Part 12 — THE SPORTSMAN.

OR MY FIRST DAY’S SNIPE SHOOTING AT CAMBRIDGE.

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BY FRANK FORESTER, AUTHOR OF “THE WARWICK WOODLANDS,” ETC.

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My first day’s snipe shooting at Cambridge! Alas! alas! how many reminiscences, bitter and bleak as the cold north-eastern storm that, even while I write, is bellowing without, fall heavy on my heart, as I indite those simple words, How many, many long years wasted; how many generous aims and lofty aspirations blighted; how many kindly deeds and goodly feelings, written on sand, to be effaced as soon; how many faults and follies, recorded upon brass, perennial; how many warm hearts changed to sad, chill ashes; how many friends—dead, faithless, or forgetful! Alas! for those young days, and young feelings, flown forever, before there was a furrow on the brow, or a gray hair on the head, before disappointment had wrought agony, and agony been mother to the dark twins, distrust and despondency, near akin to despair.

That morning—I remember it as well as if twenty long and sorrowful years had not lagged along since it dawned gay with anticipated pleasure—so well do I remember it, that not a small detail of the room in which we met before our start, not a picture or trinket, nay, not the very colors of breakfast china have faded from my memory; and I believe that my tongue could re-word our whole conversation, and my steps retrace our whole walk, though I doubt not many a rare fen has been drained, and many an acre sown and harvested, across which on that day we picked our way from bog to bog, or waded ankle-deep in coffee-colored water, with now a snipe’s shrill whistle, and now a mallard’s harsh qua-ack—qua-ack saluting our delighted ears, making our youthful hearts beat hard and hurriedly, and drawing rash, unsteady trigger-pulling from our yet inexperienced hands. That morning was a bright, calm, beautiful October’s dawning, as ever awoke sportsmen, too young and ardent to be sluggards, from college beds too hard and narrow to be very tempting, long ere the earliest cock had crowed, or the last loitering reveler ceased from vociferating to something, which he deemed a tune, most redolent of hot milk-punch or fiery bishop,

“We wont go till morning, we wont go home till morning,

Till daylight does appear.”

I had refused an invitation to a supper party, at which a dozen jovial hearts now scattered over this world, or passed from it, were to discuss broiled bones and deviled kidneys, diluted by hot gin-punch of the strongest—refused it on the score of keeping my hand steady, and my nerves braced for the morrow, and had supped quietly in my own rooms, with my companion of the day to be recorded, on poached eggs, Edinburgh ale, and a single bottle of Carbonell’s best port, brewed into negus.

With my companion of the day to be recorded—Alas! poor George Gordon! Ours was a strange introduction, whence arose an entire and uninterrupted friendship, unbroken by a single angry word, a single unkind feeling, proof against time and undissolved by distance, but severed long ago by the insatiate hand of the cold fiend, consumption.

We were both from the north, freshmen on our way to Cambridge. I from the West Riding of Yorkshire, he from the Highland Hills of Aberdeenshire; and in the old Highflyer we traveled all the way from Ferrybridge, two hundred mortal miles and eighteen weary hours, the only inside passengers to Cambridge. Each of us took the other for an old collegian, neither of us being exceeding verdant, and both cognizant of that excessive college etiquette, which will not suffer a man to save a classmate, unintroduced, from drowning, not a word passed between us; we both wished to be cruel knowing—both proved, in that respect at least, to be cruel green. It was by odds the dullest and most tedious journey I ever have experienced—though I have traveled since over the half of two hemispheres, and though traveling, like misery, makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows.

I never shall forget how glad I was when the coach stopped at the Harp Hotel, and I got out, trusting that I should never again encounter that stiff, stately Don, who could not even speak to a fellow, because he was a freshman.

And he, it seems, was all the while putting up the like orisons against all future meetings with myself, Frank Forester.

Six hours later we were sworn friends, and never were, and now never can be, hap what hap, aught else in this world.

