A Summer Idyl In Virginia

THERE were three of us.

Douglas, editor, of Washington Capital; Col. Edmund Burke, lessee of St. Marc's Hotel, of same place, and myself. Three good fellows, our friend would remark. A most unholy trinity, our enemies would say; but, as the former are much in the majority, it don't matter much what the minority thinks, for minorities are always wrong.

Well, these two were first rate traveling company, anyway -- bon comrades that could appreciate a good joke, enjoy a good julep as well as even honest old Jack Fallstaff did his sack, both fine reconteurs, barring a slight tendency to exaggerate and to draw the long-bow uncomfortably strong; still, these were but slight drawbacks to men who had been in the army in the late unpleasantness, and who were used to hear the old veterans of both sides spin out their stories of how they fought, died and bled for their country. Ah me! how like the memory of a glorious dream did those old battle-fields we revisited seem, with the peaceful landscape bathed in the mellow summer light, the chirping of the birds, and the cattle idly browsing on the hill-side or lazily reclining under the shade of the trees chewing the cud of sweet and not bitter fancies. Yes, all different from that old Spottsylvania hill where we stood some fourteen years ago, with the thunder of the guns making the solid earth tremble, while the purple-blue smoke curled even as high as the tree-tops, hiding everything from view but the flash of the cannon, that drowned in their roar the volleying discharges of the musketry. It was with a feeling of mingled sadness and pleasure that we revisited the historic fields of Spottsylvania; sadness, as we thought of the rain of blood that had poured from thousands of bodies, crimsoning the very ground we stood upon; and gladness, that we could walk undisturbed now without hearing the spiteful whiz of the minnie or being made to strike a bee-line for cover as the screaming shell hurtled over our heads. A countryman was plowing in the field, and we followed the furrow looking for relics. Edmund, always lucky in hunting, whether for curiosities or for somebody to indorse his note, found two bullets amalgamated in one, that the plow-share had turned out. Upon examining them we found that they had been fired exactly at the same time from opposite points, and, meeting midway in their rapid flight, had collided and been welded into one mass, and had thus neutralized each other's deadly mission. Looking on these little momentoes of a stormy period, what thoughts arise in our minds: the boy in blue and the boy in gray pulling with vengeful hands the trigger, their faces blackened with powder, mad with thirst, savage with fury, they ram home the charge with hasty motions, and then fire at random, sighting only by the flash of each other's guns; and in this hell of shot and shell, these two little pieces of lead in the fiery rain of bullets, ignoring their billets, met and harmonized, and then dropped peacefully in a common bed.

The next point in our jaunt was Old Point Comfort, a watering-place in Hampton Roads, eight miles from Norfolk. We reached it while in full blast of fashionable pleasures, and found some six hundred guests at the Hygeia Hotel, presided over by General Lyndsay Walker, who used to command the artillery of Lee's army. A splendid type of manhood is the General, who on another field adds fresh laurels to his record. Old Point is a good place for the "german" and for doing the Claude Melnotte business au claire de la lune, but a poor resort for the sportsman; the fishing is hardly worth the name, and one crabbing is sufficient to last a man for his lifetime. I hate crabs worse than snakes; there is nothing straightforward about them, they even walk backward, they are as greedy as a shark, and are the buzzards of the deep; nothing comes amiss to their claws, and when they are hard pushed for food they make no bones about eating each other. I saw the body of a drowned man which was discovered near the Rip Raps, and his face was literally destroyed by crabs. It was a horrible sight, it made me sick, and I haven't eaten a deviled crab since.

I was much interested in a catamaran which had been constructed by the officers of the garrison. Of course you know what a catamaran is -- two long canoes about ten feet apart connected together by a light framework, on which is rigged an enormous sail as spacious as a schooner's. This nondescript catamaran craft is a success as far as speed is concerned: in a brisk breeze, when its enormous sail is buoyed out with the wind, it flies like a sea-mew along the waves; passing brigs, corvettes, sloops and all other sailing vessels with the utmost ease. It don't seem to cut through the water, but to glide and skip along the crest of the waves as gracefully as a seagull.

