Duck Shooting off the Virginia Capes

CAPEVILLE, Virginia, October, 1880.

DEAR SIR: You asked me last summer to notify you when was the best time for duck shooting off the Capes. From all indications the brant and black ducks will be in heavy force about the 1st of December. If you want good sport make your preparation to come about that time. Cold weather will have set in, and the birds will be young and not shot at. It would be necessary for you and your friend to go aboard a schooner and anchor off near the blinds so that in rough weather you would be on the spot; for if you boarded on the mainland your expenses would be heavy and the shooting not worth the while, to say the least of it, for on windy days the ducks fly up to the decoys and you could not reach the blinds were you on the mainland. There are millions of winter snipe, too, so you had best bring a large supply of No. 10 shot. I cannot promise you luxurious fare, but can give you plenty of good bread, butter, eggs, beef, bacon, oysters, clams, stewed terrapin, ducks, snipe and wild goose. Bring a heavy supply of ammunition, waterproof boots and clothing, and come down on the steamer Northampton on the 3d proximo from Cherrystone, and across the main to Capeville is ten miles. I will have an ambulance waiting for you and your traps. My schooner, well furnished, will be ready, and you can embark at once.

My terms are $4 per day each, I to furnish everything. All game can be expressed to any point you desire. It would be best for you and your friend to make some arrangement with a Baltimore commission house to dispose of your surplus game, for after your friends are remembered you can probably pay all your expenses and have enough funds left over for Christmas. I would expect you to remain at least ten days, as my expenses in getting ready for the trip will be considerable. Very truly yours, MAC.

P. S. -- Bring two breech-loaders with you, as one is apt to get so hot with rapid firing as to necessitate an extra piece; also, your rifle to shoot at long distance at the wild geese. There are acres of them.

M.

NOW, I appeal to every lover of the gun if this letter was not calculated to make any sportsman go off at the half-cock, to make business distasteful for the time and turn his thoughts waking, and his dreams, slumbering, to visions of slaughtering the wild fowl? With such a letter in his pocket a man might be pardoned for ignoring "the partner of his bussom and the sweet offsprings of mutual affection," as Mr. Micawber pathetically expresses it, and let his gaze wander lovingly and longingly at his pet breech-loader that sits so solitary and alone in the corner.

Dark hints are made in the family circle of failing health and failing appetite, glowing descriptions of successful duck-hunts in the FOREST AND STREAM, from the pens of enthusiastic Nimrods, are read aloud and, like a skillful engineer preparing the approaches for the erection of his batteries, so the shootist breaks ground for his intended departure -- and then it becomes known that he is about to leave on a great duck-killing trip. Like Hector preparing for a foray upon the Grecian host, he is surrounded by admiring friends, the warriors help him to arm-buckler, casque, javelin; the fair Trojans give him helpful words and smiles And, like the favorite son of Priam, as he goes out to slay and conquer, he deals in liberal promises, not like Hector, though, in giving this one a love-lock from Paris' brow, that a golden gorget from Belus' shield, or the gilt eagle that adorns the top of the Thracian standards; instead, he pledges his solemn word to forward hampers of game to every acquaintance, a pledge, if carried out, would load down every steamboat on the Chesapeake Bay. But in the midst of all this exultant preparation comes the boding voice of some Cassandra in breeches, who croaks of bad luck, of wild shooting, of stormy days, of bitter, biting weather, of colds, rheumatism and neuralgia, of false, fleeting and perjured guides, that make the word of promise to the ear only to break it to the hope.

But who ever heeds the warning voice when bent on an enterprise, whether it is of conscience, of our creditors or of our friends? -- Allah bakalum! What is to be shall be, and so we and our friend James Fox, of Richmond, a direct descendent, by the way, of the famous Charles James of King George's time, proceeded to lay in our stock of ammunition. Just here, by the way of digression, I would like to ask my fellow-sportsmen why there is always such a wide difference between the estimated and actual expense of fitting out for a hunting expedition? It seems a very simple and inexpensive affair -- powder and shot don't cost much. A mere bagatelle, not worth a moment's consideration, says the huntsman, as he stuffs his roll of notes in his watch-pocket, those same promises to pay being the expenses of the round trip. A mere nothing, is it? -- not worth a thought? Well, reflection comes when buying a ticket to your destination -- where is the money? Surely some of it is lost! You search in each pocket, knot your brow and then, after a moment of brown study, a new light breaks upon your bewildered mind. Your paraphernalia -- that your gunmaker has beguiled you into purchasing -- is about ten times more than you dreamed of, and as you think of your bank account and supply yourself with blank checks you register a mental vow to be more cautious in future. Everybody cuts the suit according to the cloth, but a sportsman never does.

