Kitabı oku: «Rancho Del Muerto and Other Stories of Adventure from «Outing» by Various Authors», sayfa 6
THE MYSTERY OF A CHRISTMAS HUNT, By Talbot Torrance
“Clug!” The wad went home in the last shell, and as I removed it from the loader and finished the fill of my belt I heaved a sigh of profound relief at the completion of a troublesome job.
I hate making cartridges. Perhaps I am a novice, and have not a good kit, and am lazy, and clumsy, and impatient, and – But go on and account for it yourself at greater length, if you will, my friends; only accept my solemn statement that I detest the operation, which, I am convinced, ought to be confined to able-bodied colored men with perseverance and pachydermatous knuckles.
An ordinary man is always in fluster and fever before he completes loading up for a day’s gunning. His patent plugger becomes inexplicably and painfully fractious; his percussions are misfits; his No. 10 wads prove to be No. 12s; his shot sack is sure to spill; his canister is certain to sustain a dump into the water pail, and, when he begins to reflect on all the unmentionable lapsi linguæ of which his numerous vexations are the immediately exciting, though possibly not the responsible, cause, he is apt to conclude that, say what you may in favor of the breechloader, there are a certain few points which commend the old-time muzzle-loader, especially when it comes around to charging a shell.
At all events, that is the kind of man I now am; and if the reader is not prepared to absolutely indorse me all through these crotchety cogitations, may I not hope he will at least bear with me patiently and give me time to outgrow it, if possible? But, as I was saying, I have charged up and am ready to sally forth and join the hunting party of the Blankville Gun Club, who had organized a match for Christmas Eve, a bright, nippy day of “an open winter” – as experienced in Northeastern Ontario, at any rate. I don my game bag, strap on my belt, pick up my newly-bought hammerless and prepare to leave the house. My cocker Charlie, long since cognizant of what my preparations meant, is at heel.
There is a wild light in his eyes, but, self-contained animal that he is, not a yelp, whine or even tail wag is manifested to detract from his native dignity and self possession. “Native” dignity? Aye! My dog boasts it naturally; and yet, at the same time, I fancy the switch and I have had something to do in developing it and teaching the pup its apparently unconscious display.
“You’re no fool dog, are you, Charlie? You’re no funny, festive, frolicsome dog, who cannot hold himself in when a run is on the programme – eh, boy?”
The silky-coated canine knows as well as I do that he is in for an afternoon a-wood. He has the inclination to leap and roll and essay to jump out of his hide. Yet the only answer he dare give to the inquiry is an appealing glance from his hazel orbs up at his master’s immovable face. Yes, my dog Charlie is sober and sensible, and I am proud of these characteristics and their usefulness to me before the gun.
“Good-bye, little woman!” I sing out cheerily to my wife as I pass down the hall. She comes to the door to see me off. Sometimes, perhaps, a man will find his adieu on an occasion of this kind responded to uncordially, not to say frigidly, or perhaps not at all. But he must not grieve deeply over it or let it act as an excitative of his mean moroseness or angry passion. Think the thing all over. You are to be far away from home. Why should not the thought of the vacant chair – next to that of the demonstrative and exacting baby at meal time – rise up and sadden your wife? Can you wonder at her distant bearing as she foresees how she will sigh “for the touch of a vanished hand” – on the coal scuttle and water pail? Of course, she will “miss your welcome footsteps” – carrying in kindlings, and the “dear, familiar voice” – calling up the chickens. And so you cannot in reason expect her invariably to answer your kindly adios in a gladsome, gleesome, wholly satisfied sort of way. But never you go away without the goodbye on your part – the honest, manly, loving-toned good-bye that will ring in her ears in your absence and cause her to fancy that perhaps you are not such a selfish old bear after all.
With some of us men – only a limited few, of course, and we are not inclined to think over and enumerate them – it is unhappily the case that
We have cheerful words for the stranger,
And smiles for the sometime guest;
But oft for our own the bitter tone,
Though we love our own the best.
“will miss your welcome footsteps.”
Now, if such men only thought
How many go forth in the morning,
Who never come back at night!
And hearts are broken for harsh words spoken,
Which time may never set right,
what a different atmosphere might permeate the domicile on “first days,” to say nothing of the rest of the time!
