THE SURGEON'S FIRST GOOSE 127 



studded soles of his great and well-oiled tuck-boots kicking 

 up well-nigh as much clatter on the cobbled side-walk, 

 as do the wheels of a loose- jointed traction engine when 

 travelling over a newly metalled highway. 



True to his word and calling, " Gaffer " Gilson kept 

 both ears and eyes open for the advent of the geese, which 

 from time immemorial have wintered on the Oozeleigh 

 fowling-grounds 'twixt marsh and sand-bar, the greater 

 number 'arriving on the east coast from their summer 

 habitat within the Arctic circle about mid-October. 



One night, when returning home from eel-spearing in 

 the marsh-dykes, Gilson heard the clanging " music " 

 of what he knew to be a goodly herd of grey geese flight- 

 ing to the great banks away out in the Wash. The 

 clangour of the great birds was as welcome to the ears 

 of the old fowler as the music of a pack of hounds in full 

 cry is to a keen foxhunter, and, for that matter, the 

 " honk-honking " of a herd of wild geese in flight resembles 

 nothing so much as distant hound-music. Hence the 

 fenman's legend of the pack of hell-hounds which upon 

 wild wintry nights are wont to " draw " these vast 

 expanses of sedgy dyke and fleet intersected levels for 

 benighted and unfortunate wanderers, and hunt them 

 mercilessly to perdition. 



For some little time after the passing of the geese, 

 " Gaffer " Gilson stands with eyes turned towards the 

 tide, and as though watching the flight of the " skeins " 

 through the darkness. Then, as the weird goose-chorus 

 dies away in the distance, and the muffled thunder of the 

 North Sea coamers breaking upon the treacherous sand- 

 banks rolls shoreward over the watery waste once more, 

 he resumes his solitary trudge homewards, muttering, 



