Warwick Woodlands Part 20

"Ay! ay! in the bog bottom!"

"How many?"

"Twenty-three!"

"Then we'll have sport, by Jove!" and, as he spoke, they entered a wide rushy pasture, across which, at some two or three hundred yards, A--- and fat Tom were seen advancing toward them. They had not made three steps before both dogs stood stiff as stones in the short gra.s.s, where there was not a particle of covert.

"Why, what the deuce is this, Harry?"

"Devil a know know I," responded he; "but step up to the red dog, Frank --I'll go to the other--they've got game, and no mistake!"

"Skeap--ske-eap!" up sprang a couple of English snipe before Shot's nose, and Harry cut them down, a splendid double shot, before they had flown twenty yards, just as Frank dropped the one which rose to him at the same moment. At the sound of the guns a dozen more rose hard by, and fluttering on in rapid zig-zags, dropped once again within a hundred yards--the meadow was alive with them.

"Did you ever see snipe here before, Tom? asked Harry, as he loaded.

"Never in all my life--but it's full now--load up! load up! for heaven's sake!"

"No hurry, Tom! Tom--steady! the birds are tame and lie like stones. We can get thirty or forty here, I know, if you'll be steady only--but if we go in with these four dogs, we shall lose all. Here comes Tim with the couples, and we'll take up all but two!"

"That's right," said A---; "take up Grouse and Tom's dog, for they won't hunt with yours--and yours are the steadiest, and fetch--that's it, Tim, couple them, and carry them away. What have you killed, Archer?" he added, while his injunctions were complied with.

"One woodc.o.c.k and a brace of ruffed grouse! and Frank has marked down three-and-twenty quail into that rushy bottom yonder, where we can get every bird of them. We are going to have great sport to-day!"

"I think so. Tom and I each killed a double shot out of that bevy!"

"That was well! Now, then, walk slowly and far apart--we must beat this three or four times, at least--the dogs will get them up!"

It was not a moment before the first bird rose, but it was quite two hours, and all the dinner horns had long blown for noon, before the last was bagged--the four guns having scored, in that one meadow, forty-nine English snipe--fifteen for Harry Archer--thirteen for Tom Draw--twelve for the Commodore, and only nine for Forester, who never killed snipe quite so well as he did c.o.c.k or quail.

"And now, boys," exclaimed Tom, as he flung his huge carcase on the ground, with a thud that shook it many a rod around--"there's a cold roast fowl, and some nice salt pork and crackers, in that 'ar game bag-- and I'm a whale now, I tell you, for a drink!"

"Which will you take to drink, Tom?" inquired Forester, very gravely-- "fowl, pork, or crackers? Here they are, all of them! I prefer whiskey and water, myself!" qualifying, as he spoke, a moderate cup with some of the ice-cold water which welled out in a crystal stream from a small basin under the wreathed roots of the sycamore which overshadowed them.

"None of your nonsense, Forester--hand us the liquor, lad--I'm dry, I tell you!"

"I wish you'd tell me something I don't know, then, if you feel communicative; for I know that you're dry--now and always! Well! don't be mad, old fellow, here's the bottle--don't empty it--that's all!"

"Well! now I've drinked," said Tom, after a vast potation, "now I've drinked good--we'll have a bite and rest awhile, and smoke a pipe; and then we'll use them quail, and we'll have time to pick up twenty c.o.c.k in h.e.l.l-hole arterwards, and that won't be a slow day's work, I reckon."

THE QUAIL

"Certainly this is a very lovely country," exclaimed the Commodore suddenly, as he gazed with a quiet eye, puffing his cigar the while, over the beautiful vale, with the clear expanse of Wickham's Pond in the middle foreground, and the wild h.o.a.ry mountains framing the rich landscape in the distance.

"Truly, you may say that," replied Harry; "I have traveled over a large part of the world, and for its own peculiar style of loveliness, I must say that I never have seen any thing to match with the vale of Warwick.

I would give much, very much, to own a few acres, and a snug cottage here, in which I might pa.s.s the rest of my days, far aloof from the Fumum et opes strepitumque Romae."