In the winter Hampton Roads is a great resort for wildfowl; they are here in uncounted numbers, but nobody shoots them. They have a fishy taste, which prevents them from being palatable eating. Speaking on this subject, the finest duck ground I know of in this section, except Albemarle Sound, is Hog Island, about a days' journey from Old Point. It is a light-house station, some twelve miles off the coast from Cobb's Island, and inhabited by wreckers, a rough, uncouth set of people, but hospitable and as honest as the peasantry of Ireland, whose latch, according to the old song hangs on the outside of the door. There is the finest brant shooting in the world in November and December, and any of your sporting readers can have royal sport by roughing it with the wreckers. If any one is musically inclined and can play the fiddle then the Hog Islanders will take him in their heart of hearts and go blind on him. I well remember a trip our trinity took there some time some three winters ago. We went on a Christmas frolic, left Old point for Cherrystone by the steamer N. P. Banks, then we hired an old ox team to carry our traps across the mainland some eight miles away, next took a sail-boat to the Island. We were fully heeled for the expedition: Douglas was steward of the cigars, I had my fiddle, while Edmund was custodian of the whisky keg -- or kaig, as the natives call it. All hands were satisfied with these distributions of stores. It was a rough sail. A stiff breeze was blowing, and we had some sixteen miles to go. The white capped waves seemed to rise to an alarming height, and would strike with fearful force against the prow, sending the salt spray flying in the air and nearly blinding us. It was a novel, ludicrous picture, one that Felix O. C. Darly would have liked to have limned, but a-confoundedly uncomfortable one for us, the boat rising high and falling low, bowing as politely and profound to some advancing wave as an office-seeker bows to the Secretary, and then; jumping suddenly aloof on the crest, would look down in disdain, as it were, upon the waters below with its nose high in the air. Yes, it was a picture to smile at afterward -- the grim mariner sitting in the stern with the tiller in his hand, his body clad in waterproof canvas, an oil skin hat on his head beneath which appeared his rough, weather-beaten face, covered with a ragged red beard, upon which the spray-drops glistened like diamonds. He had a pipe in his mouth, of that curtailed proportion that every son of green Erin is so partial to, and this pipe seemed a magic one, for I never yet saw it go out. Our old mariner unlike the ancient one, never fastened anybody with glittering eye nor bored them with his dreadful tale. No, our mariner never opened his mouth except to ask for a nip, or mutter an oath against the wind. I sat next to him with my beloved fiddle next to my heart. Douglas squatted close down in the bottom of the boat, sitting on his valuable cargo of cigars; while Edmund braced himself on a seat with the keg on his lap, holding it as fondly as ever mother her child. The wind whistled and sang through the boat, getting higher every moment; the spray came now in one continual shower-bath that wetted us to the skin. It soon became no laughing matter, for the darkness came on, and the heavens above were shrouded in a murky gloom, unrelieved by a single star; the waves could only be seen by their white caps, that seemed as if they would engulf us every instant, and we all thought our last moment had come. I earnestly besought Douglas to throw his pack of cards overboard, which he did. At this trying moment the lamp in the light-house was lit, and its rays cast a golden gleam over the angry water; it brought back the color to our cheeks and hope to our hearts, and as the beacon gleamed amid the darkness we knew we were safe. In a few moments we were at the wharf, and in an hour each one dreaming over his hardships.

The next night, being Christmas Eve, there was a grand fashionable ball, where all the elite, beauty and style of Hog Island attended. Every gentleman was in full dress, which consisted of the boots greased with shark oil until they shone again. The ladies' costumes were short calico and homespun, with brilliant pinch-beck ornaments. Everybody had washed their face and combed their hair for the occasion, and it was a very respectable assemblage indeed. The festivities soon commenced by two musicians opening the ball. They sawed persistently on their ninety-nine-cent pine fiddles, and raised the tune, and all pitched in. Everybody danced to suit themselves: there were no partners nor figures, but each tried his own step in his own way. The cabin rocked and trembled from roof to foundation-stone; but still the fiddles' strains rose above the uproar, and the steps kept time in a rhythmical rhyme to the music. In an evil hour Edmund had his keg brought to the room and opened. The consequence was that the fiddles got too high and above their business to play any longer, so they dispersed somewhere. Seeing the position of affairs, I commenced to draw the bow, and away went the company again. I tried some weak-kneed people there that night; if there isn't any crippled Hog Islanders it isn't because I did not try to make them so. I let out the fastest of all known tunes on them -- the "Devils' Dream" -- and I thought that the plastering was coming down. The natives spread themselves, and discounted the Jardins Mablians. Then Colonel Burke became ambitious. He must have a waltz. I played one of Strauss'; but who was he to revolve with ? That dizzy dance had never yet reached the fashionable Hog Islanders -- and even the ambitious maids would not attempt it; but at last one more determined than her sisters, and carried away be Edmund's importunities, asked him to let her see the step, and so he gyrated alone over the floor to the tune of the deux temp I was playing. Then hurrying back he claimed her for the dance, saying that he could easily teach her; but the fair one was dubious, and at last to Edmund's entreaties replied, "Well, stranger, I can't; I can go the front step and go the back step, but it will make me puke sure to turn around so." Edmund was a changed man after that reply. He gathered up his keg and beat out to his quarters.