Fox and myself compared notes. The expenses were already as much as the whole trip ought to have cost, and we had not even left Richmond. But when a man finds himself in that position called "in for a penny in for a pound": he gets as reckless as a poker player who sees a heavy blind on a bob tail flush.

Thursday evening we left the capital city for Norfolk, taking as a lesser of the two evils the all-rail route via Petersburg. The fare is more than by the steamer Ariel, but no man who ever traveled once on that old ice-box that bears the name of Prospero's sprite would ever knowingly or willingly take passage on her again. Gentlemen sportsmen who love their comfort, their dogs and their guns, I warn against this ancient arctic hulk that plies between Richmond and Norfolk. Mark Twain's canal boat is a palace steamer in comparison. Come to think of it, the New York steamers that leave on irregular days or at high water are the only decent modes of communication between the two cities. On the Ariel you and your dogs will be treated like tramps or vagrant rouxtabouls, on the latter everything that can be done to make the passenger comfortable is carefully undertaken by the officers of the Old Dominion Steamship Company. This is not a puff, for I don't know any of them, I only write in the interest of my fellow friends of the gun, and noblesse oblige is nowhere stronger than among the votaries of the field, forest and stream.

From Norfolk the route to the capes and to Cobb's Island is to Cherrystone, thence by land across the peninsula.

Leaving the wharf at seven o'clock in the morning we reached Cherrystone by noon. This place is a little village situated on an inlet that runs into the Chesapeake Bay, but a few hundred yards distant. This same small hamlet, obscure as it is, has yet a name as much of a household word in America as Waterloo or Gretna Green in Britain, for it is here that the finest bivalves in the world are grown. The Cherrystone oyster is a thing of joy and delight to every epicure and gourmand in the country. They sell at $4 and $5 a barrel, and the demand exceeds the supply tenfold. But few reach the public as private clubs, and customers generally contract with the oystermen for all they can gather.

Stopping at Cherrystone only long enough to load our traps and an attempt to dispose of a dozen on the half shell, a feat beyond our gastronomic capacities with these mammoth bivalves, fifteen miles brought us to the coast. Mac and the sloop awaited us, and in a few moments everything was, to use a nautical phrase, "snug and ship shape." Then we began to take in the surroundings. Our cabin was fearfully limited in space; like Captain Dick's apartment, it was so small that you couldn't swing a cat in it without hurting the cat; only a dwarf could stand upright, in fact, a big dry-goods' box is the best simile I can think of. A miniature stove sat in the centre; on each side were the bunks, and such sleeping accommodations! Not longer nor wider than a coffin, once in you were wedged tight, indeed, our Joe who has big feet could not turn over without getting out of bed. Our crew consisted of the guide, an ordinary looking man, and his mate Joe. Now Joe was a character that Hogarth or Felix Darley would have loved to have limned and Dickens to have made one of his character sketches of. He was nearly seven feet high, but a constant life in the low-roofed cabin had so bent his body that he always walked, even in the open air, as if he had lost something and was looking on the ground for it. Joe confessed to be but thirty-eight years old, but he looked fifty, the heat of the stove that he was continually roasting over, for Joe was the cook of this craft, had seamed and lined his features, until he looked as if old Father Time himself had set his sign and seal upon him. Joe's face was a study. In profile it was a half moon, with a nose in its centre that Julius Caesar would have been proud of; a huge nose indeed that sounded like a fog horn when Joe blew it with his fingers, which he always did. Underneath was a mouth that wise Dame Nature had made when she took in consideration the long, flexible body that had to be filled -- for the larger the hold the bigger the hatchway. It was a mouth equal to the one that little Red Ridinghood saw when the supposed grandmother popped her head out of her bedclothes. Joe's ears opened wide like a retriever on a dead stand, and his head was surmounted with the thickest, bushiest shock of hair ever seen. Joe was, albeit, not the glass of fashion or the mold of form, yet has that sterling honesty, simple mindedness and perfect good nature which are better than outward show. If Joe had one fault it was that of Uncle Toby, and Heaven would forgive him, for he means nothing by his oaths.

