"Harder it is, I grant; for it is all, with scarcely an exception, followed in very thick and heavy covert--covert to which the thickest woods I ever saw in England are but as open ground. Moreover, the woods are so very large that the gun must be close up with the dog; and consequently the shots must, half of them, be fired in attitudes most awkward, and in ground which would, I think, at home, be generally styled impracticable; thirdly, all the summer shooting here is made with the leaf on--with these thick tangled matted swamps clad in the thickest foliage.
"Your dogs must beat within twenty yards at farthest, and when they stand you are aware of the fact rather by ceasing to hear their motion, than by seeing them at point; I am satisfied that of six pointed shots in summer shooting, three at the least must be treated as snap shots! Many birds must be shot at--and many are killed--which are never seen at all, till they are bagged; and many men here will kill three out of four summer woodcock, day in and day out, where an English sportsman, however crack a shot he might be, would give the thing up in despair in half an hour.
"Practice, however, soon brings this all to rights. The first season I shot here--I was a very fair, indeed a good, young shot, when I came out hither--not at all crack, but decidedly better than the common run!--the first day I shot was on 4th of July, 1832, the place Seer's swamp, the open end of it; the witness old Tom Draw--and there I missed, in what we now call open covert, fourteen birds running; and left the place in despair--I could not, though I missed at home by shooting too quick--I could not, for the life of me, shoot quick enough. Even you, Frank, shoot three times as well as you did, when you began here; yet you began in autumn, which is decidedly a great advantage, and came on by degrees, so that the following summer you were not so much nonplussed, though I remember the first day or two, you bitched it badly."
"Well, I believe I must knock under, Harry," Forester answered; "and here comes Timothy with the coffee, and so we will to bed, that taken, though I do want to argufy with you, on some of your other notions about dogs, scent, and so forth. But do you think the Commodore will join us here to-morrow?"
"No! I don't think so," Harry said, "I know it! Did not he arrive in New York last first of July, from a yachting tour at four o'clock in the afternoon; receive my note saying that I was off to Tom's that morning; and start by the Highlander at five that evening? Did he not get a team at Whited's and travel all night through, and find me just sitting down to breakfast, and change his toggery, and out, and walk all day--like a trump as he is? And did not we, by the same token, bag--besides twenty-five more killed that we could not find--one hundred and fifteen cock between ten o'clock and sunset; while you, you false deceiver, were kicking up your heels in Buffalo? Is not all this a true bill, and have you now the impudence to ask me whether I think the Commodore will come? I only wish I was as sure of a day's sport tomorrow, as I am of his being to the fore at luncheon time!"
"At luncheon time, hey? I did not know that you looked for him so early! Will he be in time, then, for the afternoon's shooting?"
"Why, certainly he will," returned Archer. "The wind has been fair up the river all day long, though it has been but light; and the Ianthe will run up before it like a race-horse. I should not be much surprised if he were here to breakfast." "And that we may be up in time for him, if perchance he should let us to bed forthwith," said Frank with a heavy yawn.
"I am content," answered Harry, finishing his cup of coffee, and flinging the stump of his cheroot into the fire. "Good-night! Timothy will call you in the morning."
"Goodnight, old fellow."
And the friends parted merrily, in prospect of a pleasant day's sport on the morrow.