CHAPTER XXVI

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BEATING OUT THE SKAL.

“Now the hunting train is ready. Hark, away! By dale and height Horns are sounding,—hawks ascending up to Odin’s halls of light. Terror-struck, the wild-wood creatures seek their dens ’mid woods and reeds; While, with spear advanced pursuing, she, the air Valkyria speeds.”

_Frithi of Tegner._

“Hillo, Moodie! what news?” said the Captain; “have a cup of coffee and a—a—chop,” as that individual strode down the pass from the side farthest removed from the skal looking—as, indeed, was very nearly the case—as if he had neither trimmed his beard nor washed his face since the beginning of the campaign.

“Why, the news is, that you had better look out sharp, if you mean to do credit to my recommendation. I had a message from Bjornstjerna last night, that he meant to get the dref in motion an hour before sunrise, so as to beat out, and give the men time to get home before evening; they must have been advancing for these two hours; our people have heard their shouts distinctly enough, and I only wonder we have had no game yet. Capital mutton chops, these,” he added; “who is your butcher?”

“O, we are pretty good foragers,” said the Captain, carelessly, but at the same time casting an anxious glance round the encampment, to see whether there were any tell-tale horns or hoofs lurking about. “Terrible weather yesterday, was not it?”

“Upon my word, it was as much as I could do to keep the men at their posts; I have got one or two skulkers down in the Länsman’s books, but I do not think I can have the conscience to inflict the fine; I had half a mind to skulk myself;—we must do it, though, in justice to the honest fellows who braved the weather. I think the best man I have is a woman; she did more service in shaming the men and keeping them to their duty than a dozen of us. I had occasion to degrade a skalfogde for drunkenness, and I promoted her into the vacancy on the spot. How the men laughed: they call her some Swedish equivalent to the ‘Dashing White Serjeant,’—and I only wish I had a dozen white serjeants instead of one. But what have you done here in the shooting way? I heard a good deal of firing last night from your post; you have made yourselves pretty comfortable, at all events.”

“It is a way we have in the army,” said the Parson. “There is our _spoliarium_, however,” pointing to a group of carcasses that were hanging to the lower branches of a fir,—“one bear, two wolves, five foxes, a lot of hares, and”—here the Captain plucked his sleeve,—“and—that is all, besides a young bear which I killed in the fjeld as I came along.”

“Oh come! that is not so bad; and that bear is a glorious fellow! who killed him?”

“Why, we cannot justly say,” replied the Captain, sheepishly: “the fact is, he made a charge upon the picket, and it took a good many hands to quiet him,—you may see that by the gashes; I am afraid the skin is terribly injured.”

“What a mercenary dog you are; these are honourable scars, which, while they impair the beauty, only enhance the value;—every cut is the memorial of a gallant deed.”

Whether the Captain,—who was vehemently anxious to kill a bear to his own hand, and whose conscience upbraided him bitterly for his last night’s dereliction of duty,—coincided in this sentiment, might be doubted; at all events, he made no attempt to remove the doubt by indiscreet confessions, and was only too glad to shift the subject, lest any untimely observation from his companions or attendants might reveal the true state of the case.

“What have you done yourself?” said he; “I am sure your people must have fired twenty shots for our one; I thought you were having a mock skirmish, at one time.”

“O, those people fire at anything or nothing, just for the sake of making a noise. We have got a good many wolves and foxes, though, and a rascally lynx or two; but we have not been so fortunate as you with the bears; though I am clear we saw two or three during the night. I am sorry to say that there were three or four stags killed, and I do not know what to do about it. There was a herd last night very restless; it had tried our line at several points. I had given strict orders to let them pass, but they always got headed back, somehow,—in fact, the men fired at them, that is the truth of it, and the skalfogdar say they could not prevent them. This morning, as many as three were brought in dead, and I am sure I do not see how I am to identify the men who fired; they were firing all night, and every skalfogde stoutly denies that his party had anything to do with it.”

“Oh! how were the people to distinguish one beast from another in the dark?” said the Captain; “you may be thankful they have not shot one another, and that you have not had three or four peasants brought in this morning, instead of three or four deer.”