Shortly after our arrival night set in, the solitary lamp was lit and by its dim light Joe proceeded to get supper. The little stove grew red hot, and the hatchway had to be opened. Coffee was boiled, meat fried and bread cooked, and the long ride giving us an appetite we crouched down and made a hearty meal, then a walk on deck with our cigars to give the guides time and place to eat their supper.

It was a beautiful night, calm, clear and mild; the broad firmament gemmed, as Hamlet has it, with its golden fire; the air, laden with salt, is fragrant to the lungs; the bay reflects back the myriad stars. Across the way is seen the gleaming white light of Cape Charles, that every forty seconds revolves and flashes a broad pathway across the still, calm waters. It is such a night as Nature seemed to have robed herself in a costume of spectral white, and charmed all with her weird, enthralling loveliness. To descend from the stars down in the little cuddy hole is a descent indeed. But it is getting late, and we must be off by day to-morrow. So we make preparations for retiring, which consist in taking off our boots and wrapping up in an old dirty coverlet that was grimed with dirt and smelled -- Jupiter, how it did smell! After having tucked us in the guides placed a sail-cloth on the floor, and Joe, doubling up his legs, spread a blanket over him and Mac, blew the light out, and then snores -- one a tenor and Joe's deep bass -- soon showed that slumber had weighed their tired eyelids down. Not so with us, the close imprisoned condition we were lying in, the hard planks with no pallet kept us awake. Hours passed on, and "sleep -- balmy sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care" -- was not for us. It was pitch dark. The swishing of the water against the oaken bottom, not two inches from our bodies, kept our senses painfully on the alert. The noisome, mouldy perfume of the bed clothes, the varied smells of lamp oil, stale cooking, old clothes, all combined made a horrible mephitic odor that arose in heavy exhalation and could find no vent, for the door of the cabin was closed tight. To my comrade, all unused to rough it, and a perfect Sybarite, the situation was torture.

Dawn came at last -- a bright morning -- but we did not get under weigh until near noon. And then slowly making our way along under a ripple of wind came to anchor off Smith Island, some ten miles from Cobb's, and about a mile from the mouth of the Chesapeake. A southwest wind now arising, we went to the blinds, placed out the decoys -- but it was a bad day, and the ducks did not fly. Though we sat there until dusk only four brant rewarded our efforts. That night we rested better, as our noses grew more accustomed to the confined air of the cabin. The second day it rained, and we took a tramp on the island -- only getting wet and mad for our pains. The third we were out only two hours, and killed only one little deadapper. The morning of the fourth was chiefly spent in trying to get warm -- or rather Mac said it was too cold for ducks -- and we doubled up, waiting for the wind to moderate; but it still keeping up we insisted on going to our blind. Phew! it was cold. The wind cut like a knife, and blew so hard that the waves were capped with foam. Still, we did not suffer. Each of us had on two pair of drawers, two pair of pants, and a pair of canvas breeches over them. Our bodies were covered with three woolen shirts, vests, coat and oilcloth. Three pair of yarn socks, over which our rubber boots were drawn, kept our feet comfortable -- only our faces were blinded with tears when we faced the breeze. The decoys were put out, and we took our position in a small boat inside of the blind, which consisted of cedar bushes stuck in the mud. Mac and his large boat went to a blind some half a mile distant where he concealed himself. It was low water, and the bars around us were covered with snipe in numberless quantities; but we kept quiet, though we were sorely tempted to shoot. The wind was now rapidly rising, and at last a regular nor'wester was whistling around us. The tide was on the flood and rushing like a mill-race, and soon the brant, the gamest bird that flies, commenced to move. Here come four in one bunch. We fire, and three fall dead, the other dropping in the waves a couple of hundred yards away. Hardly had we slipped fresh cartridges in when a large flock was seen heading directly for our decoys. We crouched low and waited for them, and every few seconds our guns speak out. The sport was glorious and exciting, but it soon came to an abrupt conclusion -- the stiff nor'wester was now changed into a gale, and it howled as if so many demons of the deep were unloosed. Just at this time McKown passed by, luffed and ran alongside of us. He cried out:

"Jump on board." We did so, and left our boat adrift.

