better, for sometimes a great alarm, such as the rush of a barking dog towards a flock, will act upon it in a paralysing or stupefying fashion. Indeed, many turkey-hunters, the Captain included, kept a small dog trained to run in and bark after the shot for the purpose of scattering the birds. The Captain's "tuckey-dawg," as he called it, was a singular looking animal, being what was generally known in Virginia as a "fyce," and the term, which, we think, is Elizabethan English, was applied in the South to every species of small dog indiscriminately. The Captain's fyce was of a yellow shade, with the head of a fox, the curly tail of a squirrel, and the legs of a turnspit. He would, in short, have been locally described as "a bench-legged fyce." His chief mission was to tree squirrels, and to bark up the trunk till the Captain with his long small-bore Kentucky rifle arrived upon the scene. this great sportsman took sometimes what he called "a spell of squ'rl hunt'n'," the large gray squirrel being a popular luxury on the tables of the Virginia country folk.

For

We used to start generally about sunrise on those glorious autumn mornings. So far as our own feelings were concerned there was none of the gravity and responsibility of a cam paign against the partridges. We were out to enjoy ourselves in an irresponsible fashion, to revel in the gorgeous colouring of the woodlands, to drink in the fresh, balmy, resinous air of early autumn, and take any bit of luck that came with thankfulness. But the Captain, we need not say, was very serious indeed on such occasions. We can see him now climbing stealthily up the broken surface of the rudely cultivated or abandoned fields that stretched up to the edge of the forests clothing the ridge and summit of the mountain,

his keen and experienced eye searching everywhere for some faint print on the red clay or black loam that tells of the recent wanderings of the gang and the direction in which their footsteps have been bent. It is not, however, till we enter the forest above the highest line of cultivation that the time arrives for absolute silence and the extremity of caution. There is up here little underbrush or covert in which birds might be taken unawares, for the tall gray trunks of chestnut, oak, and poplar shoot up from a smooth carpet of dead leaves, while far above our heads, broken here and there with patches of bright blue sky, hangs the now motionless canopy of leaves, one gorgeous blaze of scarlet and gold. Slowly and cautiously, about a hundred yards apart, we steal along between the tree-trunks, up the long ridge of the mountain which, dipping slightly here and there in its ascent, gives a possible chance of coming unawares upon the turkeys in some hollow or beneath some ridge. The Captain

has his celebrated gun loaded with heaven knows what, for to-day he carries his shot in a medicine-bottle and his powder in a mustard-tin, the well-worn flasks, as very often happens, being laid up for repairs; and the fyce dog, with its bushy tail curled over its back, prowls along behind him.

We are already very high up in the world, and the silence of the Indian summer in these lofty forests is intense. The bark of a squirrel, or the hoarse call of a crow, seems to make the whole air tremble. Far away below us lies the manycoloured rolling plain of old Virginia, basking in the sun with its red fallows and now golden forests and dark splashes of pine wood. The white gleam of a homestead shows here and there, while a score of

scattered smoke-wreaths mark the

site of tobacco-barns where the newlygathered leaves are slowly curing. A faint gray outline rolls along the western horizon; it is the Blue Ridge, the first outwork of the Alleghanies. The song of a ploughman, the bark of a dog, the thud of an axe come up faintly from far below us; but where we are walking the mere snapping of a twig makes a noise like a pistol, and has at all hazards to be avoided if we would hope to keep on good terms with the Captain and catch, perchance, the wary turkey napping below yonder ridge. There is little other game or even bird-life in these silent altitudes. The woodpecker taps as if he revelled in the noise he made; the gray squirrel, safe to-day at any rate from the Captain, leaps from tree to tree or scuttles up the hoary trunks; Brer Rabbit (for this, it must be remembered, is the land of Uncle Remus) is much too sociable to mount so high above civilisation, though his old friend, the fox, now and again on these occasions steals across one's vision. It is just pos

sible too that a brood of ruffed grouse, rare though the bird is east of the Alleghanies, and almost as shy as the turkey itself, might haunt these wooded hill-tops. But should one of these grand birds, by some strange freak, get up under the very muzzle of your gun, refrain, as you value the Captain's alliance, from yielding to temptation; for so far as turkeys are concerned, a shot in these silent, echoing woods would most certainly ruin everything for the day, or at least for the morning. It is well too to keep an eye upon the leaves over which you are carefully treading. For the Captain at any

rate would notice in a moment the slightest disturbance of their surface, and can tell at once whether it is the work of turkeys, and almost

estimate the length of time it is since they were scratching among them.