“Upon my word, there would have been less said if it had been so. However, I must report it to Bjornstjerna, and leave him to do what he pleases. I strongly suspect my dashing white serjeant of being one of the murderers. Give me another chop,—that mutton of yours is the very best thing I have eaten since we left Gäddebäck,—and then you really must get to your posts; we shall have the dref down upon us before we know where we are. Several hares had been showing themselves, and trying to pass the line before I came up, and they will not do that by daytime, unless they are driven. You had better break up the encampment as soon as you have done breakfast: let Jacob stow everything ready for moving, and then send him off to have the carioles harnessed. The skal will break up before noon, and then there will be such a rush of fellows wanting to get home, that the chances are we shall have a Flemish account of our horses, if we do not look sharp after them now. People are in no ways particular on these occasions; there are so many of them, that it is difficult to fix the blame anywhere, and all roguery goes down to the account of mistake and confusion.”

“Very well,” said the Captain, jumping up and carefully loading the rifle which Tom had just been cleaning from the effects of the night’s dews and rain, while the shot-gun had been doing duty in its place by the Captain’s side,—“then here goes; I am going to the foot of the pass, and shall not want Tom this half hour, so he may help Jacob. Birger is going to the look-out place, and he will not want his man either. What will you do, Parson?”

“Why, I think I will take a turn with Moodie down the hållet, when he goes back to inspect his posts. I shall want Torkel to carry my rifle, as I may not come back here; but your two men will be enough to help Jacob. How are we to carry these great beasts?”

“Oh, that is Bjornstjerna’s business. I dare say he has given orders for a sufficient number of carts, or, at all events, we shall have men enough to carry them when the skal breaks up. These are public property,—you need not trouble yourselves about them; what we have to think about is our own little belongings.”

“Public property!” said the Captain; “I did not bargain for that; I want the skins to hang up in my paternal halls, as trophies of the battle.”

“Then you must buy them,” said Moodie; “there will be an auction up the village as soon as the skal breaks up, and by offering a little more than the market price, you may secure anything that you want. It really is a very fair regulation,” he added, observing a shade of discontent on the Captain’s brow. “You shot them, no doubt; but you could not have got a shot at them at all if it had not been for these people driving them. Properly speaking, they belong to Bjornstjerna, but I understand he has given up his right to the men, if so, they will all be converted into brandy before night-fall, you may be quite sure. However, come along,—that last volley was from the dref, and it sounded quite close.”

Moodie’s path was by no means either easy or safe, for he carefully avoided the straight road which would have led him across the shooting line, and contriving to make a circuit and scramble down the face of the cliff at a small fissure, which lay a quarter of a mile to the north of the pass, he attained the rear of the hållet without disturbing or tainting the ground. It may be observed, that there was no such extreme necessity for all this precaution; but Moodie was, after all, an Englishman, and a hunter of but four years’ standing, and, if he was the least bit in the world a martinet, he was not altogether without excuse,—and really his position was, it must be confessed, very scientifically occupied.

At the time that he and the Parson came on the ground, the hållet was just relieving guard, in order to give the morning watch an opportunity of breakfasting before the general turn out; and the scene was extremely picturesque.

The breakfast was an extempore affair enough, except among those parties who had been so fortunate as to knock a hare on the head, or to secure a joint of what Moodie turned his face away from, and the Captain persisted in calling mutton. A little rye meal, mixed up cold, or in special cases, when kettles could be had, made into stirabout, was very nearly the whole of it. An older commander would have closed his eyes to the sight of brandy, and his nose to the smell of aniseed, but Moodie was young, and faithful to his trust.

Groups of men and women were collected round the fires for cooking, some rubbing up firearms, some snapping and oiling obstinate locks and picking touchholes which the wet had damaged, and drying powder which either would not go off at all or else flashed in the eyes and singed the hair and eyebrows of the operators. Gradually, however, they all began to straggle into their line, for the sounds of the dref were more and more audible, and now and then some scared and crouching beast would show itself on the side of the hill, and after drawing upon itself the fire of all who were within a quarter of mile of it, would shrink timidly back into cover, nine times in ten absolutely unharmed. Now would come, high over head, and altogether free from the chance of shot, a gallant blackcock or a tjäder, who, having run or flitted under cover for miles, had at last taken heart of grace, looked his danger in the face, and dashed across the line with that success which bravery deserves. Hares would from time to time race along the brow, unable to make up their mind which way they would head, and sometimes would draw a fruitless shot or two from a young and over-ardent sportsman, followed by the grave rebuke of his steadier skalfogde.

