomed.
In half a minute more I reached my post, and though an hour pa.s.sed before I heard the slightest sound betokening the chase, never did I more thoroughly enjoy an hour.
The loveliness of the whole scene before me--the broad rich sweep of meadowland lying, all bathed in dew, under the pale gray light of an autumnal morning, with groups of cattle couched still between the trees where they had pa.s.sed the night; the distant hills, veiled partially in mist, partially rearing their round leafy heads toward the brightening sky; and then the various changes of the landscape, as slowly the day broke behind the eastern hill; and all the various sounds of bird, and beast, and insect, which each succeeding variation of the morning served to call into life as if by magic. First a faint rosy flush stole up the eastern sky, and nearly at the self-same moment, two or three vagrant crows came flapping heavily along, at a height so immeasurable that their harsh voices were by distance modified into a pleasing murmur. And now a little fish jumped in the streamlet; and the splash, trifling as it was, with which he fell back on the quiet surface, half startled me.
A moment afterward an acorn plumped down on my head, and as I looked up, there sat, on a limb not ten feet above me, an impudent rogue of a gray squirrel, half as big as a rabbit, erect upon his haunches, working away at the twin brother of the acorn he had dropped upon my hat to break my reverie, rasping it audibly with his chisel-shaped teeth, and grinning at me just as coolly as though I were a harmless scare-crow.
When I grew tired of observing him, and looked toward the sky again, behold the western ridge, which is far higher than the eastern hills, had caught upon its summits the first bright rays of the yet unseen day-G.o.d; while the rosy flush of the east had brightened into a blaze of living gold, exceeded only by the glorious hues with which a few bright specks of misty cloud glowed out against the azure firmament, like coals of actual fire. Again a louder splash aroused me; and, as I turned, there floated on a gla.s.sy basin, into which the ripples of a tiny fall subsided, three wood-ducks, with a n.o.ble drake, that loveliest in plumage of all aquatic fowl, perfectly undisturbed and fearless, although within ten yards of their most dreaded enemy.
How beautiful are all their motions! There! one has reared herself half way out of the water; another stretches forth a delicate web foot to scratch her ear, as handily as a dog on dry land; and now the drake reflects his purple neck to preen his ruffled wing, and now--bad luck to you, Peac.o.c.k, why did you snort and stamp?--they are off like a bullet, and out of sight in an instant.
And now out comes the sun himself, and with him the accursed hum of a musquitoe--and hark! hus.h.!.+--what was that?--was it? By Heavens! it was the deep note of a fox-hound! Aye! there comes Harry's cheer, faintly heard, swelling up the breeze.
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