Part 13 (1/2)
”Not a bit--my gun has not been used these three months, and something might have got into the chamber!”
”Something might not, if when you cleaned it last you had laid a wad in the centre of a bit of greased rag three inches square and rammed it about an inch down the barrel, leaving the ends of the linen hanging out. And by running your rod down you could have ascertained the fact, without unnecessarily fouling your piece. A gun has no right ever to miss fire now; and never does, if you use Westley Richards' caps, and diamond gunpowder--putting the caps on the last thing--which has the further advantage of being much the safer plan, and seeing that the powder is up to the cones before you do so. If it is not so, let your hammer down, and give a smart tap to the under side of the breech, holding it uppermost, and you will never need a picker; or at least almost never. Remember, too, that the best picker in the world is a strong needle headed with sealing wax. And now that you have finished loading, and I lecturing, just jump over the fence to your right; and that footpath will bring us to the stepping-stones across the Ramapo. By Jove, but we shall have a lovely morning.”
He did so, and away they went, with the dogs following steadily at the heel, crossed the small river dry-shod, climbed up the wooded bank by dint of hand and foot, and reached the broad brown corn stubble. Harry, however, did not wave his dogs to the right-hand and left, but calling them in, quietly plodded along the headland, and climbed another fence, and crossed a buckwheat stubble, still without beating or disturbing any ground, and then another field full of long bents and ragwort, an old deserted pasture, and Frank began to grumble, but just then a pair of bars gave access to a wide fifty acre lot, which had been wheat, the stubble standing still knee deep, and yielding a rare covert.
”Now we are at the far end of our beat, and we have got the wind too in the dogs' noses, Master Frank--and so hold up good lads,” said Harry.
And off the setters shot like lightning, crossing and quartering their ground superbly.
”There! there! well done, old Chase--a dead stiff point already, and Shot backing him as steady as a rail. Step up, Frank, step up quietly, and let us keep the hill of them.”
They came up close, quite close to the stanch dog, and then, but not till then, he feathered and drew on, and Shot came crawling up till his nose was but a few inches in the rear of Chase's, whose point he never thought of taking from him. Now they are both upon the game. See how they frown and slaver, the birds are close below their noses.
Whirr--r--r! ”There they go--a glorious bevy!” exclaimed Harry, as he c.o.c.ked his right barrel and cut down the old c.o.c.k bird, which had risen rather to his right hand, with his loose charge--”blaze away, Frank!”
Bang--bang!--and two more birds came fluttering down, and then he pitched his gun up to his eye again, and sent the cartridge after the now distant bevy, and to Frank's admiration a fourth bird was keeled over most beautifully, and clean killed, while crossing to the right, at forty-six yards, as they paced it afterward.
”Now mark! mark, Timothy--mark, Frank!” And shading their eyes from the level sunbeams, the three stood gazing steadily after the rapid bevy.
They cross the pasture, skim very low over the brush fence of the cornfield--they disappear behind it they are down! no! no! not yet--they are just skirting the summit of the topped maize stalks--now they are down indeed, just by that old ruined hovel, where the cat-briers and sumac have overspread its cellar and foundation with thick underwood.
And all the while the st.u.r.dy dogs are crouching at their feet unmoving.
”Will you not follow those, Harry?” Forester inquired--”there are at least sixteen of them!”
”Not I,” said Archer, ”not I, indeed, till I have beat this field--I expect to put up another bevy among those little crags there in the corner, where the red cedars grow--and if we do, they will strike down the fence of the buckwheat stubble--that stubble we must make good, and the rye beside it, and drive, if possible, all that we find before us to the corn field. Don't be impatient, and you'll see in time that I am in the right.”
No more words were now wasted; the four birds were bagged without trouble, and the sportsmen being in the open, were handed over on the spot to Tim; who stroked their freckled b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and beautifully mottled wing-coverts and backs, with a caressing touch, as though he loved them; and finally, in true Jack Ketch style, tucked them up severally by the neck. Archer was not mistaken in his prognostics--another bevy had run into the dwarf cedars from the stubble at the sound of the firing, and were roaded up in right good style, first one dog, and then the other, leading; but without any jealousy or haste.
They had, however, run so far, that they had got wild, and as there was no bottom covert on the crags, had traversed them quite over to the open, on the far side--and, just as Archer was in the act of warning Forester to hurry softly round and head them, they flushed at thirty yards, and had flown some five more before they were in sight, the feathery evergreens for a while cutting off the view--the dogs stood dead at the sound of their wings. Then, as they came in sight, Harry discharged both barrels very quickly--the loose shot first, which evidently took effect, for one bird cowered and seemed about to fall, but gathered wing again, and went on for the present--the cartridge, which went next, although the bevy had flown ten yards further, did its work clean, and stopped its bird. Frank fired but once, and killed, using his cartridge first, and thinking it in vain to fire the loose shot. The remaining birds skimmed down the hill, and lighted in the thick bushy hedge-row, as Archer had foreseen.
”So much for Ely!” exclaimed Harry--”had we both used two of them, we should have bagged four then. As it is, I have killed one which we shall not get; a thing that I most particularly hate.”
”That bird will rise again,” said Frank.
”Never!” replied the other, ”he has one, if not two, shot in him, well forward--if I am not much mistaken, before the wing--he is dead now! but let us on. These we must follow, for they are on our line; you keep this side the fence, and I will cross it with the dogs--come with me, Timothy.”
In a few minutes more there was a dead point at the hedge-row. ”Look to, Frank!” ”Ay! ay! Poke them out, Tim;” then followed sundry b.u.mps and thres.h.i.+ngs of the briers, and out with a noisy flutter burst two birds under Forester's nose. Bang! bang!
”The first shot too quick, altogether,” muttered Archer; ”Ay, he has missed one; mark it, Tim--there he goes down in the corn, by jingo-- you've got that bird, Frank! That's well! Hold up, Shot”--another point within five yards. ”Look out again, Frank.”
But this time vainly did Tim poke, and thrash, and peer into the bushes --yet still Shot stood, stiff as a marble statue--then Chase drew up and snuffed about, and pushed his head and forelegs into the matted briers, and thereupon a muzzling noise ensued, and forthwith out he came, mouthing a dead bird, warm still, and bleeding from the neck and breast.
”Frank, he has got my bird--and shot, just as I told you, through the neck and near the great wing joint--good dog! good dog!”
”The devil!”
”Yes, the devil! but look out man, here is yet one more point;” and this time ten or twelve birds flushed upon Archer's side; he slew, as usual, his brace, and as they crossed, at long distance, Frank knocked down one more--the rest flew to the corn-field.
In the middle of the buckwheat they flushed another, and, in the rye, another bevy, both of which crossed the stream, and settled down among the alders. They reached the corn-field, and picked up their birds there, quite as fast as Frank himself desired--three ruffed grouse they had bagged, and four rabbits, in a small dingle full of thorns, before they reached the corn; and just as the tin horns were sounding for noon and dinner from many a neighboring farm, they bagged their thirty-fourth quail. At the same moment, the rattle of a distant wagon on the hard road, and a loud cheer replying to the last shot, announced the Commodore; who pulled up at the tavern door just as they crossed the stepping-stones, having made a right good morning's work, with a dead certainty of better sport in the afternoon, since they had marked two untouched bevies, thirty-five birds at least, beside some ten or twelve more stragglers into the alder brakes, which Harry knew to hold-- moreover, thirty woodc.o.c.k, as he said, at the fewest.
”Well! Harry,” exclaimed Frank, as he set down his gun, and sat down to the table, ”I must for once knock under--your practice has borne out your precepts.”