poaching cyclopean Vulcan of the village and "Master Harry!" Talk of your fly-fishing, indeed! we just turned off the mill-stream about a mile and a half up the valley-that sweetest of all valleysand picked up the "whole boiling" of trout, as they lay kicking, gasping, and floundering on the dry bed of the river-eight dozen, if there was one-and without all the disagreeabilities of hooking our legs, trying our patience, or wetting our feet. We just "could a tale unfold," but not such a one, Mr. Gentle Reader, as you, being perhaps a fisherman, would delight no doubt in seeing unfolded, and a birch placed "in every honest hand" "To flog the rascal naked through the world." No; we will have nothing to do with fishing on the moors-that is to say at present. If hereafter we are unfortunate enough so as to marry, or lose our 3 per cents., or get an attack of the small-pox, we won't say what may happen; but at present we say sincerely to the trout, what Uncle Toby said to the fly," Live on, poor devil! there's room enough in this world for both of us." (We don't know whether he said "poor devil!" exactly-we merely quote from memory.) No! besides, were we a piscator, it would be out of season to talk about it at this time of the year. The very name of rippling brooks only brings to our imagination icicles and skates, and makes us shiver and shake, in spite of the huge yule log that is burning beside us. "Down, Carlo, you rascal! down, sir! Oh, you want us to write about shooting, do you, old boy, in order to come in for a slice of notoriety? Very well, old dog; you've done us many a good service, and we will do you one now. But the snow has ceased; and surely we must find a flight of ducks to-day on the moors; if we don't, snipe, plovers, perhaps a heron, or, at all events, a fine rattling walk will reward our exertion-En-avant! "Hi, Fan bitch! come, Carlo!" And we are standing on the untrodden, spotless snow, "sending home" two loads of No. 7, with a walk of four miles before us to the moors. Across the lawn, through the plantations, and up the "interminable" hill, we stand at last on the "common;" a few furze (gorse) bushes interrupt the otherwise unbroken carpet of snow that has fallen on its surface; no other vegetation is visible. How black the heavens look, in contrast with the snowy surface of the ground! and how the north-east wind whistles through the few gorse-bushes that lie in our path! Not a cottage is visible-not a sign of life-and so silent, with the exception of the gusts of wind whirring over the expanse, is everything around, that our very footfall on the snow seems loud enough to frighten off whatever may be within gunshot of us. Ah! the track of a puss! To heels, dogs! back! And, slinking down, we examine the marks, which have evidently been left since the snow ceased-(click, click!) -and slyly and steadily we crawl onwards, our eye intently tracking pussy's path. The dogs get impatient, and it is as much as we can do to restrain them. Faster and faster we proceed as we near a large patch of gorse-bushes, whose branches are almost broken with the weight of snow, and through the apertures of which we perceive the green sod beneath. We are among them. "Hie in, dogs!" Well, not here! this is a mystery: when, lo! we accidentally "put our foot in it," and actually kicked Miss Puss from out of her snug and cosy seat. Away she bounds over the snow, with the spaniels at her heels; but her figure, thrown in bold relief against the ground of snow, made our aim too sure, and in another minute "poor puss" had found her last "form" in our shooting-coat pocket. Well, that has put a little life in us; at all events, we have not come out for nothing. And how delighted, too, appear the spaniels! But we cannot carry this huge hare in our pockets all day-no, no; we want to have those empty for the ducks and snipe that it is our present intention to fill them with, before we again get home. Ah! the very thing: before us appears in sight the old turnpike; its walls were white before, and now the roof is in keeping with the remainder; no one that did not know where it stood would, in fact, be able to see it at all, so completely has it put on the uniform of all nature around it. We'll run up, and leave our game there until we return, and see if we can get a bet out of the old "'pikeman," similar to the one he made with our friend Captain G-, R.N., some time previously. But we must not hint at that, or we shall find our hare roasted and eaten on our return, to a moral certainty. However, although we must not broach the theme before our "'pike"-keeper, that is no reason why our reader should be debarred the pleasure of hearing how the old boy lost a five-pound-note, one fine snowy morning, by a presumptuous bet. Few people were better known in the neighbourhood than Captain G-, both for his reckless intrepidity on his own quarter-deck, before an enemy, and his equal courage in the chase, and eccentricities generally. It was on some such a morning as the one we have just before spoken of, that, being attacked by a fit of blue-devils-and where are they more plentiful than in a country-town on a snowy December's day, to a person having nothing to do?