It so happened that I was not acquainted with a single man of my own college, when I went up to the university, all my old brother Etonians being either Johnians or Trinity men, while I had entered at Caius. I had the blues, therefore, most awfully; felt as if I was alone in a new and perilous world; a shipwrecked mariner left all among the cannibals “a-galloping ashore;” and, when dinner-time arrived, it was only by a mighty exertion of energy and pluck that I put on, for the first time, those singularly unbecoming habiliments ycleped cap and gown, and sallied forth to brave, as I supposed, alone, unknown and unsupported, the criticisms and witticisms, and impertinent comments of my there-after to be classmates.

After inquiring carefully of my gyp the way into hall, the particular table at which I was to sit, and all the etiquettes, not to be conversant with which is to a freshman the very fiend’s arch mock—after taking especial care not to put on my trencher wrong side before, and to arrange my gown in what I imagined to be a very devil-may-care fashion, forth I went, with about as pleasant a prospect as the gallows before me, but without the despairing pluck which enables the poor culprit to face that prospect manfully.

On I went, with my courage screwed to the sticking place, but I must confess with my heart thumping against my ribs prodigiously, when immediately under the low-browed archway—I have not seen it these twenty years and better; yet there it stands as palpable before me as if it were not a trick of memory—the low-browed archway giving access by an ascending stair to the hall redolent of six year old mutton, and by a descending flight to the college butteries and cellars, redolent of audit ale, and that most cloud-compelling compound, of hot ale, sherry, brandy, cloves, nutmegs, toast and cinnamon, which gods call nectar, and college men Caius copus—when under that low-browed archway, I say, of what should I become aware, but of my tall friend of the Highflyer, arrayed like myself in a cap and gown, which testified by their resplendent newness that he too was a freshman.

No words can, I believe, adequately describe the mutual delight of that recognition. He, it appears, was in precisely the same predicament with myself! He, like myself, had remained ensconced in his own rooms, not daring to stir out and meet the animadverting eyes of junior and senior sophomores, until the summons of the dinner-bell, and the yet more imperative commands of an esurient stomach had driven him out, as they have many a hero both before and since, to do and dare the worst.

Instead then of a morose and stately Don, steeped to the lips in scorn of verdant youngsters, each of us had before him an innocent, and equally imperilled, brother freshman. Confound all etiquette! there was no one near to see! so out went both our hands at once!

“Believe I had the pleasure of traveling from the north—”

“Think we came up together in the Highflyer—”

“Devilish little pleasure about it, however,” said I, Frank Forester, mustering a little of the spice of the original fiend that possesses me.

“Deuced dull work it was, certainly, but, my dear sir, I took you for a Don.”

“And I you—and for a mighty stiff one too.”

“To tell you the truth,” said the North Briton, “I have been thanking Heaven all the morning that I should never see that sulky little fellow again.”

Little! confound his picture! I stand five feet ten in my stockings, and measure thirty-eight inches over the chest—but, sure enough, little I was beside him; for he was in truth a very son of Anak. Six feet four without his shoes, and yet so exquisitely fashioned, and in so perfect proportion, that unless there stood some one near him, against whom to institute a comparison, you would not have taken him for a six-footer. Alas! that very prematureness of perfect size and stature had perhaps sapped already the foundations of that noble piece of architecture, and foredoomed it to decay as speedy and untimely as its growth had been unduly rapid.

But no such thought as this at that time thrust itself upon us—we were young, bold, self-confident, free, fearless of the future, and dreamed of any thing, in our proud aspirations after all that was great and noble, rather than of that which was so soon to befall us—untimely death the one, the other, long, long years of weary wandering.

“My name is George Gordon,” said the Highland giant, “of Newton, near Old Raine, in Aberdeenshire.”

“And mine, Frank Forester, of Forest Hall, near Wetherby, in the West Riding.”

