Warwick Woodlands Part 14

"A right good shot," responded Harry, "and we shall get him. He fell quite dead; I saw him bounce up, like a ball, when he struck the hard ground. But A---'s second bird is only wing-tipped, and I don't think we shall get him; for the ground where he fell is very tussockky and full of gra.s.s, and if he creeps in, as they mostly will do, into some hole in the bog-ground, it is ten to one against the best dog in America!"

And so it came to pa.s.s, for they did bag Forester's, and all the other quail except the Commodore's which, though the dogs trailed him well, and worked like Trojans, they could not for their lives make out.

After this little rally they went down to the alders by the stream-side, and had enough to do, till it was growing rapidly too dark to shoot--for the woodc.o.c.k were very plentiful--it was sweet ground, too, not for feeding only, but for lying, and that, as Harry pointed out, is a great thing in the autumn.

The gra.s.s was short and still rich under foot, although it froze hard every night; but all along the brook's marge there were many small oozy bubbling springlets, which it required a stinging night to congeal; and round these the ground was poached up by the cattle, and laid bare in spots of deep, soft, black loam; and the innumerable chalkings told the experienced eye at half a glance, that, where they laid up for the night soever, here was their feeding ground, and here it had been through the autumn.

But this was not all, for at every ten or twenty paces was a dense tuft of willow bushes, growing for the most part upon the higher knolls where it was dry and sunny, their roots heaped round with drift wood, from the decay of which had shot up a dense tangled growth of cat-briers. In these the birds were lying, all but some five or six which had run out to feed, and were flushed, fat and large, and lazy, quite in the open meadow.

"They stay here later," Harry said, as they bagged the last bird, which, be it observed, was the twenty-seventh, "than any where I know. Here I have killed them when there was ice thicker than a dollar on all the waters round about, and when you might see a thin and smoke-like mist boiling up from each springlet. Kill them all off to-day, and you will find a dozen fresh birds here to-morrow, and so on for a fortnight--they come down from the high ground as it gets too cold for them to endure their high and rarified atmosphere, and congregate hither!"

"And why not more in number at a time?" asked A---.

"Ay! there we are in the dark--we do not know sufficiently the habits of the bird to speak with certainty. I do not think they are pugnacious, and yet you never find more on a feeding ground than it will well accommodate for many days, nay weeks, together. One might imagine that their migrations would be made en ma.s.se, that all the birds upon these neighboring hills would crowd down to this spot together, and feed here till it was exhausted, and then on--but this is not so! I know fifty small spots like this, each a sure find in the summer for three or four broods, say from eight to twelve birds. During the summer, when you have killed the first lot, no more return--but the moment the frost begins, there you will find them--never exceeding the original eight or ten in number, but keeping up continually to that mark--and whether you kill none at all, or thirty birds a week, there you will always find about that number, and in no case any more. Those that are killed off are supplied, within two days at farthest, by new comers; yet, so far as I can judge, the original birds, if not killed, hold their own, unmolested by intruders. Whence the supplies come in--for they must be near neighbors by the rapidity of their succession--and why they abstain from their favorite grounds in worse locations, remains, and I fear we must remain, in the dark. All the habits of the woodc.o.c.k are, indeed, very partially and slightly understood. They arrive here, and breed early in the spring--sometimes, indeed, before the snow is off the hills--get their young off in June, and with their young are most unmercifully, most unsportsmanly, thinned off, when they can hardly fly--such is the error, as I think it, of the law--but I could not convince my stanch friends, Philo, and J. Cypress, Jr., of the fact, when they bestirred themselves in favor of the progeny of their especial favorites, perdix virginiana and tetrao umbellus, and did defer the times for slaying them legitimately to such a period, that it is in fact next to impossible to kill the latter bird at all. But vainly did I plead, and a false advocate was Cypress after all, despite his nominal friends.h.i.+p, for that unhappy Scolopax, who in July at least deserves his nickname minor, or the infant. For, setting joke apart, what a burning shame it is to murder the poor little half-fledged younglings in July, when they will scarcely weigh six ounces; when they will drop again within ten paces of the dog that flushes, or the gun that misses them; and when the heat will not allow you even to enjoy the consummation of their slaughter.

Look at these fellows now, with their gray foreheads, their plump ruddy b.r.e.a.s.t.s, their strong, well-feathered pinions, each one ten ounces at the least. Think how these jolly old c.o.c.ks tower away, with their shrill whistle, through the tree-tops, and twist and dodge with an agility of wing and thought-like speed, scarcely inferior to the snipe's or swallow's, and fly a half mile if you miss them; and laugh to scorn the efforts of any one to bag them, who is not an out-and-outer! No chance shot, no stray pellet speaks for these--it must be the charge, the whole charge, and nothing but the charge, which will cut down the grown bird of October! The law should have said woodc.o.c.k thou shalt not kill until September; quail thou shalt not kill till October, the twenty-fifth if you please; partridge thou shalt kill in all places, and at all times, when thou canst! and that, as we know, Frank, and A---, that is not everywhere or often."

