58 A Sportsman at Large 



tion, and by the time I had replenished my store from that 

 of brother Irwin, who was on duty at the adjacent post, and 

 who had hardly had a shot all the evening, the flight was 

 over. 



There came a time when The Dads was able to secure the 

 sporting rights over the Canon's Park Estate from Mrs. Begg, 

 and here, in the season, we had some very decent partridge 

 shooting over dogs. It was not unusual for a party of four 

 of us to account for between twenty and thirty brace of birds 

 and half-a-dozen hares in one day's shoot. 



But what intrigued me the more seriously were the wild 

 duck which I had located during my several angling visits. 

 I was dead keen on duck, and always have been. I thought 

 the matter out, and persuaded The Dads and Irwin to have 

 a go. 



My tactics entailed the setting forth, in Cimmerian darkness, 

 of the cutting-out expedition, during the small hours of a 

 bitter January morning. 



Each unit of our contingent was to take up a well-concealed 

 position near the several reed beds, where the canards sauvages 

 were known to seek slumber, and there await the first faint 

 promise of a hopeful dawn, when the " savage " ones, so I 

 imagined, would awaken and begin flighting to and fro. 



This was a sound scheme theoretically, but in practice it 

 did not pan out particularly well, because The Dads, who 

 was somewhat purblind in subdued lights, let off at a vagrant 

 carrion crow thinking it was a mallard just as a chorus of 

 quackings announced that the fun was likely to begin. This 

 premature and ill-considered explosion caused an awful 

 turmoil. The duck rose in clouds, with loud lamentations 

 and splashings, and flew aimlessly in all directions. The 

 light was still very feeble, and it was hard to cover one's bird 

 effectively. 



However, I had half a dozen shots, and following two of 

 these, I had the satisfaction of hearing loud " plops "on the 

 water, denoting the impact of a plump body on its surface. 

 Both these victims proved to be fine drake-mallard, which, 

 when retrieved by Irwin's pet bitch Rose, I handled with 

 intense satisfaction. My brother accounted for another brace, 



