THE LAST DAY OF WILDFOWLING 449 



Just then S nudged me and pointed out a couple of 



score of "whews" (wigeon) sitting on the mud-edge far 

 away to the right of us. Half in despair, we hove our 

 bows round to starboard to give them a trial ; but it, too, 

 failed. As luck would have it, a single pair was swimming, 

 unobserved, in the black water between us, and these, 

 rising close at hand, shifted the rest. 



There now only remained the geese, far up on the 

 slobby ooze. As a final tactic, I determined to try for a 

 flying shot as they went to sea at night. Accordingly we 

 let the punt drive with the tide till we lay directly on their 

 course to the seaward channel ; then we shoved in as near 

 the mud-edge as was safe to go on the ebb, and waited 

 patiently. The night was still and calm, the western sky 

 aglow with the glorious hues of sunset, and not a sound 

 audible but the gentle lapping of the tide against the punt, 

 and the loud and weird babble of voices from the thousand 

 throats in front of us. What a concert ! No music 

 sweeter to my ear ; no articulate words more expressive 

 of intensely watchful security, of guarded suspicion, than 

 their varied intonations. At last the critical moment 

 arrived, the moment which was to decide all our hopes and 

 fears. "They're up!" With a roar like the distant 

 rumbling of thunder, the sonorous host take wing for the 

 open sea. Will they come our way ? . . . Yes ! straight for 

 us, lying prone on our chests, steer the leaders, and in ten 

 seconds the sky above us is flecked with moving masses, 

 and seamed with strings of black half-moons. " Now then, 



sir ! let 'em have it ! " hisses S , as I fumble for the 



eighth part of a second with the trigger-string (for "tip- 

 ping " a punt-gun is no child's play) ; then up goes the long 

 barrel, and afar across the darkening water resounds her 



thunderous boom. Ye gods! I'm among 'em! right in the 



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