"But, seriously," said the Commodore, "seriously, would you indeed abolish summer shooting?"

"Most seriously! most solemnly I would!" Archer responded. "In the first place because, as I have said, it is a perfect sin to shoot c.o.c.k in July; and secondly, because no one would, I am convinced, shoot for his own pleasure at that season, if it were not a question of now or never.

Between the intense heat, and the swarms of mosquitoes, and the unfitness of that season for the dogs, which can rarely scent their game half the proper distance, and the density of the leafy coverts; and lastly, the difficulty of keeping the game fresh till you can use it, render July shooting a toil, in my opinion, rather than a real pleasure; although we are such hunting creatures, that rather than not have our prey at all, we will pursue it in all times, and through all inconveniences. Fancy, my dear fellows, only fancy what superb shooting we should have if not a bird were killed till they were all full grown, and fit to kill; fancy bagging a hundred and twenty-five fall woodc.o.c.k in a single autumn day, as we did this very year on a summer's day!"

"Oh! I agree with you completely," said Frank Forester, "but I am afraid such a law will never be brought to bear in this country--the very day on which c.o.c.k shooting does not really begin, but is supposed by nine tenths of the people to begin--the fourth of July is against it.* [*In the State of New York close time for woodc.o.c.k expires on the last day of June--in New Jersey on the fourth of July--leaving the bird lawful prey on the 1st and the 5th, respectively.] Moreover, the amateur killers of game are so very few, in comparison with the amateur eaters thereof, that it is all but impossible to enforce the laws at all upon this subject. Woodc.o.c.k even now are eaten in June--nay, I have heard, and believe it to be true, that many hotels in New York serve them up even in March and April; quail, this autumn, have been sold openly in the markets, many days previous to the expiration of close time. And, in fact, sorry I am to say it, as far as eating-houses are in question, the game laws are nearly a dead letter.

"In the country, also, I have universally found it to be the case, that although the penalty of a breach may be exacted from strangers, no farmer will differ with a neighbor, as they call it, for the sake of a bird. Whether time, and a greater diffusion of sporting propensities, and sporting feelings, may alter this for the better or no, I leave to sager and more politic pates than mine. And now I say, Harry, you surely do not intend to trundle us off to Tom Draw's to-night without a drink at starting? I see Timothy has got the drag up to the door, and the horses harnessed, and all ready for a start."

"Yes! yes! all that's true," answered Harry, "but take my word for it, the liquor case is not put in yet. Well, Timothy," he went on, as they reached the door, "that is right. Have you got everything put up?"

"All but t' gam' bag and t' liquor ca-ase, sur," Tim replied, touching his hat gnostically as he spoke; "Ay reckoned ple-ease sur, 'at you'd maybe want to fill t' yan oop, and empty t' oother!"

"Very well thought, indeed!" said Archer, winking to Forester the while.

"Let that boy stand a few minutes to the horses' heads, and come into the house yourself and pack the birds up, and fetch us some water."

"T' watter is upon t' table, sur, and t' cigars, and a loight; but Ay'se be in wi' you directly. Coom hither, lad till Ay shew thee hoo to guide 'em; thou munna tooch t' bits for the loife o' thee, but joost stan'

there anent them--if they stir loike, joost speak to 'em--Ayse hear thee!" and he left his charge and entered the small parlor, where the three friends were now a.s.sembled, with a cheroot apiece already lighted, and three tall br.i.m.m.i.n.g rummers on the table.

"Look sharp and put the birds up," said Harry, pitching, as he spoke, the fine fat fellows right and left out of his wide game pockets, "and when that's done fill yourself out a drink, and help us on with our great coats."

"What are you going to do with the guns?" inquired the Commodore.

"To carry them uncased and loaded; subst.i.tuting in my own two buckshot cartridges for loose shot," replied Archer. "The Irish are playing the very devil through this part of the country--we are close to the line of the great Erie railroad--and they are murdering, and robbing, and I know not what, for miles around. The last time I was at old Tom's he told me that but ten days or a fortnight previously a poor Irish woman, who lived in his village, started to pay a visit to her mother by the self same road we shall pa.s.s to-night; and was found the next morning with her person brutally abused, kneeling against a fence stone dead, strangled with her own cambric handkerchief. He says, too, that not a week pa.s.ses but some of them are found dead in the meadows, or in the ditches, killed in some lawless fray; and no one ever dreams of taking any notice, or making any inquiry about the matter!"

"Is it possible? then keep the guns at hand by all means!"

