UPLAND SHOOTING. 
265 
of the morning, not the peep of day, hut eight, or by’r lady ! 
nine of the Shrewsbury clock, when the autumnal sun has 
lifted his broad, jovial, ruddy face, from his dewy pillow, and 
raised it, looming large and blood-red through the thin haze, 
above the mountain’s brow. There has been a touch of frost 
during the night, and its silver fretwork is still white over the 
deep after-grass, and yet unaltered fern leaves. The air is clear 
and brisk, yet balmy, and its every breath seems to exhilarate 
the mind, as if it were champagne inspired by the nostrils. 
The scene is a broad and gentle valley, bordered on either 
side by hills, cultivated to their mid height, and crowned aloft 
with the unshorn primeval woodlands. The meadows in the 
bottom, along the clear brimful stream—in Europe it would 
aspire to be called a river—are green and soft as velvet; but 
the woods and swamps in the vale, are rich with every color that 
the painter’s pallet can afford; the blood-red foliage of the 
maples, the gold of the hickories, the chrome yellow of the 
poplars, the red russet of the oaks, the dull purple of the dog¬ 
woods, mixed with the sable green of the late alder tops, the 
everlasting verdure of the rhododendrons, and the lightsome 
greenery of the willow, forming a marvellous succession of con¬ 
trasts and accidents of light and shade, all blended into one 
harmonious whole, such as no other scene or season, no other 
clime or country, can exhibit. 
And at this time of year, at this hour of the morning, and 
into such a landscape, we will imagine a brace of sportsmen 
emerging from the doorway of the country tavern in which they 
have spent the night, with their canine companions, and a stout 
rustic follower, loaded with supernumerary shot-belts and game- 
bags, carrying in his dexter claw a stiff hickory cleaning-rod, 
and leading with his sinister a leash of large, bony, red-and- 
white Cocking Spaniels. 
Our sportsmen, for the nonce, adopting old Izaac Walton’s 
quaint nomenclature, which figureth forth something of the cha¬ 
racter from the name, we will call Agilis and Pentus. The 
former youthful, and somewhat rash, yet neither altogether ver- 
