Part 18

"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.

DAY THE SEVENTH

Once more we were compelled to change our purpose.

When we left Tom Draw's it had been, as we thought, finally decided that we were for this bout to visit that fair village no more, but when that worthy announced his own determination to accompany us on our homeward route, and when we had taken into consideration the fact, that, independent of Tom's two hundred and fifty weight of solid flesh, we had two noble bucks, beside quail, ruffed grouse, woodcock, and rabbit almost innumerable to transport, in addition to our two selves and Timothy, with the four dogs, and lots of luggage--when we, I say, considered all this, it became apparent that another vehicle must be provided for our return. So during the last jorum, it had been put to the vote and unanimously carried that we should start for Tom's, by a retrograde movement, at four o'clock in the morning, breakfast with him, and rig up some drag or other wherein Timothy might get the two deer and the dogs, as best he might, into the city.

"As for us," said Harry, "we will go down the other road, Tom, over the back-bone of the mountain, dine with old Colonel Beams, stop at Paterson, and take a taste at the Holy Father's poteen--you may look at the Falls if you like it, Frank, while we're looking at the Innishowen-- and so get home to supper. I'll give you both beds for one night--but not an hour longer--my little cellar would be broken, past all doubt, if old Tom were to get two nights out of it!"

"Ay'se sure it would," responded Timothy, who had been listening, all attention, mixing meanwhile some strange compound of eggs and rum and sugar. "Whoy, measter Draa did pratty nigh drink 't out yance--that noight 'at eight chaps, measter Frank, drank oop two baskets o' champagne, and fifteen bottles o' 't breawn sherry--Ay carried six on 'em to bed, Ay'se warrant it--and yan o' them, young measter Clark, he spoilt me a new suit o' liveries, wi' vomiting a top on me."

"That'll do, Timothy," interposed Archer, unwilling, as I thought, that the secret mysteries of his establishment should be revealed any further to the profane ears which were gaping round about us--"that'll do for the present--give Mr. Draw that flip--he's looking at it very angrily, I see! and then turn in, or you'll be late in the morning; and, by George, we must be away by four o'clock at latest, for we have all of sixty miles to make to-morrow, and Tom's fat carcase will try the springs most consumedly, down hill."

Matters thus settled, in we turned, and--as it seemed to me, within five minutes, I was awakened by Harry Archer, who stood beside my bed full dressed, with a candle in his hand.

"Get up," he whispered, "get up, Frank, very quietly; slip on your great-coat and your slippers--we have a chance to serve Tom out--he's not awake for once! and Timothy will have the horses ready in five minutes!"

Up I jumped on the instant, hauled on a rough-frieze pea-jacket, thrust my unstockinged feet into their contrary slippers, and followed Harry, on the tips of my toes, along a creaking passage, guided by the portentous ruckling snorts, which varied the ilk profundity of the fat man's slumbers. When I reached his door, there stood Harry, laughing to himself, with a small quiet chuckle, perfectly inaudible at three feet distance, the intensity of which could, however, be judged by the manner in which it shook his whole person. Two huge horse-buckets, filled to the brim, were set beside him; and he had cut a piece of an old broomstick so as to fit exactly to the width of the passage, across which he had fastened it, at about two feet from the ground, so that it must most indubitably trip up any person, who should attempt to run along that dark and narrow thoroughfare.

"Now, Frank," said he, "see here! I'll set this bucket here behind the door--we'll heave the other slap into his face--there he lies, full on the broad of his fat back, with his mouth wide open--and when he jumps up full of fight, which he is sure to do, run you with the candle, which blow out the moment he appears, straight down the passage. I'll stand back here, and as he trips over that broomstick, which he is certain to do, I'll pitch the other bucket on his back--and if he does not think he's bewitched, I'll promise not to laugh. I owe him two or three practical jokes, and now I've got a chance, so I'll pay him all at once."

Well! we peeped in, aided by the glare of the streaming tallow candle, and there, sure enough, with all the clothes kicked off him, and his immense rotundity protected only from the cold by an exceeding scanty shirt of most ancient cotton, lay Tom, flat on his back, like a stranded porpoise, with his mouth wide open, through which he was puffing and breathing like a broken-winded cab-horse, while through his expanded nostrils he was snoring loudly enough to have awaked the seven sleepers. Neither of us could well stand up for laughing. One bucket was deposited behind the door, and back stood Harry ready to slip behind it also at half a moment's warning--the candlestick was placed upon the floor, which I was to kick over in my flight.

"Stand by to heave!" whispered my trusty comrade--"heave!" and with the word--flash!--slush!--out went the whole contents of the full pail, two gallons at the least of ice-cold water, slap in the chaps, neck, breast, and stomach of the sound sleeper. With the most wondrous noise that ears of mine have ever witnessed--a mixture of sob, snort, and groan, concluding in the longest and most portentous howl that mouth of man ever uttered--Tom started out of bed; but, at the very instant I discharged my bucket, I put my foot upon the light, flung down the empty pail, and bolted. Poor devil!--as he got upon his feet the bucket rolled up with its iron handles full against his shins, the oath he swore at which encounter, while he dashed headlong after me, directed by the noise I made on purpose, is most unmentionable. Well knowing where it was, I easily jumped over the stick which barred the passage. Not so Tom--for going at the very top of his pace, swearing like forty troopers all the time, he caught it with both legs just below the knees, and went down with a squelch that shook the whole hut to the rooftree, while at the self-same instant Harry once again soused him with the contents of the second pail, and made his escape unobserved by the window of Tom's own chamber. Meanwhile I had reached my room, and flinging off my jacket, came running out with nothing but my shirt and a lighted candle, to Tom's assistance, in which the next moment I was joined by Harry, who rushed in from out of doors with the stable lanthorn.