Chapter 10. Ugly--Plover, Snipe, And Rabbit Shooting--A Cruise Proposed

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_ CHAPTER TEN. UGLY--PLOVER, SNIPE, AND RABBIT SHOOTING--A CRUISE PROPOSED

Recounting that last event reminds me of a well-beloved character in our cape days--one, too, that was destined to play an important part in our little drama.

Ugly was his name; Trusty Greatheart it should have been.

Ugly was a clipped-eared, setter-tailed, short-legged, long-haired, black-nosed, bright-eyed little mongrel. In limiting his ancestry to no particular aristocratic family, he could prove some of the blood of many. There were evident traces of the water-spaniel, the Skye terrier, and that most beautiful of all the hound family--the beagle.

I do not know what education Ugly may have had in his earlier days, but I believe it to have been limited, though his acquirements were great. I believe him to have been a canine genius. He was as ready on the water as on the land. His feats of diving and swimming were remarkable; and a better rabbit-dog and more sagacious, courageous watchdog never lived. As to the languages, I will acknowledge he could speak none; but he understood English perfectly, and never failed to construe rightly any of Mr Clare's Latin addresses--much better than ever Walter could do. Indeed, Mr Clare's commands to and conversations with Ugly were always in Latin.

Of his rare sagacity and unbounded affection there are proofs to be furnished further on in this narrative.

Harry Higginson and Walter had guns, and they alone of our number were allowed to use them. That exclusion never caused me any regrets, nor do I think it troubled Alfred Higginson, but it was a constant pain to Drake. He loved a gun, and his most golden dream of manhood's happiness was the possession of a good fowling-piece. The prohibition of our parents, however, was so stringent in this particular that poor Drake never sighted along the bright barrels nor even touched the well-oiled stocks but once while we were at the cape.

There they stood, always ready, in a corner of our attic--where Drake, Alf, and I could not touch them, but ready at any time for the pleasure of Walter and Harry.

Walter was an accomplished shot, and Harry was not a bad one. Harry had not had the training of Walter, whom my father had taught--not commencing with stationary objects, but with targets thrown in the air, and small, slow-winged birds as they flitted near the ground. My father had at first made him practise for a long time without caps, powder, or shot, merely in quickly bringing the stock close to the shoulder, and getting the eye directly behind the breech. When proficiency in that had become a mechanical habit, the gun was loaded, and then commenced the practice of shooting at moving objects. As the art of bringing the gun properly to the cheek had been so thoroughly mastered as to require no effort nor attention, Walter could, when an object was thrown up, direct all his care to bringing the muzzle of the piece--the sight-- directly on that object. My father's reason for teaching him first to shoot at flying marks was to prevent the habit of dwelling long on an aim--that habit of following or _poking_ at the bird which ruins good shooting, and prevents the possibility of becoming a good snap shot. And so, afterwards, Drake and I were taught; and boys who are learning to shoot will find, that by remembering and practising the method I have described, instead of commencing by taking long, deliberate aims at stationary objects, they will get ahead surprisingly fast, far outstripping those who learn by the latter way.

In our rambles about the cape, Ugly soon displayed his talent for rabbit-hunting. He would smell where Bunny had been wandering and follow the track until he started Miss Long-ears from her covert, and then the fun began--the rabbit leaping off in frightened haste, running for life, winding and dodging about over the swells of the sparse grass hillocks, while Ugly, mad with excitement, spread his long, low body down to the chase. How the little fellow would put in his nose close to the ground, staunch on the trail as the best-blooded hound, and making the air ring with his sharp but musical bark! I tell you that was fun! Ugly always stuck to his game until he had run it to its burrow. He had not the speed to overtake it.

The summer is not the proper season for rabbit-shooting; so Walter, who was never to be tempted by the best chance of killing game even a day out of season, would not permit either Harry or himself to shoot at the objects of Ugly's furious energy until it was legitimate. That conduct of Walter and Harry was beyond Ugly's comprehension. I have often seen him try to understand it. The chase having ended as usual in a safe burrow, I have noticed Ugly--who, after a very short experience, had learned not to waste his time in vain digging--turn toward us with a waddling, disconsolate trot, and having approached a few rods, stop and sit down to revolve the puzzle over in his mind. He would look where the rabbit had housed himself, then drop his head, cock up an ear, and cast an inquiring glance toward us, as much as to say: "Why, _do_ tell Ugly why you did not shoot that old lap-ears? Ah!" That operation he would repeat several times before rejoining us, and when he had come up he would cock his head first one side and then the other, and look into our faces with most beseeching questioning in those great, keen, brown eyes of his. Then he would hang behind on our way home, evidently greatly distressed at his ignorance.

Never mind, good Ugly! I believe you were fully rewarded for weeks of bewilderment when the time did come for knocking over bunnies.

