74 SHOOTING AND SALMON FISHING 



result. Numerous attempts to reach the rock were tried from 

 other directions, but all were equally failures, when it began to 

 dawn on me the tide had gone down, and till it rose again I 

 was a prisoner ! This was soon ascertained to be the fact, the 

 light of sundry matches showing the water had fallen consider- 

 ably since the landing was made. A pretty state of affairs this, 

 and rather than wait in the frost till the tide rose again, I deter- 

 mined to leave gun and cartridges on the rock and wade or 

 swim to the boat, but no sooner was the intention cried to John 

 than it had to be abandoned, for he shouted back, " For good- 

 ness' sake stay where you are, sir ; the bottom is just nothing 

 but mud, and the oar sinks in up to the top ! " 



Therefore, there was clearly nothing for it but to grin and 

 endure ; flask and pipe were with me, while John stood by 

 with the boat, and we conversed occasionally. The frost grew 

 keener and the night darker, till at last the boat was invisible, 

 while it was no longer possible to distinguish the edge of the 

 black little rock from the surrounding water ; it became unsafe 

 to stamp about, and the wretched prisoner was reduced to 

 squatting, while keeping himself warm as best he could ; and 

 not till two o'clock in the morning, after an imprisonment of 

 some eight hours, was the boat able to get near enough to take 

 me off that odious 'rock, and never again am I likely to be so 

 trapped. 



The driver of "the machine," together with the people at 

 the inn, were greatly alarmed at our absence, but they had kept 

 up a good peat fire, and some poached eggs — dirt and all — 

 with hot toddy, soon produced a thaw ; then driving home, 

 we were none the worse the next day for the dark and cold 

 experience, the recollection of which was somewhat softened 

 by the boatman at the inn sending up seventeen widgeon 

 which he had picked up dead the next morning. The moral of 

 this little adventure is to warn others who may go in search of 

 wildfowl not to land on rocks in tidal waters, unless certain 

 of being able to get off again at their own sweet will. 