"Why don't you get the boat and the decoys?" said Fox.

"The wind is too stiff," said McKoun, who was undoubtedly scared and thought of nothing but safety. "It's blowing so that I won't try and reach the sloop, but will have to make a run for Smith Island." So saying, he placed her head before the wind and in a few minutes the boat's head struck upon the sand.

Now, neither Fox nor myself were sailors, but we had common sense enough to know that Mac was so timid that even a breeze made him look longingly at the nearest land. He lived in perpetual fear of storms, hurricanes and cyclones. He was always in expectation that the wind was going to bust into an everlasting tempest, and that he would be, like old Mrs. Gummige's son, drown dead. And we knew there was no real necessity for running into shore at a time when the ducks were just sailing around the decoys. "Four days gone," significantly said Fox, holding up his fingers of one hand, "at $8 a day -- and no ducks."

The keeper of the St. Charles Lighthouse received us most kindly and hospitably. He is an educated gentleman, having taken his degree of A. M. at the University of Virginia. Though surrounded by his wife and children his is an inexpressibly lonesome and dreary life. The days seem like weeks, the months like years, the time drags on with leaden heels, and the monotony is well nigh unendurable. Truly could he exclaim with Alexander Selkirk on his lonely Island,

"Oh solitude where are the charms

That sages have seen in thy face."

The eternal sameness and utter isolation from all mankind is hard to bear, for man is a sociable animal and needs company. It must have been such a place as this that caused the plaint in Locksley Hall

"The weary waste of waters,

The barren, barren shore."

The next day, instead of being up and early at the ducks, it found Mac toasting his shins at the fire, and as it was near sunset before we were in the blinds, and in the meantime the wind had gone down, the result was nary a duck. "Another day gone," said Fox. Out of temper we pulled back to the sloop, and found that Joe had fulfilled, as he always did, his contract, and had a hot supper awaiting us. After the meal over our pipes we listened to Mac's vivid description of what he was going to do. Fox and myself glanced meaningly at each other, while Joe sat half enveloped in a cloud of smoke that poured from his mouth, his whole attitude expressing a perfect content, that it was none of his funeral as he wasn't after ducks.

"Joe," said my friend, "are you fond of gunning?"

Joe grunted out a negative.

"Why?"

"Cause I most killed myself once, got nuff of guns to last me."

"How did you do that?"

"Well, it happened some years ago when I was a boy. The old man had an old ducking gun of No. 4 I believe, that always sat in the corner in the passage. He told me he'd thrash thunder outer me if I ever totched it, so I dassent handle it. One day a large hawk come and sit on the barn and I runs and grabs the piece meaning to shoot her anyway, thrashing or no thrashing. I crept behind the corn-house and peeped around the corner, and there sat the hawk a waiting for a chicken. I tried to draw back the hammer, but it was rusty and I couldn't so I drops on my knees and puts the butt of the gun against the pit of my stomach and pulled. I had nearly got it cocked when the hammer slipped out of my fingers and it went off. At fust I never knew what happened; then I thought that Mose, the brindled bull, had butt me, or that Sally, our old blind mule, had plugged me; the marm come running out screaming that I was killed, and the old man -- " here Joe stopped to fill his pipe.

"Well, Joe, what did he do? Did he scream too?"

"Scream!" said Joe with scorn in his voice, "he wasn't that kind. No; he picked up the old piece, carried it in the house and walked off to the woods and by the time that marm had got the cramp out of my stomach he came back with a hickory sapling and just tanned the hide ofen me."

After an early breakfast we remained in the blinds during the flood tide, and had a spurt of good luck, but the wind was not high enough, so we returned to the sloop early and passed the rest of the day after the guides' fashion -- in the cuddy hole over the stove. "Another day wasted" I remarked.

"Yes;" said my comrade; "I am getting tired of being imposed on. Here we are paying four dollars apiece and we don't get two hours' shooting a day, and it is fine fun for Mac to doze over the fire all the time and play us off with what he is going to do. Here are millions of snipe within pistol shot of the boat, and he hasn't even deigned to carry us to shoot them. I'm going back home to-morrow."

"Yes," I replied, "the whole trip, is a fraud and I will go back too."

