XV 



Beyond the Realm of Weather 



OUR friends say to us now and then, &quot;But 

 why must you do these things with a gun? 

 Why can t you do the same things and leave 

 the gun at home?&quot; Why, indeed? When I 

 put this question to Jonathan, he smokes on 

 placidly. But of one thing I am sure: if it had 

 not been for the guns and the ducks, I should 

 never have known what the marshes were like 

 in winter fog what they were like under a 

 winter sky with a wind straight from the North 

 Pole sweeping over their bare stretches. 



It was early afternoon. Through the study 

 window I looked out upon a raw, foggy world, 

 melting snow underfoot and overhead. It 

 was the kind of day about which even the 

 most deliberately cheerful can find little to say 

 except that this sort of thing can t last forever, 

 you know. However, if I had had a true in 

 stinct for &quot;nature,&quot; I should, I suppose, have 

 seen at a glance that it was just the day to go 