But about the hunting at Hog Island. The brant commence to arrive in November, and by December they are in great numbers and are shot from a blind. I would not advise any but well-equipped parties, with their own decoys and boats, to go to Hog Island. Single parties might not be able to get stands, except at a great price, for there are many professional gunners shooting here all the winter. Besides the brant there are the shufflers and redhead, and wild geese in immense flocks, but they are too shy to get within range of the breech-loader of average calibre. I had much sport in shooting into the flocks with a Winchester rifle, and it was splendid fun to pitch a ball into a flock a half a mile away and knock over some old gray gander. The ones I killed I never could eat, for my bullet always seemed to pick out the patriarch of the gang, who, judging by his meat, was a hundred and twenty-five years old. I would as soon dine off stewed and boiled india-rubber trab-balls as a tough old roasted wild goose.

In a rough, windy, cold, or rainy day Hog Island is the most desolate spot on the earth; but on a bright, still, sunny day there lingers over it a kind of haze that half conceals the woods and barren wastes, and that makes the place look full of a strange, weird, dreamy beauty: the long breakers, curving softly in and breaking in a musical murmur on the beach; the lofty light-house, rising gracefully upward, cutting its profile clear against the blue horizon; the stately ships, far off on the ocean, make a scene like the veritable land of the lotus eaters.

I would write more on this place, but I gave a full description of it some two years ago in the FOREST AND STREAM. I can only add that if parties desiring information as to getting there, and other items, will write to Warren Cobb, Cobb's Island, Va., he will answer all their queries and meet them in his boat. I can indorse Warren as being a first-rate guide and thoroughly reliable.

After leaving Old Point we visited Norfolk, and then proceeded to take a jaunt though the Great Dismal Swamp. As I have already written up the "Great Dismal" for the FOREST AND STREAM in a prior number, I will not tell the same old story, only saying that Col. Burke lost some twenty pounds of flesh from the mosquitoes, who bled him and feasted on him by turn. Douglas, being a newspaper man, escaped the mosquitoes: they let him alone after blunting their teeth. As for myself, if ever I go into the Dismal Swamp again in the middle of summer, I hope some Circe will change me into a big bull-frog, and make me croak a century, for those mosquitoes nearly picked my bones.

After leaving the Swamp, we spent several days in Suffolk, about twelve miles away, and from there we went to Captain Wm. Blows, in Sussex County, for deer hunting.

It would simply be a task of supererogation to speak of our stay in the Nottaway Region. That section also, has been written up by me for this paper. We went deer hunting, as I said before, and had much hunting but little deer. The Captain placed us all three on a stand, and went with his hounds to drive the deer. We stood up en garde the first half hour, with our guns cocked, and on the qui vive for the slightest sound, but there was only an utter, perfect stillness. The next half hour we sat down, with our guns lying in our laps, gazing with strained expectancy into the depths of the shadowy forest, but nothing could be seen except an industrious woodpecker thrusting his long bill into every hollow he found. At the next hour we all got tired, and Col. Burke, pulling an old greasy deck of cards out of his pocket,
proposed a game of seven up. We all assented, and were soon in the mysteries of high, low, jack and the game. It was Colonel's deal. I and Douglas were intently watching him to see that he didn't slip the jack from the bottom, when a splendid buck, with branching antlers, cantered slowly past us, and disappeared in the woods beyond. Edmund seized his great gun and fired at random in the tree tops. Douglas pulled trigger, and his gun snapped, and upon examination he found he had forgotten to load it. Warned by this incident, we kept strict watch for an hour, and, nothing unusual happening, Edmund proposed to play the old game out. This we agreed to, and in the midst of the play another deer loped by us, not ten feet away. We finished the game and went home, for we had enough of such sport as that and we left Suffolk County for Richmond, where we stopped several days. While there we had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Charles Palmer, President of the Game Protective Association. By the way, any gentleman sportsman from the West or North who desires to know all about hunting in the Old Dominion, had best write to Mr. Palmer, at Richmond, Va., for he is the best informed man on that subject in the State, and he is always willing to afford all information about sporting localities, time, place, and quantities of game, etc.