The real fact of the matter is, men and brothers, we do not accurately appreciate the objections which the domestic partners may entertain against our occasional outings. For my part I verily believe they are largely, if not entirely, prompted by the feeling that
There’s nae luck aboot the hoose,
There’s nae luck at a’!
There’s nae luck about the hoose,
Since oor guid mon’s avva’.
And here we go on thinking it is purely a matter of petty petulance and small selfishness on their part! Come, gentlemen, let us once and for all rightly appreciate the situation and resolve to do better in the future! But let us return to our sheep. My hand is on the door knob, when, pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, is heard the tread of tiny feet. It is Ted, my little two year old, coming to say good-bye to papa. I take him up and sing gaily:
Bye, baby bunting,
Papa goes a-hunting,
To get a little rabbit skin
To wrap the baby bunting in.
How the little man crows and gurgles in glee! Then he grows demonstrative and he wants to take off my cap. He makes a grab at my game bag. As I put him down gently he tries to disarm me and possess himself of the gun.
I say, what an awful bother about the house of the sportsman is the toddling tot of a baby! He is always getting hold of your gun swab for a fish pole or to bang the dog about. Putting holes in your fish basket with a big nail or a table knife is a supreme source of delight to him. He has a mania for planting carpet tacks in your hunting boots. Making smokestacks for mud houses with your brass shells is a passion with him. If he can get hold of your ammunition to make paste of the powder, and pulp of the wads, and a hopeless mixture of the shot, he is simply in his element. Give him possession of your lines and access to your fly book and he enjoys an hour of what is, to him, immense fun, but to you pronounced and positive destruction.
And yet – you wouldn’t be without, that self-same baby if to keep him cost you every shooting iron and foot of tackle you ever owned or hoped to own, and at the same time destroyed the prospect of you ever again having a “day out” on this rare old earth of ours.
It is quite safe to say that the article for which you would exchange that merry, mischievous toddler of yours, who clasps your brown neck with little white, soft arms and presses a sweet baby kiss to your bristled lips, as he sees you off on an outing, has not now an existence – and you do not seem to exactly remember when it had. And you do not care whether he destroys your possessions; they can be replaced.
Yes, indeed! Even you, most inveterate and selfish and calloused votary of the chase – you have a tender spot in your hard old heart for the baby boy. He may not be all that is orderly, obedient, non-combatable, non-destructive, but still we all love him! Not one of us, at all events, but will frankly admit that we respect him – for his father’s sake. Need anything more be said?
And do not we also respect those who depict him in tenderness and affection?
Don’t we think all the more of Scanlon the actor for his inimitable “Peek-a-boo?” and of Charles Mackay for his “Baby Mine?” and of Bret Harte for his “Luck of Roaring Camp?” and of Dickens – wasn’t it Dickens who wrote:
When the lessons and tasks all are ended,
And the school for the day is dismissed,
And the little ones gather around me
To bid me good-bye and be kissed.
Oh, the little, white arms that encircle
My neck in a tender embrace!
Oh, the smiles that are halos of Heaven
Shedding light in a desolate place!
Has it ever occurred to you, my friend, that the baby is the same unchanged, unimproved article since the world began? Men are making smokeless powder, constructing pneumatic bicycle tires, inventing long-distance guns, training horses down to two minutes, getting sprinters to cover 100 yards close to nine seconds – revolutionizing everything, but leaving the baby the old-time brand!
People seem satisfied with the original make, and far from any movement to abolish it as out of date. The sentiment would appear to be pretty universal:
Drear were the world without a child,
Where happy infant never smiled.
We sooner could the flowerets spare,
The tender bud and blossom fair,
Or breath of spring time in the air.
I have said “bye-bye” to my tiny Ted half a dozen times and at last am about to escape during his sudden flight to another part of the house, when I am arrested by the eager cry, half in inquiry, half in jubilation, “Baby barlo! Papa, baby barlo! Dee!”
There he stands, holding up my little patent flask as though he had made a wonderful discovery. To humor the child I took the little companion, said “Ta-ta,” and was in the act of slipping it back to my wife, when I decided to keep it. I am not partial to the cup that cheers and also inebriates, and yet I have an appreciation of the pocket pistol that warms, sustains and heartens in a long tramp on a zero afternoon with only a dog for companionship and the chances of bagging anything much reduced to a minimum. I stepped to the sideboard and filled the “barlo” quantum suff.
