114 THE SALT OF MY LIFE 



have been legally entitled to shoot the birds 

 when at length they flew round over the water. 

 Etiquette would demand that I should not, and 

 in any case the law would probably have interested 

 itself in me at an earlier stage for walking through 

 private fields with a gun under my arm. But I 

 might equally have flushed the partridges in a 

 boat after someone else had walked them up. 

 Should I have been within the law if I had shot 

 them over the water ? If I remember right, I 

 propounded the query in the Field at the time, 

 but I have no record of the answer. 



For the moment, however, Chapel Point is 

 recalled, not as a feeding-ground for partridges, 

 but as the shelter from the force of the South- 

 West gales, under cover of which it is often possi- 

 ble to enjoy a day's fishing when the sea is hope- 

 lessly rough outside. There are small pollack 

 and fair-sized mackerel off Forth Mellyn, but it 

 is better to spend such an off day in an attempt 

 to catch one of the big bass, for which the sands 

 at the edge of the rocks are a rare rendezvous 

 after breezy weather, for at such times the shore 

 is strewn with offal washed round from the har- 

 bour. Several such endeavours I remember as 

 having been quite futile, but on one occasion at 

 any rate, and indeed on three, we went out to 

 good purpose. The Eva was moored fore and 

 aft in shallow water, parallel with the rocky shore. 