Meanwhile the Captain had advanced along into the shooting line, and building himself up a screen of branches, where he could fully command the passage, waited patiently for what luck would send him; absolutely despising the smaller game that occasionally stole across the line and sheltered themselves in fancied security in the skalplatz, and not greatly disturbed by the occasional double-shots from Birger’s look-out place on the cliff above, though this was not unfrequently followed by a rattle of the twigs, or a soft _thud_, as his victim came tumbling to the earth.

Birger’s post, indeed, had proved an excellent position for winged game, for the grouse, though by no means plentiful anywhere in Sweden, had been collected from twenty miles of country by the continued driving. Many, of course, had taken wing, and dashing over the heights, had found security in the higher fjeld, or across the river. But the grouse, especially the old cock, is a running bird, and numbers of them had continued toddling away by short and startled runs, a mile or so in advance of the dref, and now, hearing the noises in front as well as in the rear, and beginning to comprehend the precise dangers of their position, were, one after another, taking wing. Many of these followed the line of the cliffs, unwilling, perhaps unable to face them, but coasting their inequalities, and looking out for a lower point; these would come exactly on a level with Birger’s stand, and very seldom passed it unharmed.

All this the Captain left unheeded; his soul was above black game; and, burning to wash away the disgrace of the preceding night, he kept his eye resolutely fixed on the shooting line; something moves—it is a bear—no—a rascally wolf, in that nonchalant style which no amount of danger will induce him to put off, slouches across—not across, for he is worthy of the Captain’s rifle; a shot reaches him, and he rolls over and over to the very foot of the shelter he had sought. Not a stir is heard from the Captain’s screen, and when the little puff of white smoke is dissipated into air, no one would have told where the fatal shot had come from. There goes a real full-grown bear, in downright earnest, and followed by two half-grown cubs, crouching and squatting, and making themselves as small as possible, like so many rabbits stealing out of cover; but confound them, they are three hundred yards down the line, the Captain will not risk wounding or missing them, and they disappear into the trees of the skalplatz to be headed back by the hållet when too late to return.

And now the shouts and cries began to come louder and louder; and the hares, which had lingered as long as possible on the edge of the wood, began to creep, or steal, or race, or bound across the line, and among them several specimens of better game; the men were actually beginning to show themselves here and there in what, from the closing in of the ranks, had now become close order, so that nothing could have passed their line, when a gallant bear, with head erect and mouth open, dashed into the opening at full gallop, and came straight upon the Captain’s hiding-place, as if he knew where his enemy was lying, and meant, at all events, not to die without vengeance.

The Captain fired deliberately,—paused for a moment to see the effect of his shot—then fired his second barrel; both took effect on the broad chest exposed to him, though without checking, for a moment, the rush of the bear. On he came!—the screen went down like reeds before him; but the Captain had thrown himself flat on the ground, and, covered by the branches, had escaped the view of his adversary, who plunged over them, dashed at the opposite cover, and disappeared from view.

“Upon my word, that was a near thing,” said Bjornstjerna, who cantered up to the spot on his pony; “but a miss is as good as a mile,—not that you missed that rascal; I saw both shots strike as plainly as ever I saw anything in my life. Never mind, my boy, you have not lost him; he will not go far, for all his gallant bearing. Larssen!” he shouted, “Larssen! come here and take my pony. We must ride the Apostle’s horse[59] now;” and, leaping off, he proceeded to arrange his army, causing each skalfogde to muster his own men, as they came up, on the edge of the shooting line. Soiled, and wet, and dirty they looked: a Swede is rather a picturesque animal, when you are far enough off not to see his dirt, particularly when there is any general muster of them, for as each parish weaves its own wadmaal, or coarse cloth, and each wears it of a particular colour or pattern, the commencement of a skal looks, at a little distance, like a muster of regular troops, in regular, though rather eccentric uniforms: but the rains, and the dirt, and the mud-stains had reduced this to a very general average,—a sort of forest uniform of neutral tint.