“Ah, Scrib! You’re early on deck” was the grunting of the Doc. “None of the others are here yet. But I guess we’ll not have long to wait. There is surely no laggard or lunkhead in our jolly sextette. On such an occasion as a Christmas Eve hunt, with an oyster supper at stake, the resources of our whole happy hunting grounds on trial, and the pluck and prowess of six rival sports in question there should certainly be no such word as ‘funk!”’
Even as the Doc spoke Tinker dropped in. Hardly was he seated when Shy puffed his way into the little smoking room. We waited five minutes for the Judge, and had become impatient before Budge put in an appearance.
What an assortment of unique nomenclature! Gun-club designations they were, of course. In polite society “Scrib” was the village editor; “Tinker” was our general store keeper; “The Judge” was young Lawyer B – ; “Budge” was mine host of the Queen’s Arms, and the “Doc” was just the doctor – our large-hearted, clever, hard-working local M. D., the life and soul of the sport-loving community, as he was also the idol of the village and district for his skill, his unselfishness and his unvarying bonhomie.
“Budge!” exclaims the Doc. “As president of this club I fine you – ”
“I rise to a point of order!” breaks in the Judge. “This meeting is not yet duly open, and, at all events, this is a special one, and business of the regular order must be excluded. Referring to the constitution – ”
“Oh, to thunder with the constitution! Let us get off on our hunt!” And Tinker looks annihilation at the order pointer.
“Well, well, fellows,” laughs the Doc, “I shall rule partially in favor of both. I shall rule that Budge do tell us his latest joke as a penalty. Come now, prisoner, out with it and save your fine!”
“Say, boys,” begins Budge, deprecatingly, “don’t insist. I’m sorry I was late, but the fact is I was giving elaborate orders for the supper, which I know it will be just my luck to get stuck for. One of my special orders was to secure a magnificent roast and have it cooked in Ben Jonson style.”
“Ben Jonson style? How is that?” queries the Doc.
“‘O, rare Ben Jonson!’ There, Mr. President,” he adds, when the laugh ceases, “I believe that debt is squared.” We have made out our list and fixed points, ranging from chipmunk, 1, to bear, 1,000.
“You leave out quail, I notice. Now that is an omission which – ”
But the Judge is cut short on all sides.
“Out in the wild and woolly West, from whence you have but recently emigrated to civilization and refinement,” remarks the Doc, “quail are about as plentiful as hedge sparrows are here. But a quail has not been seen in this section for ten years, I’ll venture to say. No, Judge, we needn’t point on quail this time!”
“And yet,” I observe in an encouraging tone, “who knows but we may each and all happen on a covey.”
“That is extravagant. But if any man should be lucky enough to bag a brace, that I may enjoy one more good square meal of quail on toast, I’ll stand the supper.” And the Judge looked straight at Budge.
“Now that is what I would call extravagant – supper for a whole party in consideration of a dish of quail on toast. Suppose you yourself should bag the brace. But this reminds me of the man who ordered quail on toast in a Boston restaurant. He was brought in some toast. He waited a while. Presently he called the waiter and repeated the order. ‘There you are, sir!’ answered Thomas. ‘That? That is toast, of course; but where’s the quail?’ The waiter pointed to a small speck in the centre of each slice, looking like a baked fly. ‘Ah! so this dish is quail on toast, is it?’ ‘Yes, sir!’ ‘Then you just remove it and bring me turkey on toast!’”
We draw lots for choice of directions, and fix 8 p. m. sharp for reassembling to compare scores. My choice fell on a due north course, along which, seven miles distant, lay cover where I had scarcely ever failed to find at least fair sport and to take game, such as it was. And I went it alone – barring my dog.
Seven miles of hard footing it and I had only the brush of a couple of red squirrels, the wing of a chicken hawk, and the lean carcass of a small rabbit to show. I had sighted a fox far out of range, and had been taken unawares by a brace of birds which Charlie had nobly flushed and I had shockingly muffed.
The dog had followed the birds deeper into the wood, leaving me angry and uncertain what to do. Suddenly I heard his yelp of rage and disappointment give place to his business bark, and I knew my pup had a tree for me. It was a sound not to be mistaken. My dog never now plays spoof with me by tonguing a tree for hair. His business bark means partridge every time. I hurried on as the dog gave tongue more sharp and peremptory, taking a skirt to avoid a tangled piece of underbrush as I began-to approach the critical spot.
