186 SPORTS AND ANECDOTES. 



if there had been it would have been too costly for 

 us to smoke in a real wild-goose wind. 



When shooting in a real hard winter the effects of 

 the frozen gutters were something hardly possible to 

 imagine. From the tides leaving the pans of ice one 

 upon another in these large kind of ditches, they were 

 heaped up like the side of a house, or a high wall ; 

 and when the tide came in, which it often did, when 

 the east wind blew, and kept it back at sea, it came 

 rushing in, and positively filling these gutters six 

 to ten feet deep as it came along, the crash that 

 took place amongst the frozen sheets of ice was more 

 like what would be caused by half a dozen Blondins, 

 with their wheelbarrows, being thrown through the 

 top of the Crystal Palace, than anything I can describe. 

 You, good reader, may say " Bosh ! " but I assure you 

 it is a fact, and "having seen such a sight, and heard 

 such sounds, I am bound to say, " Experto crede? or 

 " Seeing is believing." 



There were not many that had punts in those parts ; 

 it was too exposed, and therefore dangerous, particu- 

 larly at high water, for such slender craft. There 

 was, however, one man who was a character in his 

 way, and a good hand where wildfowl were concerned, 

 and a yarn about him will not be out of place. 