"Yes! but this time we will violate my rule about the copper caps--there is no rule, you are aware, but what has some exception--and the exception to this of mine is, always take off your copper caps before getting into a wagon; the jar will occasionally explode them, an upset will undoubtedly. So uncap, Messrs. Forester and A---, and put the bright little exploders into your pockets, where they will be both safe and handy! And now, birds are in, drinks are in, dogs and guns are in, and now let us be off!"

No more words were wasted; the landlord's bill was paid, Frank Forester and Timothy got up behind, the Commodore took the front seat, Harry sprang, reins in hand, to the box, and off they bowled, with lamps and cigars burning merrily, for it was now quite dark, along the well-known mountain road, which Archer boasted he could drive as safely in the most gloomy night of winter as in a summer noon. And so it proved this time, for though he piloted his horses with a cool head and delicate finger through every sort of difficulty that a road can offer, up long and toilsome hills without a rail between the narrow track and the deep precipice, down sharp and stony pitches, over loose clattering bridges, along wet marshy levels, he never seemed in doubt or trouble for a moment, but talked and laughed away, as if he were a mere spectator.

After they had gone a few miles on their way--"you broke off short, Archer," said the Commodore, "in the middle of your dissertation on the natural history and habits of the woodc.o.c.k, turning a propos des bottes to the cruelty of killing them in midsummer. In all which, by the way, I quite agree with you. But I don't want to lose the rest of your lucubrations on this most interesting topic. What do you think becomes of the birds in August, after the moult begins?"

"Verily, Commodore, that is a positive poser. Many good sportsmen believe that they remain where they were before; getting into the thickest and wettest brakes, refusing to rise before the dog, and giving out little or no scent!"

"Do you believe this?"

"No; I believe there is a brief migration, but whither I cannot tell you with any certainty. Some birds do stay, as they a.s.sert; and that a few do stay, and do give out enough scent to enable dogs to find them, is a proof to me that all do not. A good sportsman can always find a few birds even during the moult, and I do not think that birds killed at that time are at all worse eating than others. But I am satisfied that the great bulk s.h.i.+ft their quarters, whither I have not yet fully ascertained; but I believe to the small runnels and deep swales which are found throughout all the mountain tracts of the middle States; and in these, as I believe, they remain dispersed and scattered in such small parties that they are not worth looking after, till the frost drives them down to their old haunts. A gentleman, whom I can depend on, told me once that he climbed Bull Hill one year late in September--Bull Hill is one of the loftiest peaks in the Highlands of the Hudson--merely to show the prospect to a friend, and he found all the brushwood on the summit full of fine autumn c.o.c.k, not a bird having been seen for weeks in the low woodlands at the base. They had no guns with them at the time, and some days elapsed before he could again spare a few hours to hunt them up; in the meantime frost came, the birds returned to their accustomed swamps and levels, and, when he did again scale the rough mountain, not a bird rewarded his trouble. This, if true, which I do not doubt, would go far to prove my theory correct; but it is not easy to arrive at absolute certainty, for if I am right, during that period birds are to be found no where in abundance, and a man must be a downright Audubon to be willing to go mountain-stalking--the hardest walking in the world, by the way--purely for the sake of learning the habits of friend Scolopax, with no hope of getting a good bag after all."

"How late have you ever killed a c.o.c.k previous to their great southern flight?"

"Never myself beyond the fifteenth of November; but Tom Draw a.s.sures me, and his a.s.severation was accidentally corroborated by a man who walked along with him, that he killed thirty birds last year in h.e.l.l-hole, which both of you fellows know, on the thirteenth of December. There had been a very severe frost indeed, and the ice on that very morning was quite thick, and the mud frozen hard enough to bear in places. But the day was warm, bright, and genial, and, as he says, it came into his head to see 'if c.o.c.k was all gone,' and he went to what he knew to be the latest ground, and found the very heaviest and finest birds he ever saw!"

"Oh! that of course," said A---, "if he found any! Did you ever hear of any other bird so late?"

"Yes! later--Mike Sandford, I think, but some Jerseyman or other--killed a couple the day after Christmas day, on a long southern slope covered with close dwarf cedars, and watered by some tepid springs, not far from Pine Brook; and I have been told that the rabbit shooters, who always go out in a party between Christmas and New Year's day, almost invariably flush a bird or two there in mid-winter. The same thing is told of a similar situation on the south-western slope of Staten Island; and I believe truly in both instances. These, however, must, I think, be looked upon not as cases of late emigration, but as rare instances of the bird wintering here to the northward; which I doubt not a few do annually. I should like much to know if there is any State of the Union where the c.o.c.k is perennial. I do not see why he should not be so in Maryland or Delaware, though I have never heard it stated so to be. The great heat of the extreme southern summer drives them north, as surely as our northern winter sends them south; and the great emigrations of the main flight are northward in February and March, and southward in November, varying by a few days only according to the variations of the seasons!"

