WINTER DAYS ON BREYDON 29 



" Ah, 'bor," said he, " I remember gettin' a shot at a parcel 

 of wigeon, baggin' sixteen of 'em. I laid 'em on the fore- 

 peak (covered deck), thinkin' 'em all dead. I went ashore to 

 reload my gun, and stood potterin' about waitin' for another 

 shot. One of the ducks that had laid beneath the heap of 

 others came to, fully an hour after I shot 'em, and up on the 

 wing she went. I happened to have my ' hand-gun ' under 

 my arm, and up with it, catchin' a glimpse of the fowl as it 

 got between me and the moon, I fired and killed it dead ! 



" It wasn't nothin' new to lose birds after you'd shot 'em ; 

 the cripples fluttered away even in broad daylight, and you 

 couldn't get over the ice after them, and as for shootin' at 

 night, why, we old gunners often used to shoot at the sound 

 of birds we couldn't see, and trusted to luck to hit 'em and 

 retrieve 'em. You remember me tellin' you about how them 

 wigeon hid in the flint wall? 1 But them old crows (hooded) 

 used to annoy me. I once shot a mallard that fluttered 

 ashore on the flat with a broken wing, and before I could 

 break through the ice at the edge of it to get the bird, a 

 parcel of hoodies seized it, tore out its eyes, and had its 

 innerds out while still alive. I got it, however, but it wasn't 

 saleable." 



The old man chatted on, sometimes going over his ground 

 again, but to me his yarn was never tiresome, and to my 

 mind it was altogether reliable ; for he and others whom 

 I have interviewed, and helped in times of stress, have never 

 tried the long bow on me. A pipe of tobacco makes them 

 reminiscent, and they are tempted to lie only if they do at 

 all when they scent drink. Pestell was much interested in 

 pochards, and he added scaups "hard fowl," he designated 

 them for, as hard as nails himself (he had served his time 

 as an artilleryman and as a boatbuilder), he delighted in the 

 snow and frost that brought them south. He was emphatic 

 in assuring me "pokers" and scaups, when wounded or 

 hard pressed, would dive and hang by their feet to the 

 " grass," preferring to drown rather than be captured, although 

 the probability is that they sometimes got fast unwittingly in 

 the " tangle," or as likely, when in the thick of it, submerged 

 themselves, having only their bills out of the water for the 

 purpose of breathing. 



1 Nature in Eastern Norfolk^ p. 43. 