I am glad to say that the subject of sporting, so long neglected in Virginia, is now receding much attention from all sections. Game associations are springing up all over the State, who make it their business to see that the provisions of the game law are rigidly carried out and enforced. The Virginia Legislature are moving, also, in that important work, and last winter organized a new Committee on Game, with your humble servant as chairman. Many new bills, increasing pains and penalties for violation of the laws, were passed, and old ones changed, among them the time of shooting partridges. The old law was from the first of November until the 1st of February, but now the shooting season commences the 15th of October, and closes the first day of January. Another law was passed for the protection of wild-fowl, which prohibits the shooting of ducks and geese in the night-time; also debars any decked boat from being used against them, and expressly declares that no swivel-gun shall be used, and only those that can be held up and fired from the shoulder. Sportsmen intending to shoot in Virginia this winter and fall, will please like Captain Cuttle, make a note of this.

Our next point was Fauquier County, where we led an easy life at a bachelor hall.

We lingered in Warrenton a few days, a little town of small dimensions but of huge aspirations. It is the county seat of Fauquier. Warrenton is noted for its beautiful girls and its successful politicians. Whether there is any irresistible strength in the union of the two, I leave to some speculative philosopher to determine; but as this is a game letter and not a political one, I will skip, as the prisoner said to the sheriff, when he was on his way to jail. Oh, about Fauquier! It puts me in mind of an incident that happened to me in that county that never will be effaced from the tablet of my memory as long as reason -- or the sense of smell -- remains.

I was, like Mr. Dick Swiveller, hopelessly entangled in Cupid's net, woven by Venus' fairy fingers and meshed by the magic of dazzling smiles and bright glances. In other words, I was in love, as Socrates, Napoleon, Petrutio and other celebrated men were. My charmer weighed about two hundred and fifty pounds -- a real mountain peony, who took after her mother, who kicked the scale at about 500lbs and has never left the porch since she was married. Well, the girl, as I was saying, took after the mother, I took after the girl, and the old man took after me, for he forbade me to his house However, me and Miss Susan escaped the parental eye and had a stroll together. We sauntered lazily down the public road, with my faithful pointer, Josh, at my heels, who followed me as closely as the dog Wolf did old Rip Van Winkle. Josh was a discreet dog, and a useful one, too, for he watched the road closely, and would bark at the sound of an approaching footstep a half mile away, and every one except -- well, I will make no exception -- knows how much a courting couple needs some faithful monitor to warm them of critical eyes and unexpected eyes and unexpected appearances. Susan and I stopped at an old blacksmith-shop, and, leaning against the fence near by Susan, was making eye and tongue tell. We discounted any couple in building castles in Spain. Suddenly I was aroused from my dream, for I caught sight of Josh in a dead set. He stood on the side of a ditch, with his fore foot raised, his body rigid and his tail as straight as a poker, showing in his splendid pose his thoroughbred blood.

"Susan!" said I, "there's a flock of partridges in that ditch -- let's climb the fence and see them."

So we both scrambled over and approached Josh, who never moved, but stood trembling with excitement. "Hie on, sir!" But a stone dog could not have been more stationary. "Hie on, sir!" I ordered a second time. But Josh stood like a soldier on parade. "The devil is in the dog," I muttered, and approached him and looked down into the ditch. I couldn't detect any covey of birds huddled together in a clump, nor could Susan, who was gazing breathlessly and eagerly over my shoulder. Instead of the birds I saw an animal something like a raccoon, with white stripes on his body and the most curious bead like eyes, that gazed into mine without flinching. I again ordered my dog to "hie on," but he, not moving, I got a heavy stone and prepared to cast it on that animal, which to save my life I couldn't make out or understand what it was. Just as I was about to throw, I noticed the singular proceedings of my dog Josh, who struck out across the field in as wild a gait as if he had a tin pan tied to his tail. Josh was smarter and more knowing than his master, for I heaved the rock and struck the animal plump * * * * * With a wild shriek Susan fled, and I too, but we avoided each other immediately, for, Mr. Editor, it was a polecat that we stirred up.