"Well, I trust they have not emigrated hence yet--ha! ha! ha!" laughed the Commodore, with his peculiar hearty, deep-toned merriment.

"Not they! not they! I warrant them," said Archer; "but that to-morrow must bring forth."

"Come, Harry," exclaimed Forester, after a little pause, "spin us a shooting yarn, to kill the time, till we get to fat Tom's."

"A yarn! well, what shall it be?"

"I don't know; oh! yes! yes! I do. You once told me something about a wolf-hunt, and then shut up your mouth all at once, and would give me no satisfaction."

"A wolf-hunt?" cried the Commodore, "were you ever at a wolf-hunt; and here in this country, Harry?"

"Indeed was I, and--"

"The story, then, the story; we must have it."

"Oh! as for story, there is not much--"

"The story! the story!" shouted Frank. "You may as well begin at once, for we will have it."

"Oh! very well. All is one to me, but you will be tired enough of it before I have got through, so here goes for: A WOLF HUNT ON THE WARWICK HILLS," said Archer, and without more ado, spun his yarn as follows:

"There are few wilder regions within the compa.s.s of the United States, much less in the vicinity of its most populous and cultivated districts, than that long line of rocky wood-crowned heights which--at times rising to an elevation and exhibiting a boldness of outline that justifies the application to them of the term 'mountains', while at others they would be more appropriately designated as hills or knolls--run all across the Eastern and the Midland States, from the White Mountains westward to the Alleghanies, between which mighty chains they form an intermediate and continuous link.

"Through this stern barrier, all the great rivers of the States, through which they run, have rent themselves a pa.s.sage, exhibiting in every instance the most sublime and boldest scenery, while many of the minor, though still n.o.ble streams, come forth sparkling and bright and cold from the clear lakes and lonely springs embosomed in its dark recesses.

"Possessing, for the most part, a width of eight or ten miles, this chain of hills consists, at some points, of a single ridge, rude, forest-clad and lonely--at others, of two, three, or even four distinct and separate lines of heights, with valleys more or less highly cultured, long sheets of most translucent water, and wild mountain streams dividing them.

"With these hills--known as the Highlands--where the gigantic Hudson has cloven, at some distant day, a devious path for his eternal and resistless waters, and by a hundred other names, the Warwick Hills, the Greenwoods, and yet farther west, the Blue Ridge and the Kittatinny Mountains, as they trend southerly and west across New York and New Jersey--with these hills I have now to do.

"Not as the temples meet for the lonely muse, fit habitations for the poet's rich imaginings! not as they are most glorious in their natural scenery--whether the youthful May is covering their rugged brows with the bright tender verdure of the ta.s.seled larch, and the yet brighter green of maple, mountain ash and willow--or the full flush of summer has clothed their forests with impervious and shadowy foliage, while carpeting their sides with the unnumbered blossoms of calmia, rhododendron and azalea!--whether the gorgeous hues of autumn gleam like the banners of ten thousand victor armies along their rugged slopes, or the frozen winds of winter have roofed their headlands with inviolate white snow! Not as their bowels teem with the wealth of mines which ages of man's avarice may vainly labor to exhaust! but as they are the loved abode of many a woodland denizen that has retreated, even from more remote and seemingly far wilder fastnesses, to these sequestered haunts. I love them, in that the graceful hind conceals her timid fawn among the ferns that wave on the lone banks of many a nameless rill, threading their hills, untrodden save by the miner, or the infrequent huntsman's foot--in that the n.o.ble stag frays oftentimes his antlers against their giant trees--in that the mighty bear lies hushed in grim repose amid their tangled swamps--in that their bushy dingles resound nightly to the long-drawn howl of the gaunt famished wolf--in that the lynx and wild-cat yet mark their prey from the pine branches--in that the ruffed grouse drums, the woodc.o.c.k bleats, and the quail chirrups from every height or hollow--in that, more strange to tell, the n.o.blest game of trans-atlantic fowl, the glorious turkey--although, like angels'

visits, they be indeed but few and far between--yet spread their bronzed tails to the sun, and swell and gobble in their most secret wilds.

"I love those hills of Warwick--many a glorious day have I pa.s.sed in their green recesses; many a wild tale have I heard of sylvan sport and forest warfare, and many, too, of patriot partisans.h.i.+p in the old revolutionary days--the days that tried men's souls--while sitting at my noontide meal by the secluded wellhead, under the canopy of some primeval oak, with implements of woodland sport, rifle or shot-gun by my side, and well-broke setter or stanch hound rec.u.mbent at my feet. And one of these tales will I now venture to record, though it will sound but weak and feeble from my lips, if compared to the rich, racy, quaint and humorous thing it was, when flowing from the nature-gifted tongue of our old friend Tom Draw."