166 A MEDLEY OF SPORT 



" Merry Christmas," I journeyed down to Brightlingsea 

 on the branch line. My friend Jack and old Gilson, a 

 well-known East Coast fowler, who usually accompanies 

 us on our winter cruises, met me at the railway 

 station. Handing my gun-case and magazine to the 

 latter, away we started for the dinghy, and twenty 

 minutes later the Seamew was bowling through the 

 white -crested combers of the North Sea, her lee-rail 

 awash under the stiff nor'-easter and her old-fashioned 

 bluff bows shaping towards the Thames Estuary. 



" Are there no fowl in the Blackwater ? " I asked of 

 Jack, being somewhat surprised at his leaving the noted 

 fowling-grounds of the Blackwater estuary. 



" Yes, there are plenty of fowl round Mersey and 

 Osea, and plenty of Cockney-gunners after them to 

 boot," answered he ; adding, " The old grounds are 

 really not safe at holiday time, for Messrs Dick, Tom, 

 and Harry will pull at anything wearing feathers and 

 flying within a quarter of a mile range, and if one is in 

 the direct line of fire, well, heaven preserve him from 

 their shot ! " 



Cockney yachtsmen, and, indeed. Cockney sportsmen 

 of any kind, have ever been a sore point with Jack, and 

 he would in all probability have held forth at great 

 length on the sporting peculiarities of the genus had not 

 old Gilson drawn his attention to a big company of some 

 kind of fowl bobbing up and down on the tide just inside 

 the long line of white spume which fringed the vast 

 expanse of sands on the Essex coast. 



