WARWICK WOODLANDS. 77 



bonny Ca woods. Ay'se beat, Ay'se oophaud* it !" So saying, 

 he shouldered the long single barrel, and paddled off with the 

 most extraordinary expedition after the Teachmans, who had 

 already started, leading the setters in a leash, till they were out 

 of sight of Archer. 



" They have the longest way to go," said Harry, " by a mile 

 at the least ; so we have time for a cheroot before we three get 

 under way." 



Cigars were instantly produced and lighted, and we lounged 

 about the little court for the best part of half an hour, till the 

 report of a distant gunshot, ringing with almost innumerable 

 reverberations along the woodland shores, announced to us that 

 our companions had already got into their work. 



" Here goes," oiecl Harry, springing to his feet at once, and 

 grasping his good gun ; " here goes they have got into the 

 long hollow, Tom, and by the time we've crossed the ridge, 

 and got upon our ground, they'll be abreast of us.'' 



"Hold on ! hold on !'' Tom bellowed, "you are the darndest 

 critter, when you do git goin now hold on, do I wants some 

 rum, and Forester here looks a kind of white about the gills, 

 his what-d'ye-call, cheeroot, has made him sick, I reckon !" 



Of course, with such an exhortation in our ears as this, it 

 was impossible to do otherwise than wet our whistles with one 

 drop of the old Ferintosh ; and then, Tom having once again 

 recovered his good humor, away we went, and " clombe the 

 high hill/' though we "swam not the deep river," as merrily as 

 ever sportsman did, from the days of Arbalast and Longbow, 

 down to those times of Westley Richards' caps and Eley's wire 

 cartridges. 



A tramp of fifteen minutes through some scrubby brushwood, 

 brought us to the base of a steep stony ridge covered with tall 

 and thrifty hickories and a few oaks and maples intermixed, 

 rising so steeply from the shore that it was necessary not only 

 to strain every nerve of the leg, but to swing our bodies up 

 from tree to tree, by dint of hand. It was indeed a hard and 

 heavy tug ; and I had pretty tough work, what between the 

 exertion of the ascent, and the incessant fits of laughter into 

 which I was thrown by the grotesquely agile movements of fat 

 Tom ; who, grunting, panting, sputtering, and launching forth 

 from time to time the strangest and most blasphemously horrid 



* Oophaud, Yorkshire. Anglice, uphold 



