Baboo Jabberjee, B.A Part 14

Again, I was rebuked for burning powder at a grey hen, because it is the wife of a black-c.o.c.k, which may be shot with impunity. Although a highly chivalrous chap in questions of the fairer s.e.x, I am yet to see why it is allowable to render the female bird a bereaved widow, but totally forbidden to make the male a widower! Or why it is permissible to slay a minute bird such as a snipe, while a t.i.tlark is on no account to be touched.

Being eventually exasperated by these unreasonable faultfindings, seeing that I had merely emptied my gun-barrels without actually destroying any of these sacred volatiles, I addressed the keeper in the withering tones of a sarcasm: "Mister Keeper," I said, "as I am not the ornithologist or soothsayer to distinguish infallibly every species of bird by instinct when flying with incredible velocity, would it not be better that I should discharge no shots in future?"

To which, abashed by my severity, he replied that he could not just say that it would make any considerable difference whether I fired at all or none.

My fellow-shooters, however, could not refrain from shouting with irrepressible admiration at the intrepidity with which, forestalling the fleetest dogs, I did rush forward to pick up the fallen grouse-birds, and repeatedly exhorted me to take greater care for my own safety.

I cannot say that they exhibited equivalent courageousness, seeing that, so often as I raised my gun to fire, they flung themselves upon their stomachs in the heather until I had finished, upon which I rallied them mercilessly upon their timidity, a.s.suring them repeatedly that they had nothing to fear.

Yet English and Scotch alike accuse us Bengalees of being subject to excessive funkiness. What about the Pot and the Kettle, Misters?

I am to reserve the conclusion of my shooting experiences until a future occasion.

XXV

_Mr Jabberjee concludes the thrilling account of his experiences on a Scotch moor, greatly to his own glorification._

Now to resume the rather arbitrarily truncated account of my gunnery on Scottish moors.

Before luncheon I ventured to remonstrate earnestly with my entertainer, Mr BAGSHOT, Q.C., concerning the extreme severity with which he chastised a juvenile sporting hound of his for such trivial offences as running after some rabbit, or picking up slaughtered volatiles without receiving the _mot d'ordre_!

"Listen, honourable Sir," I entreated him, "to the voice of Reason! It is the second nature of all such canines to pursue vermins, nor are they at all capable of comprehending the Why and Wherefore of a shocking flagellation. If it is your wish that this hound should play the part of a Tantalus, forbidden even to touch the _bonne-bouches_ with his watering mouth, surely it is possible to restrain him by a more humane method than Brute Force!"

At this mild reproof Mister BAGSHOT became utterly rubescent, murmuring excuses which I did not catch; and I, perceiving that this object lesson of kindness to animals from an Oriental had strongly affected all the shooters, patted the hound on the forehead, consoling him with some chocolate I carried in my cartridge sack.

We picnicked our lunch under a stone wall, and I, becoming an hilarious, rallied my companions unmercifully upon the solemnity with which they had marched in cautious silence, and with stern countenances as to attack some formidable foe--and all to slaughter sundry braces of inoffensive grouse-birds--truly an heroical sort of undertaking!

To which Hon'ble c.u.mMERBUND replied, with his utterance impeded by cold pie, that I might congratulate myself on having kept my own hands unstained by any grouse's gore.

"True, Mister Ex-Judge," I retorted, "but as you have already testified"

(here I hoisted his own petard at him rather ingeniously), "I am more an _au fait_ in the extermination of elephants _et hoc genus omne_, and have hitherto reserved my powder and shot for a stag or some similar monarch of the glen. However, after lunch let us see whether I am not competent to kill, or at least maim, one of these same grouse-fowls, _faute de mieux_!"

A repartee which excited uproarious laughter (at Hon'ble C.'s expense) from all the present company.

Subsequently, we were posted in a row of small fortresses constructed of turfs, to await what is termed a "Drive," _i.e._, until some flock of grouse-birds, exasperated to fury by the cries and blows of certain individuals called "beaters," should attack our positions.

Hearing that the grouses on this moor were of an excessive wildness, I was at first apprehensive that one might fly at my nose or eyes while I was busied in defending myself against its fellows, but the keeper who was with me a.s.sured me that such was seldom their custom.

And, indeed, such as came in my direction flew with wings so accelerated by panic that they were invisible before I could even select one as my target, so I was reduced to fire with considerable random. Presently the beaters approached, carrying flags of truce, and we sallied out of our forts to pick up the slain and wounded. After diligent search, I had the happiness to discover a grouse-bird, stone dead, in the heather, and, capering with triumph, called to the keeper to come and see the spoil.

On his arrival, however, he said that he could not just think it would be my bird, as he had not noticed any fall in that direction. But after I had presented him with a piece of silver, he did agree that if I chose to claim the bird as mine, it was not his place to contradict me, and so in great glee I exhibited my prize to the others, appealing to the keeper (who basely remained _sotto voce_) for confirmation.

"A devilish clean shot, Prince!" Sir c.u.mMERBUND graciously remarked; "why, the bird is stiff and cold already!"

Whereupon I was cordially congratulated, and awarded the tail feathers to decorate my "tommy-shanty," and during the next driving, having now acquired the knack, I rendered several more denizens of the air the _hors de combats_, though--either on account of their great ingenuity in running out of the radius, or creeping into holes, etc., or else the stupidity of the retrieving dogs--their corpses remained irrecoverable.

