Part 8 (1/2)
”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 c.o.c.k 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, Flas.h.!.+ 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 s.p.a.ce 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 cras.h.i.+ng 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 c.o.c.ked 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 las.h.i.+ng his fair round haunch as the fleet b.i.t.c.hes 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 n.o.ble 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 b.i.t.c.hes--which I believe he loved almost as well as his own children--and though, enc.u.mbered 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 h.o.a.r-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 pa.s.sed 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 flas.h.i.+ng 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--!”