One afternoon, in returning from one of those rambles, we met our salt tute hurrying towards us in a great state of haste and perspiration. When near enough for his hoarse bass voice to reach us, he hailed--

"Well, there you are, boys, at last! I have been hunting for you all over the cape for the last hour. Ah! Ugly, boy, are you glad to see the old Captain trudging over the rabbit-ground? Eh? shaggy boy! And you have been running the bunnies till you are blown, and your masters would not shoot--eh? Well, no matter; the Captain shall bring his marline-spike along some day, and help you bag them. But, my affectionate pup, do you take a turn in that tail, or you'll wag it off some windy day."

So Ugly sat down--a long, red, wet tongue hanging from the side of his mouth--and whipped the grass between the Captain's boots with that restless tail until we came up.

"Why, Captain Mugford," said Walter, "I did not know you ever wanted _us_."

"No? Well, I do though, just now. You see, boys, as to-morrow will be Saturday, with every prospect of fair weather and a good breeze, I thought we might go on a cruise--start early, get our meals on board, run off to the fishing-grounds, and make a voyage of general exploration. And to do this we must get our traps aboard this evening, and see that everything is in order on board the _Youth_."

"Good! nothing could suit us better, Captain. I'll run to the house with the guns," said Harry, "and we can all go at once off to the _Youth_."

"Mr Clare," continued Captain Mugford, "can't go with us, he says, but must walk over to Q---town and spend the day. That's a pity, for I calculated on having a capital time all together, on a voyage like this one we propose."

"Well, we boys," said Walter, "will ask him this evening to put off his visit. Perhaps he may change his mind."

When Harry returned we went down to our cutter, all in great spirits on account of the fun proposed for the next day.

Getting on board, we mopped and swabbed her out well, overhauled the ropes and sails, and hauled down the pennant to take home with us for Juno to mend where it had frayed out on the point. That work being completed, we went to the house for such provisions as we should want on our excursion. Juno put up a large supply for one day--ground coffee, eggs, biscuit, cold mutton, a cold turkey, and several currant and apple pies, besides butter, salt, etcetera--and Clump conveyed it down to the _Youth_ for us on a wheelbarrow.

The provisions were carefully stowed in the forepeak, and everything being arranged, we appointed Ugly to act as a guard over our craft during the night.

Harry briefly explained it to him. "Look here, Ugly, you are to stay here to-night and look after the things. Of course you are not to come ashore or leave duty for a minute. We shall be down early in the morning. Be ready to receive us with proper ceremonies, for we are off on a cruise, old boatswain, to-morrow. Look, Ugly; I put your supper in this stern locker. Do you see?"

Ugly was at first rather disappointed at the prospect of being separated from us for the night, but as Harry's harangue proceeded and he began to comprehend the honour of the duty required aboard ship, he bristled up and grew as stiff and important as his inches would allow. He turned his nose to watch where the supper was placed, and then walked forward and took a seat on the bow assuming a comical air of "captaincy;" so pantomimic was it that Captain Mugford laughed aloud, and said: "Well done, Ugly; where, my fine fellow, did you learn quarterdeck airs?"

"Good-night, Captain Ugly," we cried, as we pushed for the shore in the punt. "Good-night, boy; can't you say something, Captain Gruff?"

At which address Ugly rose up and, putting his forefeet on the larboard gunwale, barked three loud, clear notes, and we gave three laughing cheers as he returned to his post by the bowsprit.

Before going to bed that night, I went out in the kitchen to put a pair of my shoes to dry, and found Clump and Juno, as usual in the evenings, smoking and dozing over the fire.

Wondering at the amount of comfort these old folk seemed to find in tobacco, I asked Clump why he smoked so much.

"Fur constellation, Massa Bob--fur constellation; dat's ol," he answered.

"Oh, that is it, Clump--consolation, eh? Well, I must get a pipe some time and try it," I said.

"No, Massa Bob," joined in Juno, who was knocking out the ashes from her pipe on the head of the fire-dog--"no, Massa Bob you'se munno 'moke. 'Spects, ef you'se do, you find de way tur constollaton, dat ole Clump talk of, cum tru much tribble-laison--he! he! he!"

I had to laugh at the old woman's wit. As for Clump, he rubbed his shins and "yaw-ha'd" over his wife's speech for five minutes.

As I was going off to bed, Juno called me back in a hesitating way, and said in a low, frightened voice: "Massa Bob, sum-how dis ole woman ees 'feared 'bout ter'morrow. You'se gwine sure?"

"Of course, Juno," I replied. "And what are you afraid of? I would not stay at home for ten pounds."

"Dis chile's sorry--sorry," she continued, "but de Lor' ees my strong 'an my sheel." She was speaking very slowly, and had bent over the fire to rake the ashes together. She went on muttering some more of the Bible texts she always called on in any perplexity, until a new idea flashed to her from some uncovered ember, and she turned quickly, laughing in a low, shrill way, "He! he! he! woy'se ole Juno afeer'd? He! he! he! 'spects it on'y debbil dat has tole lies to dis poor ole nigger when she's 'sleep." _

Read next: Chapter 11. A Memorable Cruise Commences

Read previous: Chapter 9. Big Fishing--A Strange Dissection

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