A Sportsman at Large 305 



mistake he had made. The whole pie contingent set about him 

 so vigorously that he was obliged to beat a hasty retreat, 

 utterly disgruntled and lucky to escape with his eyesight 

 slightly impaired and an ensanguined nose. 



There was only one casualty in the family during our stay. 

 There came a day when the dead body of the weakling 

 Matthew was found in the open well which occupied the 

 centre of the farmyard. How it came to be there, and what 

 had brought about the poor bird's untimely end, remains one 

 of those unsolved and mysterious tragedies which have 

 intrigued writers of detective romances from days immemorial. 



As time went on, the survivors went further afield, and 

 though they generally reassembled at feeding time, they became 

 more and more independent. Then they began staying out 

 of nights, and sometimes days would pass without the whole 

 family putting in an appearance. One by one, the call of 

 the wild claimed them, and anon we knew them no more. 



Truly, gratitude is the rarest of virtues (its antithesis, a 

 prevailing vice), even among the creatures of fur and feather ; 

 always excepting the canine, but including the feline species. 

 " Acts " was the last to desert us. In fact I believe that, 

 at the last moment, he repented him of his want of loyalty ; 

 for as our carioles rumbled away to the mouth of the Rauma 

 on our homeward journey, the staccato cry of a magpie 

 was continually heard, whilst an occasional glimpse of a 

 decorative black and white body was seen flitting from tree 

 to tree above us and keeping pace with our progression. 



" Here, I say, old Cockie ! " my friends who read these 

 chronicles will exclaim, " how about this miraculous draught of 

 salmon that you were to tell us about ? " 



" Ah ! " I make reply, " that's where the laugh comes in ! I 

 sat by the waters of the Rauma and wept, for six weary 

 weeks, and devil a salmon did I see, much less gather to myself !" 



One wretched grilse of three and a half pounds, which had 

 wandered from the main river into one of the lagoons and which, 

 like Mr. John Jones of Covent Garden, not knowing " where 

 he were," had in a moment of aberration seized the fly which 

 I was plying for his cousin thymallus. 



When the river had subsided, after we had been in residence 



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