CHANCE SHOTS AND ODD FISH. 241 



spread in the shape of scattered bushes, most of 

 them large thorns, for some distance out on the 

 flats. As the drainage from the upland fields fell 

 into the dykes of the flats just here, certain fowl, 

 such as ducks, teal, and snipe, haunted it. Best 

 of all, it was free for us at any rate to shoot there, 

 and to take a friend with us if we chose to do so ; 

 but I generally went then, as I do now, alone. Not 

 that I ever brought one bird from there, for the gun 

 was only the pretext for my visit ; the wild beauty 

 of the place as the sun went down, the cries of 

 fowl and their manoeuvres before they flighted for 

 the night, had more charms for me than shooting 

 had. The place had a bad name, for it was a 

 dangerous place to be out on at night, when the 

 tide covered the flats almost within a stone's-throw 

 of the hamlet, if it could be called one ; so I always 

 left them before dusk fell. 



Turning my face homewards, full of thoughts 

 about things such as I have at last after all these 

 years been able to put before my kind readers, I 

 have seen great masses of clouds, purple and gold, 

 sinking down behind that grey church. The wood 

 that hid the greater part of it was a mass of deep 



Q 