The ruins of an old shanty lay fifty yards to my left, and between them and me was a sort of cache or root cellar, the sides intact but the roof half gone.
All of a sudden there broke on my ear a sound I had not heard for many a day.
I listened, almost dumfounded. There it is again! And no mistaking it. It is the pipe of a quail!
It came from a patch of meadow not many rods off, and it set every nerve in my body a-tingling. Charlie and his partridges were out of mind instanter. I had no manner of use for them at that supreme moment.
“It’s no stray bird!” I mentally ejaculated. “Perhaps it’s a regular Kansas covey!” Heavens, what luck! The boys – the Judge – quail on toast – the laugh – the amazement – the consternation – I conjured all these things up in my excited brain in less time than it takes to tell it.
I started forward with every fibre a-tension. I was wild to get even a glimpse of the little strangers.
Suddenly – enough almost to puzzle me – the pipe was answered from the mouth of the old potato pit, and the next instant “whir-r-r-r!” rose the birds, and “bang! bang!” I gave them right and left at a range and with a calculation that left three only to join and tell the tale to the whistler in the meadow. Seven was the drop, and the birds were as plump and pretty as ever I had set eyes on. I fairly chuckled aloud in glee at the surprise I had in store for my club mates. I sat down, took a congratulatory nip, and actually toyed with the quail as a boy would with the first fruits of his initial day’s outing with his own boughten gun!
My faithful dog Charlie had during this time stuck to his birds. I could hear his angry bark growing angrier, and I could detect, as I fancied, a shade of impatience and disappointment therein. A crack at a partridge will be a change, I thought, and so I hurried in Charlie’s direction.
There he sat on a rotten stump, with eyes fixed on the brushy top of a dead pine.
I looked that top over, limb by limb, but not a sign of a feather could I detect. I made a circuit, and skinned every twig aloft in a vain endeavor to discover a roosting bird. I began to think the pup was daft, but I dismissed the reflection promptly as ungenerous and unfair to my trusty cocker. I make solemn affidavit that, though I could not note the suggestion of a partridge up that pine, my spaniel could see it as plain as a pike staff.
“I’ll climb the stump!” said I. Mirabile dictu! There, on lower limbs, one above the other and hugging the bark so close that they seemed part of it, were my missed brace!
“Bang!” and the topmost tumbles, nearly knocking his mate off as he falls.
“Bang!” and down comes No. 2.
Charlie manifests a sense of relieved anxiety and satisfaction that of itself rewards me for the perplexing search.
But a drowsiness had been creeping over me till its influence had become almost irresistible. I felt stupid and sleep-inclined.
Almost without knowing what I did I pulled out my flask, poured “just a nip” a fair portion in the cup and drank it off. The twilight was coming on and casting its sombre shadows, avant coureurs of the black winter night that was soon to envelop the scene for a brief while, till fair Luna lit up the heavens and chased Darkness to its gloomy lair.
I have an indistinct recollection of recalling lines I have read somewhere or other:
When Life’s last sun is sinking slow and sad,
How cold and dark its lengthened shadows
fall.
They lie extended on the straightened path
Whose narrow close, the grave, must end it
all.
Oh, Life so grudging in your gifts, redeem
By one great boon the losses of the Past!
Grant me a full imperishable Faith,
And let the Light be with me till the last.
Then all became a blank!
“Full? I never knew him to more than taste liquor. No, no! You’re mistaken. He has either been knocked senseless by some accident or mischance, or else he has fallen in a fit.”
It was the Doc who spoke. I suddenly grew seized of consciousness to the extent of recognizing my old friend’s voice. But to indicate the fact physically was impossible. I lay in a sort of trance, with lips that would not open and hands that would not obey.
“Oh, all right, Doc! You ought to know!”
This time I caught the voice of the Judge.
“But he is in a pitiable plight. We must get to him and move him or he may perhaps perish, if he’s not gone now. Drat that dog! I don’t want to shoot him; and yet he’ll tear us if we try to lay hand on his master. But lay hand on him we must. Is it a go, Doc?”
“It’s the only alternative, Judge. I like canine fidelity; but hang me if this brute doesn’t suit too well! We’ll have to get him out of the way and succor the man. Give it to him, Judge!”