On taking my leave, I expressed unbounded satisfaction with such sport as I had had, and my fixed intention to a.s.sist on some similar shooting-expedition, and Mr BAGSHOT kindly promised to let me know if he should again have vacancy for an additional gun.

I regret to say that young HOWARD, who, having only laid low a couple of black c.o.c.ks and a blue hare, was immoderately jealous of my superior skilfulness, did seek to depreciate it by insinuating that my grouse was one which, having been seriously wounded by other hands some days previously, had come up to the hills to shuffle off its mortal coil in seclusion, arguing thus from its total absence of heat and suppleness.

This is the merest quibble, and to travel out of the record, since, of course, if a bird is at all of a venerable age, it becomes stiff and deficient in vital warmth long before it is popped off! Moreover, if the grouse were not legitimately my property, why, forsooth, should I be permitted to carry it home?

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I PRESENTED MY TROPHY AND TREASURE-TROVE TO THE FAIRYLIKE MISS WEE-WEE."]

I presented my trophy and treasure-trove to the fairylike Miss WEE-WEE, who was so overwhelmed by the compliment that she entreated for it to be cooked and eaten _instanter_.

As soon as I have recovered a missing link of my fis.h.i.+ng-rod (which it seems has been overlooked by Mister p.a.w.nbroker), and when I have procured some suitable bait, &c., it is my intention to catch a fine salmon out of the burn for my enchanting divinity, and, as I place the fish in her lily-like hands, to strike iron while it is hot and make her the formal proposal of matrimony.

Mister CRUM, hearing of my piscatorial ambitions, has, with almost incredible simplicity, offered to lend me his salmon rod, with a volume of flies, little suspecting that he will be a.s.sisting me to catch two fish upon one hook! I am immensely tickled by such a tip-top joke, and can scarcely refrain from imparting it to Miss WEE-WEE herself, though I shall wait until I have first secured the salmon.

I had some valuable remarks upon Scottish idioms and linguistic peculiarities, &c., but these, of course, are to be suppressed _sine die_--unless I am to be permitted to overflow into a special supplement.

XXVI

_Mr Jabberjee expresses some audaciously sceptical opinions. How he secured his first Salmon, with the manner in which he presented it to his divinity._

Owing mainly to lack of opportunity, invitations, _et caetera_, I have not resumed the offensive against members of the grouse department, but have rather occupied myself in laborious study of Caledonian dialects, as exemplified in sundry local works of poetical and prose fiction, until I should be competent to converse with the _aborigines_ in their own tongue.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "WHETHER HE HAD WHA-HAED WI' HON'BLE WALLACE?"]

Then (having now the diction of Poet BURNS in my fingers' ends) I did genially accost the first native I met in the street of Kilpaitrick, complimenting him upon his honest, sonsie face, and enquiring whether he had wha-haed wi' Hon'ble WALLACE, and was to bruise the Peckomaut, or ca' the knowes to the yowes. But, from the intemperance of his reply, I divined that he was totally without comprehension of my meaning!

Next I addressed him by turns in the phraseologies of Misters BLACK, BARRIE, and CROCKETT, Esquires, interlarding my speech with "whatefers," and "hechs," and "ou-ays," and "dod-mons," and "loshes,"

and "tods," _ad libitum_, to which after listening with the most earnest attention, he returned the answer that he was not acquainted with any Oriental language.

Nor could I by any argument convince this beetle-head that I was simply speaking the barbarous accents of his native land!

Since which, after some similar experiments upon various peasants, &c., I have made a rather peculiar discovery.

There is no longer any such article as a separate Scottish language, and, indeed, I am in some dubitation whether it ever existed at all, and is not rather the waggish invention of certain audacious Scottishers, who have taken advantage of the insular ignorance and credulity of the British public to palm off upon it several highly fict.i.tious kinds of unintelligible gibberis.h.!.+

Nay, I will even go farther and express a grave suspicion whether the Scotland of these bookish romances is not the daring imposture of a _ben trovato_. For, after a prolonged residence of over a fortnight, I have never seen anything approaching a mountain pa.s.s, nor a dizzy crag, surmounted by an eagle, nor any stag drinking itself full at eve among the shady trunks of a deer-forest! I have never met a single mountaineer in feminine bonnet and plumes and short petticoats, and pipes inserted in a bag. Nor do the inhabitants dance in the street upon crossed sword-blades--this is purely a London practice. Nor have I seen any Caledonian snuffing his nostrils with tobacco from the discarded horn of some ram.

Finding that my short kilt is no longer the mould of national form, I have now altogether abandoned it, while retaining the fox-tailed belly-purse on account of its convenience and handsome appearance.

Now let me proceed to narrate how I became the captor of a large-sized salmon.

Having accepted the loan of Mister CRUM'S fis.h.i.+ng-wand, and attached to my line certain large flies, composed of black hairs, red worsted, and gilded thread, which it seems the salmons prefer even to worms, I sallied forth along the riparian bank of a river, and proceeded to whip the stream with the severity of Emperor XERXES when engaged in flagellating the ocean.

But waesucks! (to employ the perhaps spurious verbiage of aforesaid Poet BURNS) my line, owing to superabundant longitude, did promptly become a labyrinth of Gordian knots, and the flies (which are named _Zulus_) attached their barbs to my cap and adjacent bushes with well-nigh inextricable tenacity, until at length I had the bright idea to abbreviate the line, so that I could dangle my bait a foot or two above the surface of the water--where a salmon could easily obtain it by simply turning a somersault.