Suddenly from just beyond the ridge, a hundred yards or so to the left, a sound like an explosion of dynamite seems to shake the whole mountain. The Captain has fired off his gun, and he never fires at anything less than a turkey on these occasions. A hasty flank movement of a few yards brings us in view of the situation, and a sound as of heavy wings flapping follows the concussion of the

The fyce dog, with tail well curled over his back, is charging along and yelping in a state of great excitement. ment. The Captain is reloading his piece from the medicine-bottle and the mustard-tin, with a sheet of the county paper for wadding; it is perhaps needless to remark that his left barrel remains at full cock during the operation.

The whole gang have risen, it appears, at long range from behind some old panels of a boundary fence. The Captain fired, it seems, with a view to scatter the birds, though he declares he crippled one. It may be added that he has never yet been known to admit missing anything clean; and indeed, "the Captain's cripples" have passed as an expression into the local phraseology.

And now comes the really serious part of the whole day's proceedings. The birds are thought to have been at any rate partially scattered, thanks to the noisy efforts of the bench-legged fyce well supported by the Captain's artillery, and also to the fact of their having been taken unawares. It now only remains to select a favourable position upon the ridge where we can both shelter ourselves from view and at the same time command all the likely approaches. A great chestnut trunk, fallen prone and dead these three or four years, favours our design

and offers an excellent ambuscade; sitting down behind it we possess our souls in patience for a time and discuss the situation in a low tone. Then in the fulness of time the Captain prepares to play upon his little pipe, and with lips compressed and cheeks distended the performance commences. Tuk, tuk, tuk, tuktuk! But the only answer comes from some solitary hoarse-voiced crow, or the rat-tat-tat of a woodpecker; and in the pauses between the Captain's efforts the silence is only broken by the dropping of acorns and chestnuts round us or the light scrape of a squirrel on the leaves. It may be a long time before our companion's industrious and careful piping is rewarded, or it may indeed be, as the song says, for ever. In this case,

however, response comes at last to proclaim that one, at any rate, of the scattered birds is moving on the slope of the mountain below us.

Now the exciting period begins; we cease to speak even in whispers; the fyce dog lies low and, cocking his short ears, watches wistfully the rugged hairy face of his master, which is certainly something of a study, as he holds. treacherous converse with his unsuspecting victim. These, as may be imagined, are far the most serious moments of the Captain's life. A false note might mean ruin, and it is evident from the answers that another bird has now joined the first one; we no longer dare show our noses even above the log, and can judge of the bird's approach only by their answering notes. In ten minutes or so the tuk, tuk, gets very near; the birds must be almost within shot. The Captain's veins fairly swell, and the perspiration stands out on his forehead with the responsibility of piping correctly at so short a distance. We

can now hear their feet actually treading on the dry leaves, and it occurs to us how disastrous were a sneeze at this moment. The turkeys are now beyond a doubt within easy shot. The Captain is to give the signal for action, and he grasps firmly his big gun, with five drachms of powder in each barrel if there's a grain this time, we'll warrant. It is not a pleasant gun to be at close quarters with, and for our own part we do not like it. "Now!" says the chief, and at the word we both spring into a kneeling position above the log. A couple of big gobblers fill our horizon. They have just time to lift their heavy wings. The Captain does not take our bird this time: it is too serious an occasion; and we fire simultaneously.

We have a feeling that the drum of our ear is broken, and our head sings like a tea-kettle. A cloud of smoke hangs like a pall over everything for a second or two, for the Captain not only uses black powder in such large doses, but buys it at the country store. Both birds are dead of course; nothing but the equivalent of "buck fever," and we are neither of us likely to suffer from that, could produce any other result. The Captain has fallen back on his elbow for the moment; most people would be flat on their back from such a shock. "Dorgonne it, that ar blamed nipple has blowed off again!" And so it had. Still no one is hurt, except the turkeys, and we go home rejoicing under the weight of our somewhat heavy spoils; while we seriously turn over in our mind whether it would not be worth while for the Captain's friends to raise a fund among themselves for providing him with a gun that would stand his " loads," and be less of a trial to his shooting-partners.

THE mercenary fighting-man is a person who seldom receives his due reward during his lifetime or his just meed of fame after his death. The character is one so alien to the age in which we live, it belongs so entirely to the days when fighting was the only occupation for a gentleman, that it has forfeited alike our study and our sympathy. Volunteers we understand, but mercenaries we do not. The world apparently has grown to think that fighting as a profession, the bare trade of arms unconsecrated by any sentiment of cause or country— is not a noble thing, and should not, however ably and gallantly followed, be adjudged the highest praise.