"Then, why the h--l don't you own a few acres?" put in ancient Tom; "I'd be right glad to know, and gladder yit to have you up here, Archer."

"I would indeed, Tom," answered Harry; "I'm not joking at all; but there are never any small places to be bought hereabout; and, as for large ones, your land is so confounded good, that a fellow must be a nabob to think of buying."

"Well, how would Jem Burt's place suit you, Archer?" asked the fat man.

"You knows it--just a mile and a half 'tother side Warwick, by the crick side? I guess it will have to be sold anyhow next April; leastways the old man's dead, and the heirs want the estate settled up like."

"Suit me!" cried Harry, "by George! it's just the thing, if I recollect it rightly. But how much land is there?"

"Twenty acres, I guess--not over twenty-five, no how."

"And the house?" "Well, that wants fixin' some; and the bridge over the crick's putty bad, too, it will want putty nigh a new one. Why, the house is a story and a half like; and it's jist an entry stret through the middle, and a parlor on one side on't, and a kitchen on the t'other; and a chamber behind both on 'em."

"What can it be bought for, Tom?"

"I guess three thousand dollars; twenty-five hundred, maybe. It will go cheap, I reckon; I don't hear tell o' no one lookin' at it.

"What will it cost me more to fix it, think you?"

"Well, you see, Archer, the land's ben most darned badly done by, this last three years, since old 'squire's ben so low; and the bridge, that'll take a smart sum; and the fences is putty much gone to rack; I guess it'll take hard on to a thousand more to fix it up right, like you'd like to have it, without doin' nothin' at the house."

"And fifteen hundred more for that and the stables. I wish to heaven I had known this yesterday; or rather before I came up hither," said Harry.

"Why so?" asked the Commodore.

"Why, as the deuce would have it, I told my broker to invest six thousand, that I have got loose, in a good mortgage, if he could find one, for five years; and I have got no stocks that I can sell out; all that I have but this, is on good bond and mortgage, in Boston, and little enough of it, too."

"Well, if that's all," said Forester, "we can run down tomorrow, and you will be in time to stop him."

"That's true, too," answered Harry, pondering. "Are you sure it can be bought, Tom?"

"I guess so," was the response.

"That means, I suppose, that you're perfectly certain of it. Why the devil can't you speak English?"

"English!" exclaimed Frank; "Good Lord! why don't you ask him why he can't speak Greek? English! Lord! Lord! Lord! Tom Draw and English!"

"I'll jist tell Archer what he warnts to know, and then see you, my dear little critter, if I doosn't English you some!" replied the old man, waxing wroth. "Well, Archer, to tell heaven's truth, now, I doos know it; but it's an etarnal all-fired shame of me to be tellin' it, bein' as how I knows it in the way of business like. It's got to be selled by vandoo in April*. [*Vendue. Why the French word for a public auction has been adopted throughout the Northern and Eastern States, as applied to a Sheriff's sale, deponent saith not.]

"Then, by Jove! I will buy it," said Harry; "and down I'll go to-morrow.

But that need not take you away, boys; you can stay and finish out the week here, and go home in the Ianthe; Tom will send you down to Nyack."

"Sartain," responded Tom; "but now I'm most darned glad I told you that, Archer. I meant to a told you on't afore, but it clean slipped out of my head; but all's right, now. Hark! hark! don't you hear, boys? The quails hasn't all got together yit--better luck! Hush, A--- and you'll hear them callin'--whew-wheet! whew-wheet! whe-whe-whe;" and the old Turk began to call most scientifically; and in ten minutes the birds were answering him from all quarters, through the circular s.p.a.ce of Bog-meadow, and through the th.o.r.n.y brake beyond it, and some from a large ragwort field further yet.

"How is this, Frank--did they scatter so much when they dropped?" asked Harry.

"Yes; part of them 'lighted in the little bank on this edge, by the spring, you know; and some, a dozen or so, right in the middle of the bog, by the single hickory; and five or six went into the swamp, and a few over it."

"That's it! that's it! and they've been running to try to get together,"

said the Commodore.

"But was too skeart to call, till we'd quit shootin'!" said Tom. "But come, boys, let's be stirrin', else they'll git together like; they keeps drawin', drawin', into one place now, I can hear."