-he took his gun, and proceeded forth on an excursion against anything that came in his way. At length he reached the turnpike: there was its lord and master, looking out in vain expectation of taking a sixpence, for neither horse nor carriage was visible such weather, with a nose as blue as his old "missus's" apron. He soon spied the captain, and, with a malicious grin on his countenance-for the captain, although a staunch sportsman, was never, if we recollect right, a very "crack shot"-began the parley: "Thee beest gwaing (going) shooting, eh? Much thee'll shoot, I fancies. He! he! he!' "Ill shoot more than you'll carry, old gentleman, with all your 'He! he! he !'s, or I'm much mistaken." "Thee shoot more than I'll carry?-THEE? Why, thee can't hit a haystack." This roused our hero's bile. "Why, you d-d old Philistine, I'll bet you £5 down that, if you'll come on the moors with me till the evening, I will kill as much and more than you'll carry home." "Done!" said the " Philistine," lugging out a "flimsy" from an old greasy bag, and, calling on the "missus" to mind the gate, he put on his most capaciously-pocketed shooting-coat, and trudged away by the side of the skipper. "Drat 'un," he soon began, feeling he had chosen rather a chilly day for a shooting excursion; "if I'd a com'd out on such a wisht* bitter day as this but for a fi'-p'un'-note. Mind," he remarked, turning to G, "you've agot my money, and you'll have to give me ten p'un's back! Why, I'll carry all thee shoots, and thee, too, into the bargain. He! he! he!" By this time they had reached some inclosed ground off the road, and made an entry into a kitchen-garden. "Doan't thee be scrunching my 'turmuts' there, with thee great iron-heeled shoe," hallooed out Giles (as we'll term the "pike"-man); "thee'lt find nothing there. This here is my garden, that 'missus' is so 'tic'lar about, and that 'ere's our Neddy. C'up, c'up, Neddy!" and Neddy began to make its way over to its master, in hopes of a handful of corn. "That's your Neddy, is it?" And, as the old fellow turned to pull up a turnip (or "turmut," as he called it) to give him, Bang! bang! went the captain's two barrels, and poor Neddy fell to the earth, a "bleeding and mangled corpse." Despair, "dumb-founderment," fright, grief, rage, and every kind of "unutterableness," were depicted in the "pike"-man's face, as he beheld his donkey in the agonies of death. "Why, thee tarnation fool, thee'st killed my Neddy!" at length he gasped, but hardly able to reconcile the horrible fact to his imagination. "Put him in your pocket," quietly replied old G―, as he reloaded; "when you've got him all snug, I see a cow the other side of the hedge. It sha'n't be my fault if I don't make your £5 look rather dicky,' my tulip." Knowing that he would keep his word, and imploring every execration on his head, old Giles toddled away to impart the alarming intelligence to his "missus," and leaving his five pounds in the pocket of the person whose shooting he had so much abused, where we believe they remained until they went the way of all flesh. What terms the heroes were on after, we don't exactly know; but we remember riding through the "pike" some time afterwards, in company with Captain G-, when, turning to the "pike"-man, he asked him if he had seen his fellow (meaning his servant) ride through on a chesnut horse that morning, to which "pike"-keeper replied, after having given him a look out of the corner of his eye for at least half a minute "Your fellow-seen your fellow? No; nor nobody else will see him this side of the devil! Having deposited pussy in the "pike," we diverge from the turnpike road, at present totally invisible, on account of the snow, and in a moment the spaniels flush a snipe which has taken up his quarters in a ditch close by, where a few furze-bushes have warded the snow off * A provincialism for miserable. the bottom, or where perhaps a very tiny little rivulet still maintains its course, and will not freeze, in spite of all the frigidity of the climate. As we are in capital practice to-day, the snipe falls, as a matter of course. There is really beautiful shooting on the moors, before the ground is so completely covered with snow, however, as it is to-day there being no cover for the snipe to take to, they present a splendid aim; and, if one misses them, it is ten to one, if blessed with good eyesight, that he marks him down ahead, and so follows him up until he brings him to bag. Before making our way to the heart of the moors, where old "Rough Tor" and "Brown Nilly" raise their rocky heads above the plain, we will make a descent in that small patch of plantation on our left: who knows but that half the denizens of the moors may not have adjourned there to enjoy the only verdure at present "comeat-able"? Come along, then, dogs! when, hey, presto! we have walked into a snow-drift, and are floundering about as if we were in the middle of the Atlantic. Diable! what made us venture out on such a day? This just serves us perfectly right. As for our gun, it has completely