A RIVER YACHTING RESORT 169 



that perhaps the bent stock was in some measure accountable 

 for my execrable shooting, so I smiled a kind of sickly 

 smile and replied, " Well, I'm not quite sure, but I'll let you 

 know later on." And I thought of the motto, " Du r m spiro 

 spero." 



" If it's all the same to you I would rather know now, 

 as I have come to take you to a different stand, where I 

 have anchored some decoys, and I think you will get better 

 sport." 



For a few moments I fought within myself, and then I 

 said, "Well, I really don't think it's worth while wasting 

 time looking for any of my birds, as I don't think you will 

 find them. To tell you the truth, 1 don't feel altogether myself 

 this morning, and I don't believe I have drawn blood, 

 whether this (here my smile was positively awful) bent 

 stock has anything to do with it I don't know, but the 

 hideous fact remains that I have not been able to mark 

 down a dead bird as mine." 



He was really quite distressed, and I felt for him, even 

 to the extent of several shillings extra tip money, which 

 sympathy I expressed before we parted. 



At my next stand I did no better, although I had every 

 opportunity of retrieving my reputation. Whether the fowl 

 flew high or low, fast or slow, to the right or to the left, it 

 made no difference, and no one could possibly have been 

 more disgusted with the glaring exhibition I made of myself 

 than I was. 



Then the time arrived for picking up. The decoys were 

 re-bagged, our friends taken on board the boat, and, with one 

 of us standing upon the seat in the bows, from which coign 

 of vantage a good survey of the reed beds could be taken, 

 we poled our boat through the sedges, in and out of little 

 bays and creeks, haunts of duck and pike, which latter we 

 often disturbed, and saw dart away with a rush and a swirl 

 of the water, in some cases sufficient to cause a slight oscilla- 

 tion to our frail craft. 



Not the least interesting was this part of the proceedings. 



