.."
"Rum to Tom Draw!" responded Harry. "But it's as true as the gospel, ask
Timothy there!"
"Nay it's all true; only it's scarce so bad i' t' story, as it was i'
right airnest! Ay cooped oot o' t' drag--loike ivry thing--my hinder
eend was sair a moanth and better!"
"Now then," said I, "it's Tom's turn; let us hear about the bull."
"Oh, the bull!" answered Tom. "Well you see, Archer there, and little
Waxskin--you know little Waxskin, I guess, Mister Forester--and old
McTavish, had gone down to shoot to Hellhole--where we was yesterday,
you see!--well now! it was hot--hot, worst kind; I tell you--and I was
sort o' tired out--so Waxskin, in he goes into the thick, and Archer
arter him, and up the old crick side--thinkin, you see, that we was goin
up, where you and I walked yesterday--but not a bit of it; we never
thought of no such thing, not we! We sot ourselves down underneath the
haystacks, and made ourselves two good stiff horns of toddy; and cooled
off there, all in the shade, as slick as silk.
"Well, arter we'd been there quite a piece, bang! we hears, in the very
thick of the swamp--bang! bang!--and then I heerd Harry Archer roar out
'mark! mark!--Tom, mark!--you old fat rascal,'--and sure enough, right
where I should have been, if I'd been a doin right, out came two
woodcock--big ones--they looked like hens, and I kind o' thought it was
a shame, so I got up to go to them, and called McTavish to go with me;
but torights, jest as he was a gitting up, a heap of critters comes all
chasin up, scart by a dog, I reckon, kickin their darned heels up, and
bellowin like mad--and there was one young bull amongst them, quite a
lump of a bull now I tell you; and the bull he came up pretty nigh to
us, and stood, and stawmped, and sort o' snorted, as if he didn't know
right what he would be arter, and McTavish, he gits up, and turns right
round with his back to the critter; he got a bit of a round jacket on,
and he stoops down till his head came right atween his legs, kind o'
straddlin like, so that the bull could see nothing of him but his
t'other eend, and his head right under it, chin uppermost, with his big
black whiskers, lookin as fierce as all h-ll, and fiercer; well! the
bull he stawmped agin, and pawed, and bellowed, and I was in hopes, I
swon, that he would have hooked him; but just then McTavish, starts to
run, going along as I have told you, hind eend foremost--bo-oo went the
bull, a-boooo, and off he starts like a strick, with his tail stret on
eend, and his eyes starin and all the critters arter him, and then they
kind o' circled round--and all stood still and stared--and stawmped,
'till he got nigh to them, and then they all stricks off agin; and so
they went on--runnin and then standin still,--and so they went on the
hull of an hour, I'll be bound; and I lay there upon my back laughin
'till I was stiff and sore all over; and then came Waxskin and all
Archer, wrathy as h-ll and swearin'--Lord how they did swear!
"They'd been a slavin there through the darned thorns and briers, and
the old stinkin mud holes, and flushed a most almighty sight of cock,
where the brush was too thick to shoot them, and every one they flushed,
he came stret out into the open field, where Archer knew we should have
been, and where we should have killed a thunderin mess, and no mistake;
and they went on dam-min, and wonderin, and sweatin through the brush,
till they got out to the far eend, and there they had to make tracks
back to us through the bog meadow, under a brilin sun, and when they did
get back, the bull was jest a goin through the bars--and every d--d drop
o' the rum was drinked up; and the sun was settin, and the day's
shootin--that was spoiled!--and then McTavish tantalized them the worst
sort.
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