214 A MEDLEY OF SPOET 



and again a third cartridge had to be used upon a bird 

 which ought easily to have been stopped at the first 

 attempt. 



As I was hauling the dinghy up on the salts again the 

 captain hailed me to bring him ashore, and as I pulled 



alongside the Seamew, he said, " Hang the grub, M , 



it must take care of itself. I cannot stand hearing you 

 shoot while I am peeling Murphys and hacking up 

 mutton in a stuffy cabin. I have banked up the fire and 

 left the pot on the stove to simmer." I did not reply 

 to my friend's speech, but made a pretty shrewd guess 

 that the bottom of the saucepan would be burned out 

 before we returned, hungry and tired : nor did I err in 

 my conjecture. 



Having rowed ashore, the captain and myself divided 

 forces, he keeping to the creek, while I elected to try 

 the northern shore of the Isle of Grain ; and hard work 

 it proved, walking in the teeth of a fierce nor'-easter. For 

 perhaps an hour I did not fall in with fowl of any kind 

 beyond an old sea-pie and a few small trips of dunlin 

 which I did not deem worthy powder and shot. I had 

 arrived almost at the extreme easterly point of the 

 island when I sighted a small herd of curlew quartering 

 a spit of ooze within 35 yards of the sea-wall, 

 and perhaps 300 yards ahead of me. A low blackthorn 

 bush grew on the side of the sea-wall at a point nearly 

 opposite the spit of mud, and that bush I made my 

 landmark. 



Carefully crawling over the wall, I commenced to 