Advantage was taken of the halt to clean and reload the fire-arms, most of which had been rendered useless in the morning’s beat; for though the sun was shining brightly, there had been no wind, and the rain-drops of yesterday were glittering like diamonds on the branches, and pattering down like a shower-bath on all who moved them.

In the mean time, the two chiefs having completed their junction, held a short consultation, and it was determined to advance a strong party from each side, close to the roots of the cliffs, sufficiently numerous to allow each man to touch his neighbour, and then to beat the skalplatz out to the river, which, not being quite so rapid or impassable as was expected, was guarded by the boats.

This involved the abandonment of the Captain’s picket, which reinforced the beating party, the _materiel_ being conveyed, under the superintendence of Jacob, to the travelling-waggon which had been brought as near to the scene of action as the forest roads permitted.

And now began the real dangers of the skal,—the difficulty of restraining the men from firing indiscriminately into the skalplatz, and shooting everything alike,—wolf, hare, fox, or beater.

Fortunately the men were sober, and the officers well aware of the danger. Flags were sent into the forest to mark the advancing line; strict injunctions were given that none should be permitted to advance faster than his neighbours, and a trusty man on the outside of the cover carried a white flag about five yards before the main body of the beaters, followed by an _extempore_ provost marshal, with a party of trusty men, who had orders to tie up and flog on the spot any man who fired at anything whatever in the rear of the flags.

All these arrangements were completed in little more than half-an-hour, and the bugles on both sides rang out the advance. The progress was very slow, not only on account of the necessity of preserving the accurate line, but because the beasts themselves required so much rousing; many of the smaller game, and, on one occasion, even a wolf, absolutely refused to move at all, and was knocked down or speared as it lay. In no case was resistance made by any of the wild beasts, with the single exception of the gallant fox, who, desperate but unsubdued, stood boldly at bay, and bit furiously at everything within its reach, but in vain,—for as the line soon became two or three deep, escape was next to an impossibility. One of the bear cubs, a three-parts grown animal, was dispatched by a blow of a hatchet, and the other was shot in the thick cover, by a man who had almost stepped upon it without seeing it. The Captain’s bear, a full-grown male, did not live ten minutes after it had gained the cover; there was no faltering in its gait or symptom of injury, for no muscle had been cut or bone broken by the shot, and its pluck and energy had carried it on till it fell suffocated by internal bleeding.

And now the shouts rang out from the river-side; the she-bear had taken the water, and was gallantly forcing her way across it at a point rather higher than the boats had expected her. The stream was strong; the boats were at some distance; the Swedes, who were never good at moving-shots, had blazed away when she first dashed into the stream, and there was every chance of her escape, for they are terribly awkward in loading their terribly awkward firearms; the rowers were pulling away for life and death, and the heavy boats were forcing their slow progress against the stream, which was gradually bringing the bear down to them as she swam across it, when a long-shot from Bjornstjerna took effect, she rolled over, recovered herself, struck out again, but was carried down among the boats, secured, and brought to land.

The game was then mustered,—so far, indeed, as it could be recovered, for it was shrewdly suspected by some, that the whole was not forthcoming. There were four full-grown bears and three cubs, seven wolves, two lynxes, three or four badgers, and a queer nondescript animal of the genus _canis_, which they called a filfras; foxes there were in some numbers, and this a much more valuable description of animal than ours; hares were numberless, and also squirrels,—many of both these last species of game, too, had been stewed and eaten on the preceding days. Whether any other description of larger game had been shot, did not appear. Notwithstanding what Moodie had said about the herd of stags, none were paraded at the muster, and as he did not, after all, make any complaint to the Ofwer Jagmästere on the subject, it may be concluded that the whole was a mistake or a dream of his own, and that no such breach of forest law had been committed by any one,—a fact of which the Captain loudly declared his complete conviction.

[Illustration: DEATH OF FEMALE BEAR.

p. 376.]

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