Warwick Woodlands Part 6

"Why, is there any other use for water, Tom?" I asked, simply enough.

"It's lucky if there aint, any how--leastwise, where you and Archer is-- else you'd leave none for the rest of us. It's a good thing you han't thought of washing your darned stinking hides in rum--you will be at it some of these odd days, I warrant me--why now, McTaggart, it's only yesterday I caught Archer up stairs, a fiddling away up there at his teeth with a little ivory brush; brushing them with cold water--cleaning them he calls it. Cuss all such trash, says I."

While I was listening in mute astonishment, wondering whether in truth the old savage never cleaned his teeth, Archer made his appearance, and to a better supper never did I sit down, than was spread at the old round table, in such profusion as might have well sufficed to feed a troop of horse.

"What have we got here, Tom?" cried Harry, as he took the head of the social board; "quail-pie, by George--are there any peppers in it, Tom?"

"Sartain there is," replied that worthy, "and a prime rump-steak in the bottom, and some first-best salt pork, chopped fine, and three small onions; like little Wax-skin used to fix them, when he was up here last fall."

"Take some of this pie, Frank;" said Archer, as he handed me a huge plate of leafy reeking pie-crust, with a slice of fat steak, and a plump hen quail, and gravy, and etceteras, that might have made an alderman's mouth water; "and if you don't say it's the very best thing you ever tasted, you are not half so good a judge as I used to hold you. It took little Johnny and myself three wet days to concoct it. Pie, Tom, or roast pig?" he continued; "or broiled woodc.o.c.k? Here they are, all of them?"

"Why, I reckon I'll take c.o.c.k; briled meat wants to be ate right stret away as soon as it comes off the griddle; and of all darned nice ways of cooking, to brile a thing, quick now, over hot hickory ashes, is the best for me!"

"I believe you're right about eating the c.o.c.k first, for they will not be worth a farthing if they get cold. So you stick to the pig, do you-- hey, McTaggart? Well, there is no reckoning on taste--holloa, Tim, look sharp! the champagne all 'round--I'm choking!"

And for some time no sound was heard, but the continuous clatter of knives and forks, the occasional popping of a cork succeeded by the gurgling of the generous wine as it flowed into the tall rummers; and every now and then a loud and rattling eructation from Tom Draw, who, as he said, could never half enjoy a meal if he could not stop now and then to blow off steam.

At last, however--for supper, alas! like all other earthly pleasures, must come to an end--"The fairest still the fleetest"--our appet.i.tes waned gradually; and notwithstanding Harry's earnest exhortations, and the production of a broiled ham-bone, devilled to the very utmost pitch of English mustard, soy, oil of Aix, and cayenne pepper, by no hands, as may be guessed, but those of that universal genius, Timothy; one by one, we gave over our labors edacious, to betake us to potations of no small depth or frequency.

"It is directly contrary to my rule, Frank, to drink before a good day's shooting--and a good day I mean to have to-morrow!--but I am thirsty, and the least thought chilly; so here goes for a debauch! Tim, look in my box with the clothes, and you will find two flasks of Curacao; bring them down, and a dozen lemons, and some lump sugar--look alive! and you, Tom, out with your best brandy; I'll make a jorum that will open your eyes tight before you've done with it. That's right, Tim; now get the soup-tureen, the biggest one, and see that it's clean. The old villain has got a punch-bowl--bring half a dozen of champagne, a bucket full of ice, and then go down into the kitchen, and make two quarts of green tea, as strong as possible; and when it's made, set it to cool in the ice-house!"

In a few minutes all the ingredients were at hand; the rind, peeled carefully from all the lemons, was deposited with two tumblers full of finely powdered sugar in the bottom of the tureen; thereupon were poured instantly three pints of pale old Cognac; and these were left to steep, without admixture, until Tim Matlock made his entrance with the cold, strong, green tea; two quarts of this, strained clear, were added to the brandy, and then two flasks of curacoa!

Into this mixture a dozen lumps of clear ice were thrown, and the whole stirred up 'till the sugar was entirely suspended; then pop! pop! went the long necks, and their creaming nectar was discharged into the bowl; and by the body of Bacchus--as the Italians swear--and by his soul, too, which he never steeped in such delicious nectar, what a drink that was, when it was completed.

Even Tom Draw, who ever was much disposed to look upon strange potables as trash, and who had eyed the whole proceedings with ill-concealed suspicion and disdain, when he had quaffed off a pint-beaker full, which he did without once moving the vessel from his head, smacked his lips with a report which might have been heard half a mile off, and which resembled very nearly the crack of a first-rate huntsman's whip.

"That's not slow, now!" he said, half dubiously, "to tell the truth now, that's first rate; I reckon, though, it would be better if there wasn't that tea into it--it makes it weak and trashy-like!"

"You be hanged!" answered Harry, "that's mere affectation--that smack of your lips told the story; did you ever hear such an infernal sound? I never did, by George!"

"Begging your pardon, Measter Archer," interposed Timothy, pulling his forelock, with an expression of profound respect, mingled with a ludicrous air of regret, at being forced to differ in the least degree from his master; "begging your pardon, Measter Archer, that was a roommer noise, and by a vary gre-at de-al too, when Measter McTavish sneezed me clean oot o' t' wagon!"

