346 A MEDLEY OF SPOET 



mallard, flying at no great height, and clean over my head. 

 Holding, as I imagined, well in front of the leader, I fired. 

 But, to my disgust, he went on as though he rather liked 

 it, and I only succeeded in winging a young mallard 

 with my second barrel, which fluttered on to the ooze 

 and led me a merry — and, I might add, particularly 

 muddy — dance across the same ere I captured him. 



The morning flight was now over, but, thinking it 

 possible that I might get a shot into a trip of shanks, or 

 grey plover, passing down creek on their way to the flats 

 and black grounds lying outside, which were already be- 

 ginning to show above the receding tide, I spent another 

 half -hour of chilly solitude in the muddy gut. But never 

 a feather came within range, and, as my haven of refuge 

 began to empty with the ebb tide very rapidly, I pushed 

 into the main stream and quietly poled down to the Point 

 Saltings, where I found Gilson awaiting me with a red- 

 headed pochard, a couple of curlew, and an ancient, dis- 

 reputable-looking carrion crow. 



"A leash o' birds be a wholly unlucky bag, so I shot that 

 owd varmint of a ' parson ' [carrion crow], jest to make 

 the even number, loike," grinned the superstitious fowler, 

 as he poled the punt along the tortuous swatchway to- 

 wards the still sleeping fishing village. 



