about and uttering their low alarm-notes, “Quit! quit! quit!” Three more steps will make a certain shot, and—­out rang Jack’s nasal clarion, loud and clear as the morte at a fox-chase.  I looked round in horror, and there stood my hunter complacently eying me and flourishing his white silk handkerchief, while his gun leaned against a tree ten paces distant:  “Expect I’d better go back to my stand, eh?  Are those dogs barking at a deer?”

I jumped to my feet for a snap-shot at the old gobbler which flew over me, making a clear miss.  Bang! bang! went two more guns; a woodcock whistled up from the bog and two swamp-rabbits dashed into the brier.  The dogs came out, shaking the water from their coats, and the spattered drivers rode through the creek.  There was not a feather to show, and of course everybody was “down” on Jack, but with an air of deep injury he put it off on me with the question, “Why didn’t you tell me the turkeys were coming?  How can a fellow help having a cold?”

We reached the club-house just in time to take our seats as dinner was served, and were in capital condition to enjoy the rich mutton, the fat turkey, the juicy home-cured ham and the rare old madeira which graced the board.  This last was a specialty with the gentlemen of those days, and probably no cellars in the world could boast choicer vintage than the “Newton & Gordon” and “Old Leacock” which cheered the table of that “hunting-club.”  There were stronger liquors, too, though these were chiefly used as appetizers before dinner.  The moderate use of brandy was universal, but the drunkenness which blots these days of prohibitory laws was comparatively rare.  Few ever left the club-house “disguised” by liquor except the young men, who then, as now and always, would occasionally indulge in a “frolic.”  With the clearing of the board came the regular and volunteer toasts, and then an hour of “crop-talk” and “horse-talk” and hunting-stories over the wine and cigars.  With the departure of the older members came the inevitable quarter-race, with its accompaniment of riding feats which would have done credit to a Don Cossack.  The equestrian performance was commenced by Kit Gillam (who now dismounts and leads over every little ditch) forcing his active chestnut up the wooden steps and into the club-room, and rearing him on the dining-table.  Then came a leaping-match over a ten-railed fence, resulting in the barking of some shins and the demolition of sundry panels of rail.  Joe Keating, the wildest rider I ever knew, had emptied his tumbler too often, and insisted on running his horse home through the woods.  An hour after he was overtaken trudging along the road, perfectly sober, with the saddle on his shoulders and the bridle over his arm.

“Why, Joe, where’s your horse?”

“Dead!” was the laconic reply.

Sure enough.  He had run full against a huge pine, and the horse had gone down with a broken skull.  He never tried it again.