In

Possibly the world is right; but we suspect that change of system in the training of fighting men has had far more influence than mere abstract humanity in creating this opinion. In these days of short service and swift wars the old type of professional fighting man has become extinct. every country the recruit is forced through a soldier's education at high pressure, and returned to civil life as speedily as possible, that he may earn money to pay for the education of others. No man, unless he be an officer, devotes his whole lifetime to the military calling, and consequently the few mercenaries (the name is too ignoble for them) who are known to us in these later times are without exception officers, Gordon, for instance, Valentine Baker, and Hobart. It was not so of old, when the rule was once a soldier always a soldier, and the only school was war. Then few men dreamed of rising to command

except through the ranks, and many gentlemen preferred to stay all their lives in the ranks, or at highest to carry the ensigns of their companies. Veteran soldiers were worth their weight in gold, and though by no means innocent of rapacity, followed their calling from sheer devotion to it, and thought themselves unlucky if they died in their beds.

wrong in its wrong because larger part in

But the world is neglect of mercenaries, they have played a far the world's history than is ever ascribed to them. One famous corps is indeed remembered; the Ten Thousand that marched to Cunaxa with Cyrus and back again with Xenophon. Few mercenaries exercised a much smaller influence on history than these, but then they had the good fortune to have a great historian among them. Yet what a change had there been in the history of Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but for the thousands of English and Scotch mercenaries who fought under Maurice of Nassau and Gustavus Adolphus; what a change in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries without the Swiss, the Landsknechts, and the Reiters; what a change in the fourteenth without the English who served with John Hawkwood! But these mercenaries had no Xenophon to turn their actions into living history and hence they are but ill remembered. The greatest general of the fourteenth century was an Englishman whose name is unfamiliar to most Englishmen; if we can recall him to remembrance for a fugitive month we shall have done good work.

It is but vague information that we can gather as to John Hawkwood's youth. He was born in the reign of King Edward the Second, about the year 1320, at Sybil Hedingham in Essex; the second son of one Gilbert Hawkwood, a tanner. He inherited at his father's death twenty pounds and a hundred shillings (solidi), and sought his fortune, as became a spirited young gentleman, in the French wars. It is tolerably certain that he fought both at Crecy and Poitiers, and that he was one of the many Englishmen who, when the peace of Brétigny threw them out of legitimate employment, resolved to carry on war on their own account, and organised themselves into companies for that purpose. He must have distinguished himself early, for from the first he appears to have been elected to command the company to which he belonged. The number of these bands, composed as they were of men of all nations, and the scourge that they laid upon France, form the burden of many a lamentation in the old French Chronicles. They roved about plundering, burning, and levying blackmail at their own sweet will; nor was there in the disorganised state of the country any chance of putting them down, for, ruffians though most of them were, they were experienced soldiers and fought like devils.

A certain number were at length taken away by Bertrand du Guesclin to fight against Pedro the Cruel in Spain, but Hawkwood's company was not of these.

He stayed in France, and made a terrible name by desolating Champagne and Burgundy, and finally passing swiftly down the Rhone he appeared before Avignon and threatened the Pope himself. In vain the Holy Father offered indulgences to all who would go on a crusade, and shook all the terrors of bell, book, and candle

There, however, Hawkwood for some reason left them and returned to France, where we find him in high command at the battle of Brignais in April, 1362. The marauding companies had been at their old work in the district of Lyons, and Jacques de Bourbon had been sent against them by the crown of France with sixteen hundred good fighting men. The French found the brigands posted on a hill-side where it was impossible to ascertain their numbers or position, but having a great contempt for their enemy they resolved to attack at once. But there were cunning soldiers on the hill that day. As the French advanced up the ascent they were met by a storm of great rolling stones, and the first line of attack was beaten back. Bourbon then brought up his second line by another side only to be received with the same terrible defence; and while he and his gallant companions were trying to struggle against it and manfully holding their ground, a mass of the adventurers appeared suddenly on their flank, dismounted, with shortened lances and in close array, as at Crecy and Poitiers, and overthrew them utterly. "These companions fought so ardently that it was marvel," says Froissart; with a crafty combination of the tactics of Morgarten and Crecy, he might have added. We think that we see Hawkwood's hand in this sudden flank attack.

The company, with Hawkwood still in subordinate command, then devastated Piedmont, and so passed