WARWICK WOODLANDS. 81 



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 reverberatons along the woodland 

 shores, announced to us that our companions had already 

 got into their work. 



"Here goes," cried 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 hav- 

 ing 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 these times of 

 Westley Richards' caps and Fley'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 blasphem- 

 ously horrid oaths, contrived to make way to the summit 

 faster than either of us — crashing through the dense un- 

 derwood of juniper and sumach, uprooting the oak sap- 

 lings as he swung from this to that, and spurning down 

 huge stones upon us, as we followed at a cautious dis- 