“Stop!”
By a superhuman effort, through some agency I never could account for, I managed to utter that one word in a sort of half expostulatory, half authoritative tone, or rather groan.
It broke the spell.
My eyes opened. My arms regained power. Instinctively I reached out a hand and drew my canine guardian toward me, placing a cheek against his cold, moist nose. That was enough for Charlie. The faithful brute grew wild with joy. He barked, whined, jumped, capered, pirouetted after his own stump, and, in a word, did the most tremendous despite to all my careful training in the line of reserved and dignified demeanor.
I rose to a sitting posture and finally drew myself up on my feet, gazing around me in a bewildered, uncertain sort of way.
“Hello, boys, what’s the matter?” I managed to articulate.
“Hello, and what’s the matter yourself?” replied the Doc.
“Yes, that’s precisely what we came out here to know,” put in the Judge.
“I guess – I think – yes, let me see! – I believe I – I – must have dropped off in a little doze, boys! Very kind of you to look me up. Only – say, you never surely meant to shoot my dog? I’d have haunted both of you to your respective dying days if you had, supposing I was a cold corpse instead of a man taking a little nap.”
“Taking a little nap! Hear him! I should rather say you were. But, look here, Scrib, do your little naps always mean two or three hours of the soundest sleep a man ever slept who wasn’t dead or drugged?”
“Dead or drugged, Doc? Pshaw, you’re away off. You can see for yourself I am not dead, and I can vow I wasn’t drugged.”
“Then you’ve been intoxicated, by George; and as president of the Blank-ville Gun Club I’ll fine you – ”
“Quail, as I live!”
“One – two – three; three brace and a half, Doc, and beauties, too! It does my heart good to handle the darlings. Doc, if Scrib has been full forty times to-day, he has more than atoned for the lapsi with this glorious bag. Whoop! Ya, ha! There’ll be quail on toast for the whole party.”
By the time the Judge’s jubilation had ceased I had about regained my normal condition and we were ready to make tracks homeward.
The clock strikes the midnight hour as I re-enter my own home. My wife sits rocking the cradle, in which lies our darling Ted. She turns a weary-looking, tear-stained face to me.
“Its all right, dear,” I gently remark, “I’m quite safe, as you see.”
“I haven’t the slightest doubt of it, sir,” she returns, icily. “It’s not of you I’ve been thinking, but of baby.”
“Baby,” I repeat inquiringly. “What is the matter with him?”
“There is nothing the matter with him, but there is no telling what might have been. And all owing to your foolish indulgence of his fancy for bottles.”
“What does it mean, dear?” I venture. “It means that you had not been gone an hour when I found Ted with that little two-ounce phial you left half filled with laudanum on the lower pantry shelf yesterday. He had evidently climbed a chair and reached it down. The cork was out and the bottle was empty. You can perhaps imagine my feelings. I didn’t know whether he had taken the stuff or not, but was in an agony of anxiety on the point, you may be sure. The doctor was away hunting, you were away hunting, and here was I fairly consumed with apprehension lest my baby had poisoned himself.”
Like a flash the whole mystery of my stupor sleep revealed itself to me. “Baby barlo” – flask – laudanum phial – whiskey – it was all as clear as day.
I said: “But it transpires he hadn’t taken any of the laudanum, eh?”
“Yes, thank Heaven! But for all of you – ”
“Listen, please. All I want to say is that what Ted missed I got. Do you understand?”
“Do I understand! Are you in your sane and sober senses, William?”
“I have a shrewd suspicion that I am,” I replied, with a slight laugh, “and being so, I will repeat it: Baby didn’t down the poison; but I guess I made up for that, because I did!”
Then I told her the story.
Of course I gained my point. It ended with – but, no matter. The Judge stood the supper in consideration of quail on toast being incorporated in the menu, and we sat around the festive board in the Queen’s Arms a week later, and talked over our Xmas Eve hunting match. No one was disposed to question the sentiment in a speech by the Doc, who declared: “Fellows, our prowess as a gun club is growing, and I verily believe the old district is getting to be once more something like a half-decent hunting ground. Let us keep together, be as men and brothers always, and – I was nearly overlooking it – let us invariably wash out our pocket pistols before filling ‘em up afresh.”
