DUCK SHOOTING. 239 



time until noon chatting, and examining the 

 game, which lay ranged in pairs on the thwart- 

 boards, or starting up as the report of Davis' gun 

 told of an occasional shot at a single duck, pass- 

 ing over his stools, on its way up or down the 

 bay. 



While we were at dinner a circumstance hap- 

 pened at the battery, which almost caused Davis 

 to avow himself a believer in the doctrine of pre- 

 destination, at least as regards wild fowl shoot- 

 ing. Not having had a shot for some time, he 

 was lying at his ease with his cap drawn over 

 his eyes to defend them from the vertical rays of 

 the sun, when a swan passed slowly over his de- 

 coys, and strange to say, every gun in the battery 

 missed fire, and the noble bird continued its course 

 down the bay unharmed. 



"I had drawn for his neck," said the unfortu- 

 nate duck-shooter, " and was as sure of him as I 

 was of my supper ; but the Walker caps are not 

 worth the copper they are made of any more, 



and I suppose the d d bird would have gone 



free, if I had fired the biggest swivel-gun on the 

 Potomac at his head, at the same distance." 



" No doubt of it," said we; there is no fight- 

 ing against fate but to change the subject, were 

 you ever caught in a heavy blow in one of these 

 tubs, Ben?" " 