vanished. The dogs are buried up to their bodies at every step they take. We at length find a footing, and make a successful "cast 99 after our Manton, and then, lending a helping hand to the cannies, manage to get out of this "slough of despond," in a pretty pickle, however, as the snow attached to our collar begins to thaw and insinuate itself down our back. Taking a lesson from old Carlo, we endeavour to give ourself a hearty shake; but we cannot divest ourself of the white flakes as easily as he shakes them off from his curly coat. As for our gun-barrel, that is literally crammed with snow; and, as we have heard that nothing is more likely to burst a gun than firing it in such a state, we have to stand there in the cold, insinuating the snow out by half-inches at a time with the worm of our ramrod. Pleasant-very-all this! But there are few enjoyments in this world that have not also their share of drawbacks. This philosophic reflection, and a glimse at the promising little plantation in the valley before us, which we had almost forgotten, serves to put us again in better humour, and, on Jacob Faithful's principle of "No use crying," "Better luck next time," "What's done can't be undone," and all those very consolatory maxims, we make up our mind "to take up arms against this sea of troubles, and by opposing end them;" after which, to "go ahead." "Now, hie in, dogs! hie! cock, there!" What a perfect oasis for woodcocks, what a paradise for snipes, is this little green spot in the midst of the wilderness of snow! How little do they expect to be disturbed on such a day of jubilee to them! when, Whirr-r-r! and up spring two cocks, which if we do not knock over right and left, it is entirely our own fault. Oh, for another barrel! as, startled by the report of our gun, off go at least six couple of snipe, some of them going most provokingly close to us, as if they were aware that we were hors de combat. The little green patch is so small that we are sure that we have left nothing alive in it, and we leave it for the less enticing moors, determined to pay it a visit, if not on our way back, at the very farthest in a day or two, and on no account to hint of its locality to even our best and dearest friend. Our path at first is cheerless and gameless enough; yet some old stump of a tree, which still stands forth every now and then in its sullen loneliness from the snow, puts us in mind of some clipping run that we remember, perhaps days perhaps years ago, after a tough old fox, that pretty well killed ourself and horse before we ran into him five miles farther on in the open. As we get nearer to the blocks of granite, a plover, or perhaps a rabbit, will, commiserating our apparently objectless course, give us an opportunity of a shot; indeed, we would not swear that, if even a blackbird came in our path, he should escape scatheless, or anything else under a robin or a wren. There is a decided antipathy to injure one of these little specimens of the feathered creation by even the lowest orders in Cornwall; and few are the children "down west," from the peer's to the miner's, whose first nursery essays have not always boasted the somewhat original lines of "Kill a robin, kill a wren, You'll neither prosper, boys nor men ; Are GOD ALMIGHTY's cock and hen !" A plover, let us inform the reader, if he is ignorant of the fact, is as delicious a bird for the table as any that ever flew-so think we, at least. We are now in the heart of the moors, and a most uncongeniallooking aspect it bears! Carefully we cast our eyes around, in hopes of finding some yet unfrozen pool, by the side or on the surface of which some ducks may be disporting themselves. Ay, there they lie all around us-still, though clear-and just the place that a "canard sauvage" would choose to honour with his patronage on such a cold, cheerless day. About two miles before us stands old "Rough Tor," in all its glory; and it will be a bad day's work if we do not find something before we reach its base. Ah, there they are, sure enough! And the next moment we are crouched down beneath one of the neighbouring blocks of granite, watching a flight of ducks, far, far above us, as they pursue their onward course. But, see! the leading duck diverges from his course -the rest follow-and, as they describe a circle in the air, we know that they are going to drop, and most probably not half a mile from where we are. Having laid hold of the spaniels, and tied them together by a handkerchief, one end of which we have "belayed" to our leg, we keep our eye intently fixed on the movement of the flight. Slowly they draw nearer in each gyration to the earth, until at last they are not fifty yards from its surface. With another turn they deposit themselves on the body of that spacious pool ahead of us, and now is our time to go a-head. Still keeping our dogs coupled and at heels, we creep on as stealthily as we can, every now and then falling on our knee in the snow, as a slight commotion in the pool makes us feel an apprehension that we are perceived. Just ahead of us appears a splendid hiding-place among a huge pile of granite |