“Well, Mr. Forester, seeing that we now know one another, suppose we eat our first mutton, side by side, in this hall of Caius, and send the Dons to the devil!”

“Agreed, Mr. Gordon, provided that the mutton ended, you will take your port with me, at No. 12 in the Fellows’ Court. It is some of Carbonell’s purple, and by no means to be despised, I assure you. It is a present from John L—, of fox-hunting celebrity in Yorkshire, whom you may perhaps have heard of, even so far as Aberdeenshire.”

“Jack L—! who has not heard of him, I should like to know. I shall be too happy, Mr. Forester, the rather that my wine has not yet made its appearance.”

“By the way, don’t you think we might just as well drop the Mister?”

“And be—George Gordon?”

“And Frank Forester. And make these Caius snobs—I have no doubt they are snobs, if they were ten times Dons—believe that we have known each other these ten years.”

“Agreed!”

“Agreed!”

And we shook hands again upon it, and went into hall, and discussed the six year old mutton, undaunted by the observation of the oldsters, and astonishing the youngsters by the offhand way in which he talked of Kintore and Kennedy, and stalking royal harts with cupped horns on Braemar or in Glen Tilt; and I of Paine, of Selby, and Harry Goodrich, and brushing at bullfinches, and switching twenty-five feet brooks; while the pale snobs about us, with tallow faces and sleek hair, short, seedy trousers and black gaiters, were deep in the discussion of the Pons Asinorum, or exchanging experiences concerning tutors and morning lectures, chapels, and deans and proctors.

That evening, I will not say that we got fou’, but this I will say, that my squinting gyp, old Robson, reported six fellow-commoners—id est, empty bottles—on the hearth the next morning—and that neither of us went to evening chapel that night, or to morning chapel the next day; which cost each of us the writing of an imposition of 600 lines of Virgil, or rather three half-crowns paid to old Dick, the barber, for writing it in our stead.

Thenceforth were we sworn friends forever. Thenceforth, eschewing hall, which we voted very slow and bad feeding, we dined alternate days each in the other’s room, the standing order being, soup, chops, or steaks, game, Stilton cheese and walnuts, and ever and aye four bottles to be aired before the fire.

Thenceforth, were we seen rarely at the lecture-room or chapel, but often at the covert-side, with Handbury, or Charley Newman, of the East Essex, by’r lady, and with Osbaldeston’s lady pack, in Northamptonshire, though to accomplish that, we had eighty miles of road-work to do in coming and returning.

Thenceforth did our guns often ring together o’er many a lowland fen, and in after days on many a Highland hill; and this brings me back to the point whence I have so widely wandered.

It was, as I have said, a beautiful, calm October morning, on which, as soon as the skies were well light, I sallied forth from the college gates, and took my way through Trinity street, in front of the proud gate-house in which, above the archway, is still shown the room wherein young Newton dreamed perhaps already of celestial marvels to be made patent soon by his immortal genius—in front of the brick turrets and square casements of dingy-hued St. Johns—turned to the left into Bridge street, and soon reached the snug lodging in which my friend roomed, within college rules, though without the time-honored walls of Caius.

There never was a more complete specimen, than the snuggery into which I was introduced, of a college sportsman’s room. It was not, it is true, above fourteen feet square; but into that small space was crowded almost every comfort and convenience that can be conceived. Above the mantel-piece, under the ample arch of which blazed a glorious sea-coal fire, hung a large, handsome looking-glass, between the frame and mirror of which were stuck a profusion of visiting-cards, summons to appear before the dean, buttery bills, and lists of hunting appointments. On each side of the glass was a dog’s head, by the inimitable Landseer; and on the right hand wall a large picture of grouse-shooting in the Highlands, by the same prince of modern masters. A large and luxurious sofa ran along the left hand wall, on the crimson cushions of which were cast at random the black gown and trencher cap of the student.