"What's that?--what the devil's that?" cried I; "this McTavish must be a queer genius; one day I hear of his frightening a bull out of a meadow, and the next of his sneezing a man out of a phaeton."

"It's simply true! both are simply true! We were driving very slowly on an immensely hot day in the middle of August, between Lebanon Springs and Claverack; McTavish and I on the front seat, and Tim behind. Well!

we were creeping at a foot's pace, upon a long, steep hill, just at the very hottest time of day; not a word had been spoken for above an hour, for we were all tired and languid--except once, when McTavish asked for his third tumbler, since breakfast, of Starke's Ferintosh, of which we had three two-quart bottles in the liquor case--when suddenly, without any sign or warning, McTavish gave a sneeze which, on my honor, was scarcely inferior in loudness to a pistol shot! The horses started almost off the road, I jumped about half a foot off my seat, and positively without exaggeration, Timothy tumbled slap out of the wagon into the road, and lay there sprawling in the dust, while Mac sat perfectly unmoved, without a smile upon his face, looking straight before him, exactly as if nothing had happened."

"Nonsense, Harry," exclaimed I; "that positively won't go down."

"That's an etarnal lie, now, Archer!" Tom chimed in; "leastwise I don't know why I should say so neither, for I never saw no deviltry goin' on yet, that didn't come as nat'ral to McTavish, as lying to a minister, or..."

"Rum to Tom Draw!" responded Harry. "But it's as true as the gospel, ask Timothy there!"

"Nay it's all true; only it's scarce so bad i' t' story, as it was i'

right airnest! Ay cooped oot o' t' drag--loike ivry thing--my hinder eend was sair a moanth and better!"

"Now then," said I, "it's Tom's turn; let us hear about the bull."

"Oh, the bull!" answered Tom. "Well you see, Archer there, and little Waxskin--you know little Waxskin, I guess, Mister Forester--and old McTavish, had gone down to shoot to h.e.l.lhole--where we was yesterday, you see!--well now! it was hot--hot, worst kind; I tell you--and I was sort o' tired out--so Waxskin, in he goes into the thick, and Archer arter him, and up the old crick side--thinkin, you see, that we was goin up, where you and I walked yesterday--but not a bit of it; we never thought of no such thing, not we! We sot ourselves down underneath the haystacks, and made ourselves two good stiff horns of toddy; and cooled off there, all in the shade, as slick as silk.

"Well, arter we'd been there quite a piece, bang! we hears, in the very thick of the swamp--bang! bang!--and then I heerd Harry Archer roar out 'mark! mark!--Tom, mark!--you old fat rascal,'--and sure enough, right where I should have been, if I'd been a doin right, out came two woodc.o.c.k--big ones--they looked like hens, and I kind o' thought it was a shame, so I got up to go to them, and called McTavish to go with me; but torights, jest as he was a gitting up, a heap of critters comes all chasin up, scart by a dog, I reckon, kickin their darned heels up, and bellowin like mad--and there was one young bull amongst them, quite a lump of a bull now I tell you; and the bull he came up pretty nigh to us, and stood, and stawmped, and sort o' snorted, as if he didn't know right what he would be arter, and McTavish, he gits up, and turns right round with his back to the critter; he got a bit of a round jacket on, and he stoops down till his head came right atween his legs, kind o'

straddlin like, so that the bull could see nothing of him but his t'other eend, and his head right under it, chin uppermost, with his big black whiskers, lookin as fierce as all h-ll, and fiercer; well! the bull he stawmped agin, and pawed, and bellowed, and I was in hopes, I swon, that he would have hooked him; but just then McTavish, starts to run, going along as I have told you, hind eend foremost--bo-oo went the bull, a-boooo, and off he starts like a strick, with his tail stret on eend, and his eyes starin and all the critters arter him, and then they kind o' circled round--and all stood still and stared--and stawmped, 'till he got nigh to them, and then they all stricks off agin; and so they went on--runnin and then standin still,--and so they went on the hull of an hour, I'll be bound; and I lay there upon my back laughin 'till I was stiff and sore all over; and then came Waxskin and all Archer, wrathy as h-ll and swearin'--Lord how they did swear!

"They'd been a slavin there through the darned thorns and briers, and the old stinkin mud holes, and flushed a most almighty sight of c.o.c.k, where the brush was too thick to shoot them, and every one they flushed, he came stret out into the open field, where Archer knew we should have been, and where we should have killed a thunderin mess, and no mistake; and they went on dam-min, and wonderin, and sweatin through the brush, till they got out to the far eend, and there they had to make tracks back to us through the bog meadow, under a brilin sun, and when they did get back, the bull was jest a goin through the bars--and every d--d drop o' the rum was drinked up; and the sun was settin, and the day's shootin--that was spoiled!--and then McTavish tantalized them the worst sort. But I did laugh to kill; it was the best I ever did see, was that spree--Ha! ha! ha!"

