DUCK-SHOOTING IN A GALE 295 



and hurried off alarmed to bury themselves in the thick 

 reeds on the opposite bank, but for some time I saw no 

 duck. Presently I approached a favourite spot, never 

 more likely than in a storm. Here the stream is joined 

 by a smaller rill, and the two form a deep circular pool, 

 sheltered partly by the plantation and partly by a thick 

 clump of black poplars on the neck between the streams, 

 whose gnarled and twisted stems look like those in 

 the foreground of some picture by Poussin, and form a 

 remarkable feature in the flat landscape. Slipping up 

 between the poplar stems, I peered over towards the 

 pool. A dozen duck were swimming across to the far 

 side, evidently uneasy, but loth to move. Just as I saw 

 them they saw me, and rose. The noise in the branches 

 was so great that I could hear nothing of their clatter, 

 but I fired into the thick of them and got two, and sent 

 a third away hard hit, for so quickly did the wind take 

 them that the last bird put fifteen yards further between 

 us than he would on an ordinary day. I watched the 

 struck bird, and saw him fall about 300 yards further 

 down the dyke ; so, picking up the first brace, and 

 tying their heads together, I hung them across a bough 

 in the plantation, and proceeded down the dyke. More 

 moor-hens and a solitary coot were all that I saw for 

 some time. Meantime the gale increased, and the 

 stinging hail beat down like shot, rebounding from the 

 gun-barrels, and making the old dog whimper and poke 

 her head between my legs for shelter as I stopped and 

 turned my back to the blast. 



Then it lulled, and as I walked on, my dog, who had 