Before the fire-place stood a table, which had once been amply furnished for the morning meal; but now the teapot stood with its lid staring open, guiltless of souchong or bohea; the voiceless urn sent up no spiral wreaths of sweetly murmuring steam; the egg-cups contained only shells; the massive silver dish, with its cover half displaced, showed only now, in lieu of the nobly deviled kidneys and turkey’s gizzards, the scent of which “clung to it still,” a little ruby-colored gravy, whereon floated a few rings of congealed fatness; the brown loaf was dismantled; the butter-pats had disappeared in toto; and the tout ensemble read me a lamentable lecture on the vices of procrastination and delay, the burthen of which was still the old college saw of sero venientibus ossa—“to the late comer, bones!”

Beneath the table, crouched, beautiful spectacle to a thorough-bred sportsman’s eye, as superb a brace of setters as ever ranged a stubble, or brushed the dew-drops from the heather of a highland hill.

One of them was a red and white Irish dog, with large, soft, liquid eyes of the darkest hazel, a coal-black nose, palate and lips of the same thorough-bred tint, a stern feathered almost as thickly as a fox’s brush, but with hair as soft and lucent as floss silk; his legs were fringed two inches deep with the same glossy fleece, and his whole coat was as smooth and sleekly combed as the ringlets of a highborn beauty. The other was English bred, and in his own way scarce less beautiful; he was jet-black, without a speck or snip of white on forehead, breast, or feet; but legs and muzzle were of the richest and warmest tan. And he, too, showed in his well-ordered coat, bright eye, and cold, moist muzzle, the very perfection of care and science in feeding and kennel management.

Beside the board, alas! for me no longer hospitable, sat the tall sportsman, his blue bird’s-eye fogle, his snuff-colored velveteen jacket, his scarlet kerseymere waistcoat, with pearl buttons, the very pattern of a garb for a winter sportsman; but, unaccustomed yet to the wet lowland shooting of the fens, he had arranged his nether man in loose trousers of brown corduroy, a most inconvenient dress for marsh shooting.

He was in the act of putting together his gun, a short, powerful, heavy, double-barreled Manton, built to his own order, of unusual weight and calibre; a weapon of sure execution in safe hands, and of range almost extraordinary. I opened the door and strode in not without some considerable racket, but he never raised his eyes from the lock, which he was just screwing on, until he had accomplished his job; although, perhaps, knowing my step, perhaps guessing who it was from the increased wagging of the setters’ tails, thumping the floor in joyous recognition, he said in a quiet voice, not untouched by a sort of dry humor,

“How are you, Frank? In time for once. Well, sit down, and get your breakfast. I suppose you have not fed yet.”

“Fed! I should think not, truly. We don’t feed in the night in my country—none of us, at least, except the woodcocks! and as for sitting down, that I can do well enough, but for the breakfast—”

“Oh! ah! I had forgotten. I ate that,” said Master George, looking up very coolly. “Never mind, Frank; I have ordered a capital dinner at eight this evening, and there is a cold pheasant, and a bottle of Duff Gordon’s gold sherry in the well of the dog-cart, to say nothing of anchovy sandwiches. You must hold on till two o’clock, and then make up for lost time at luncheon. Next time you’ll be punctual.”

“The devil take it, man,” responded I; “I can no more walk thirty miles without my breakfast, than I can leap a thirty foot fen ditch without a pole. Breakfast—by George! I must have some breakfast, or no snipe to-day. Holloa! Eustace, holloa! I must have prog of some kind—what can you give me?”

“I will find something, Mr. Forester, I’ll warrant you,” replied the gyp, kicking the door open with his right foot, and pulling it to behind him with his left as he entered, both his hands being occupied in bearing a well-appareled tray—fresh tea, kidneys red-hot, rolls smoking, and, to complete the whole, prawn curry.

“Now, then, be smart, Frank,” shouted my comrade, “I hear the gray cob stamping at the door, and I don’t keep him waiting over ten minutes—no not for the emperor of all the Chinas!”