And, as he finished, he burst out into his first horse laugh, in which I chorused him most heartily, having in truth been in convulsions, between the queerness of his lingo, and the absurdly grotesque att.i.tudes into which he threw himself, in imitating the persons concerning whom his story ran. After this, jest succeeded jest! and story, story! 'till, in good truth, the gla.s.s circling the while with most portentous speed, I began to feel bees in my head, and till in truth no one, I believe, of the party, was entirely collected in his thoughts, except Tom Draw, whom it is as impossible for liquor to affect, as it would be for brandy to make a hogshead drunk, and who stalked off to bed with an air of solemn gravity that would have well become a Spanish grandee of the olden time, telling us, as he left the room, that we were all as drunk as thunder, and that we should be stinkin in our beds till noon to-morrow.

A prediction, by the way, which he took right good care to defeat in his own person; for in less than five hours after we retired, which was about the first of the small hours, he rushed into my room, and finding that the awful noises which he made, had no effect in waking me, dragged me bodily out of bed, and clapping my wet sponge in my face, walked off, as he said, to fetch the bitters, which were to make me as fine as silk upon the instant.

This time, I must confess that I did not look with quite so much disgust on the old apple-jack; and in fact, after a moderate horn, I completed my ablutions, and found myself perfectly fresh and ready for the field.

Breakfast was soon despatched, and on this occasion as soon as we had got through the broiled ham and eggs, the wagon made its appearance at the door.

"What's this, Harry?" I exclaimed; "where are we bound for, now?"

"Why, Master Frank," he answered, "to tell you the plain truth, while you were sleeping off the effects of the last night's regent's punch, I was on foot inquiring into the state of matters and things; and since we have pretty well exhausted our home beats, and I have heard that some ground, about ten miles distant, is in prime order, I have determined to take a try there; but we must look pretty lively, for it is seven now, and we have got a drive of ten stiff miles before us. Now, old Grampus, are you ready?"

"Aye, aye!" responded Tom, and mounted up, a work of no small toil for him, into the back seat of the wagon, where I soon took my seat beside him, with the two well-broke setters crouching at our feet, and the three guns strapped neatly to the side rails of the wagons. Harry next mounted the box. Tim touched his hat and jumped up to his side, and off we rattled at a merry trot, wheeling around the rival tavern which stood in close propinquity to Tom's; then turning short again to the left hand, along a broken stony road, with several high and long hills, and very awkward bridges in the valleys, to the north-westward of the village.

Five miles brought us into a pretty little village lying at the base of another ridge of what might almost be denominated mountains, save that they were cultivated to the very top. As we paused on the brow of this, another glorious valley spread out to our view, with the broad sluggish waters of the Wallkill winding away, with hardly any visible motion, toward the north-east, through a vast tract of meadow-land covered with high, rank gra.s.s, dotted with clumps of willows and alder brakes, and interspersed with large, deep swamps, thick-set with high grown timber; while far beyond these, to the west, lay the tall variegated chain of the Shaw.a.n.gunk mountains.

Rattling briskly down the hill, we pa.s.sed another thriving village, built on the mountain side; made two or three sharp ugly turns, still going at a smashing pace, and coming on the level ground, entered an extensive cedar swamp, impenetrable above with the dark boughs of the evergreen colossi, and below with half a dozen varieties of rhododendron, calmia, and azalia. Through this dark, dreary track, the road ran straight as the bird flies, supported on the trunks of trees, const.i.tuting what is here called a corduroy road; an article which, praise be to all the G.o.ds, is disappearing now so rapidly, that this is the only bit to be found in the civilized regions of New York--and bordered to the right and left by ditches of black tenacious mire.

Beyond this we scaled another sandy hillock, and pulled up at a little wayside tavern, at the door of which Harry set himself l.u.s.tily to halloa.

"Why, John; hilloa, hillo; John Riker!"

Whereon, out came, stooping low to pa.s.s under the lintel of a very fair sized door, one of the tallest men I ever looked upon; his height, too, was exaggerated by the narrowness of his chest and shoulders, which would have been rather small for a man of five foot seven; but to make up for this, his legs were monstrous, his arms muscular, and his whole frame evidently powerful and athletic, though his gait was slouching, and his air singularly awkward and unhandy.

"Why, how do, Mr. Archer? I hadn't heerd you was in these pairts--arter woodc.o.c.k, I reckon?"

"Yes, John, as usual; and you must go along with us, and show us the best ground."

"Well, you see, I carn't go to-day--for Squire Breawn, and Dan Faushea, and a whole grist of Goshen boys is comin' over to the island here to fish; but you carn't well go wrong."

"Why not; are birds plenty?"

"Well! I guess they be! Plentier than ever yet I see them here."

"By Jove! that's good news," Harry answered; "where shall we find the first?"

"Why, amost anywheres--but here, jist down by the first bridge, there's a hull heap--leastwise there was a Friday--and then you'd best go on to the second bridge, and keep the edge of the hill right up and down to Merrit's Island; and then beat down here home to the first bridge again.

But won't you liquor?"

"No, not this morning, John; we did our liquoring last night. Tom, do you hear what John says?"

"I hear, I hear," growled out old Tom; "but the critter lies like nauthen. He always does lie, cuss him."

"Well, here goes, and we'll soon see!"