Moral to young couples who are parted and meditate suicide: Let them provoke a certain animal and, my word for it, they will be utterly and completely disillusioned, and love's sweet dream be rudely shattered.

Leaving Warrenton, we struck for the Allegheny Mountains, and hiring a coach, we traveled en signeur -- stopped when we chose, idled where pleased, and enjoyed those summer days in the wild, beautiful mountain scenery as only those men could do who are blessed with good digestions and bad consciences, which, after all, Rochefaucald, that wisest of Frenchmen, says, is the secret of happiness. In the course of time we reached Mountain Lake, one of the greatest natural curiosities in this country, a spot that every tourist and lover of fine scenery ought to visit. It is a lake on the top of the Allegheny Mountains, a half mile long and nearly as wide. It is fathoms upon fathoms deep, is ice cold even in summer, and is as clear as crystal. Many attempts have been made to stock it with fish, but in vain. The lake lies like a jewel in the mountains, reflecting back with minute distinctness every object, mirroring with perfect fidelity even the spider-web that is woven from branch to branch. I think that, as the evening sun touches the lake with its declining rays, it is the loveliest picture that mortal eyes ever rested upon, lying there in it limpid, placid beauty, its water changing from a pure opaline hue to a warm ruby tint, like Loch Katrine

When in the soft sunlight it lay,

And islands that empurpled bright

Floated amid the livelier light,

And mountains that like giants stand

To keep watch and ward o'er enchanted land.

There is a one-horse hotel at the lake, where travelers are taken in and done for by the proprietress, for she is of the gentler sex, hails from Pennsylvania, wears corkscrew ringlets, and talks philanthropy. She is a female Joey Bagstock -- devilish sly, sir -- and knows a thing or two. After paying their bills at the tavern, the overcharged tourists are like the little boy who was kicked by a mule -- not any prettier, but a thundering sight wiser.

Our jaunt was nearly over; we agreed to spend one more week in the mountains, where there was a good trout fishing, and then disband. So we went to Rappahannock County, which is, I think, the banner county of the Old Dominion. I could write a long letter about this section, but will have to curtail, as I am already too prolix, I am afraid. Did not the limits forbid, I could give you an account of some racy adventures in old Rappahannock; I would tell you how we three comrades were swelled to five by the accession of Sainty Menefee and Major O'Bannon. The major being one of those types of manhood who can shoot, ride, and toss off a beaker to the fairest of his loves, and, like his maternal ancestors in Ould Kilicrankie, he can, like them, sing --

"Faith I'm ashamed of work,

It's a way with all the Bradies,

But bedad, I'd make an inelegant Turk,

For I'm fond of tobacco and the ladies."

But I must put on the brakes to my literary locomotive, only to say that we disbanded after having seen as many adventures in a quiet way as the Argonauts or the immortal Ulysses, who only differed from us in the fact that he defied and conquered Circe, while the witching Circes in this section conquered us, but, I am glad to say, didn't change us into hogs.

The birds -- partridges I mean -- are unusually abundant in Virginia this fall and will afford splendid sport. The best time is from the 25th of this month to about the 10th of December. In this period the birds fly better, are easier found, and do not keep hid in the thickets.

And now, Mr. Editor, in conclusion, let me add that I have a request to make of you. Do, for the sake of suffering sportsmen, give us a receipt for cooking partridges properly. There is nothing that tends to rile a shooter's feelings as to have the birds he has so hardly found and bagged served up to him burned to a crisp, or, worse still, parboiled in water, and having no more taste than leather. Give us a good receipt how to prepare them for breakfast, and the suffering brotherhood of sportsmen can cut it out, paste it in their hats, and show it to the lady of the house as a gentle hint how he wants his birds daintily prepared, so that he can enjoy them, and not say, like the exasperated Frenchman, "By Gar, I gives you one belle joli partridge, and you brings back a moi une dam little peckerwood." CHASSUER.

Alexandria, Va., Oct, 1878.

We can conceive of no daintier dish than a partridge carefully broiled and laid on toast with a sprig of parsley for a garnish. - --ED. F. & S.