Within ten minutes the kidneys had disappeared, the prawn curry was not, the second teapot was empty, no crust or crumb of the hot rolls remained to hint to future generations what they had been; and to wash down the whole, and settle our stomachs for the day, George and I had absorbed a thimblefull a piece of the real mountain-dew of Glenlivet.

The dogs were stowed under the seat; the guns, in their leather cases, strapped to the top-rail of the dog-cart; our sporting toggery concealed from keen eyes of proctors by heavy driving-coats; and, within the given period of ten minutes, the lively little gray was stepping it out gallantly at 12 miles the hour, snatching at its steel curb, and tossing its proud head, as if it had not got some forty stone behind it.

Down Jesus lane we bowled, rattling over the rough cobblestones, and bringing all the helpers out of Sparrow’s livery-stable to see what was in the wind, past Stourbridge Common, and up the hill toward Barnwell, hamlet of unclean notoriety, peopled entirely, of men, by dog-fanciers, rat-hunters, pigeon-shooters, and the lowest of that tribe ycleped the fancy; and of women, by those unfortunates, who have to ears polite no appellation. Through that ill den we rattled merrily, heedless of the clamors which followed us, and soon reached Paper-mill Bar, on the Newmarket road, with its high turnpike gates placed on the keystone of a one-arched bridge spanning a deep and turbid stream, flowing from the fens to the Cam in devious curves through the deep meadow-land.

Here Gordon pulled up for the moment, and while he was paying the toll, pointed to a bit of splashy ground, not thirty yards from the road-side to the right hand.

“If you will jump out with your gun, Frank—never mind taking a dog along—you’ll flush a couple or two of snipe in that pool. Get a double shot, if you can, but don’t wait to follow them. We are behind time, even now.”

No sooner said than done. Out I jumped, gun in hand, and walked forward briskly, with both my barrels cocked. I had not in those days attained the cool quickness which enables the sure finger to cock the piece, as it rises to the eye, without delay or hesitancy. Up they jumped, just as I had been warned, two couple close under my nose. Bang, went my first barrel, harmless, discharged before the bird was ten paces distant from the muzzle. Skeap! skeap!—away they went, twisting and zigzaging their way up wind, as wild as hawks; but I had rallied already, and fired my second barrel coolly, and with better luck than I had deserved by my first miss.

The bird I shot at was keeled over clean, and quite dead, riddled by the mustard-seed at the true distance—it must have gone like a single ball at the first snipe—and, to my great astonishment, another, which, unseen at the moment when I pulled the trigger, was crossing the same line at some twelve yards further, went down wing-tipped. That was the first and last time that I ever have killed myself or seen killed by another, two English snipe at one shot.

Well pleased, I jumped again into our dog-cart; and away we rattled five miles further to Dry Water, a large broad brook, along the banks of which is the best shooting in that district, and there, upon the bridge, we found awaiting us, with his fourteen foot jumping-pole, and his capacious game-bag, Jem Carter, the best guide and pole-man of the fens, surnamed the clean, lucus à non lucendo, from his exceeding filthiness, together with his brother, a smart, wicked urchin of sixteen. To the guidance of the latter we entrusted the gray cob, to be driven to the Rutland Arms, at Bottisham, and there installed at rack and manger, to await our coming. To the guidance of the former, thorough mud and thorough mire, we committed ourselves. I remember, as I said before, every turn and winding of that long, weary walk, every tussock over which we stumbled, every quagmire in which we stuck fast, every broad dyke into which, jumping short, we blundered; but these things would have small attraction to my readers. Much game we did not kill that day, assuredly; but we have killed some since, sarten! as Tom Draw says. And for the rest, it is neither for the shooting performed, nor for the miles traversed, but for the memory, never to be forgotten, of old friendship interrupted, and good fellowship ended forever, that I still cherish, and hold dear, in a deep angle of my heart, the recollection of “my first day’s snipe shooting at Cambridge.”