Warwick Woodlands | Page 7

while the
other was more gaily decorated by the well furnished bar, in the

right-hand angle of which my eye detected in an instant a handsome
nine pound double barrel, an old six foot Queen Ann's tower-musket,
and a long smooth-bored rifle; and last, not least, outstretched at easy
length upon the counter of his bar, to the left-hand of the gang-way--the
right side being more suitably decorated with tumblers, and decanters
of strange compounds--supine, with fair round belly towering upward,
and head voluptuously pillowed on a heap of wagon cushions--lay in
his glory--but no! hold!--the end of a chapter is no place to
introduce--Tom Draw!* [*It is almost a painful task to read over and
revise this chapter. The "twenty years ago" is too keenly visible to the
mind's eye in every line. Of the persons mentioned in its pages, more
than one have passed away from our world forever; and even the
natural features of rock, wood, and river, in other countries so vastly
more enduring than their perishable owners, have been so much altered
by the march of improvement, Heaven save the mark! that the traveler
up the Erie railroad, will certainly not recognize in the description of
the vale of Ramapo, the hill-sides all denuded of their leafy honors, the
bright streams dammed by unsightly mounds and changed into foul
stagnant pools, the snug country tavern deserted for a huge hideous
barn-like depot, and all the lovely sights and sweet harmonies of nature
defaced and drowned by the deformities consequent on a railroad, by
the disgusting roar and screech of the steam-engine. One word to the
wise! Let no man be deluded by the following pages, into the setting
forth for Warwick now in search of sporting. These things are strictly
as they were twenty years ago! Mr. Seward, in his zeal for the
improvement of Chatauque and Cattaraugus, has certainly destroyed
the cock-shooting of Orange county. A sportsman's benison to him
therefor.]
DAY THE THE SECOND
Much as I had heard of Tom Draw, I was I must confess, taken
altogether aback when I, for the first time, set eyes upon him. I had
heard Harry Archer talk of him fifty times as a crack shot; as a top
sawyer at a long day's fag; as the man of all others he would choose as
his mate, if he were to shoot a match, two against two--what then was
my astonishment at beholding this worthy, as he reared himself slowly

from his recumbent position? It is true, I had heard his sobriquet, "Fat
Tom," but, Heaven and Earth! such a mass of beef and brandy as stood
before me, I had never even dreamt of. About five feet six inches at the
very utmost in the perpendicular, by six or--"by'r lady"--nearer seven in
circumference, weighing, at the least computation, two hundred and
fifty pounds, with a broad jolly face, its every feature--well-formed and
handsome, rather than otherwise--mantling with an expression of the
most perfect excellence of heart and temper, and overshadowed by a
vast mass of brown hair, sprinkled pretty well with gray!--Down he
plumped from the counter with a thud that made the whole floor shake,
and with a hand outstretched, that might have done for a Goliah, out he
strode to meet us.
"Why, hulloa! hulloa! Mr. Archer," shaking his hand till I thought he
would have dragged the arm clean out of the socket--"How be you, boy?
How be you?" "Right well, Tom, can't you see? Why confound you,
you've grown twenty pound heavier since July!--but here, I'm losing all
my manners!--this is Frank Forester, whom you have heard me talk
about so often! He dropped down here out of the moon, Tom, I believe!
at least I thought about as much of seeing the man in the moon, as of
meeting him in this wooden country--but here he is, as you see, come
all the way to take a look at the natives. And so, you see, as you're
about the greatest curiosity I know of in these parts, I brought him
straight up here to take a peep! Look at him, Frank--look at him well!
Now, did you ever see, in all your life, so extraordinary an old
devil?--and yet, Frank, which no man could possibly believe, the old fat
animal has some good points about him--he can walk some! shoot, as
he says, first best! and drink--good Lord, how he can drink!"
"And that reminds me," exclaimed Tom, who with a ludicrous mixture
of pleasure, bashfulness, and mock anger, had been listening to what he
evidently deemed a high encomium; "that we hav'nt drinked yet; have
you quit drink, Archer, since I was to York? What'll you take, Mr.
Forester? Gin? yes, I have got some prime gin! You never sent