That night we notified the guide of our determination, and he promised to carry us to the blinds at daybreak, hail, rain, wind or sunshine.

"How's the weather Joe?" said Fox, poking his head out of the bunk as the gray dawn came stealing in the pane of glass that constituted the window.

"I don't know, but I will see," assured Joe as he unconsciously paraphrased the words of the game that children and even grown people are fond of indulging in called "The Shaking Quaker." So, yawning like Mount Aetna, Joe arose up and almost burst his skull against the low ceiling.

"Durn me for a fool," said Joe (sotto voce) "that's five hundred times I have done that; 'pears to me I never will learn sense. Wish my blasted head was off, anyhow."

"Raining like blazes," he shouted, after taking a survey of the weather through the cabin door.

So we remained in our shelves, watching the breakfast being gotten ready. Joe could scare one up in ten minutes when he was in a hurry, but this morning he took his time leisurely, and had a real artistic meal set before us. "I never have no appetite noway when I have to cook," said Joe, and then he sits down and eats enough to make a half a dozen men ill with indigestion.

Noon by our watches and still the rain came down with one of those steady pours that looked as if it meant business and did not intend to leave off. Cramped, cribbed and confined as we were in the cabin, we were glad to put on our waterproofs and take a trip on Shell Island. A tramp of a couple of miles showed us nothing, and so we returned out of sorts and disgusted back to the sloop.

"Another day gone and nothing to show for it," said Fox.

The next morning it was blowing great guns, and the ducks flew beautifully, but our guide Mac curled himself in the bunk, with a congestive chill, as he said; I and my comrade smoked our pipes in wrathful silence.

Both Fox and myself had enough of this, and we insisted on returning home. So Captain Joe commenced to raise the anchor; then by our assistance the sails were spread, and then Mac coming out of the cabin, seized the tiller and steered. All went well until the sloop turned sharp to the right, up a bend in the river, where she ran right in the teeth of the gale. She could make no headway, so the anchor was dropped and the sails were reefed. Then she kept on her course; the wind shrieked, the cordage rattled, the sails flapped, the masts creaked, and the sloop, with the blast on the larboard side, cut through the water with the speed of a racehorse The waves swept the decks clear; the water-casks went first, then all Joe's wood, next Mac's decoys, my hat blew off, and it was the biggest kind of a time. Inside of the cabin there was the devil to play; the boat careened so that the stove slipped aside and broke the pipe off, and the cabin was filled with a dense smoke. Then could be heard the crash of glass as the lamp slid off the shelf, the crockery clattered, the knives jingled, the pans rattled, and it seemed as if the last hour was at hand. Fox and myself stood in the cabin with our heads out of the door. Joe clung to the anchor chains forward, while Mac steered the boat by means of a rope hitched around the tiller. The water was rapidly shoaling now, but the wind still beat the waves up high and bellied out the canvas to its fullest extent. Mac clung like grim death to the rope. All at once the line slipped off of the end of the helm, and the holder disappeared from view into the bubbling tide beneath.

"And is he gone? Oh, sudden solitude,

How oft that fearful question will intrude!

'Twas but an instant passed and there he stood,

And now -- "

"Save me, for God's sake!" came a cry from the stern. We looked over, and there swung Mac, the other end of the rope being tied fast. "Save me!" cried the pallid lips; "save me!" uttered the imploring eye, and more dead than alive we hauled him aboard. Scared? No, sir. He was only a little demoralized; he hadn't touched bottom all the time, but hung suspended by the rope. The water was only two feet deep and the keel had sunk deep in the mud.

"Thank Heaven! I've escaped from a watery grave," he cried as he reached the deck.

"Dog gone it," said Joe, "he mout have waded in shore; the water ain't 'bove his boot-tops.'"

And so the trip ended, and we left him wiser, poorer and as Artemus Ward has it, sadderer men. Yet we were safe; not the ill luck of Canon Kingley's "Three Fishers" was ours, only --

"Two sportsmen went out in a ducking sloop,

In a ducking sloop as the tide went down;

They came back safe but thoroughly scooped

Of the cash they had by Kenneth MacKown.

But the guides must live and hunters must pay

When they go ducking near Chesapeake Bay;

And the guides do nothing when they charge by the day

But to anchor by the bar that's moaning."

CHASSEUR.