82 MELTON AND HOMESPUN 



deftly stowed away in one cheek, rises in the morning 

 with a chunk in the other, and so chops and changes 

 from cheek to cheek throughout the day. But smoke a 

 pipe — nay ! The very idea is hurtful to Jasper Collins. 



Notwithstanding that the morning is as black as the 

 proverbial hat, the old marshman pilots me across the 

 drain-intersected saltings to a gunning-pit, sunk in a 

 patch of salt-marsh lying near the mouth of a small 

 tidal creek, with almost as much ease as though it were 

 broad daylight. Recent high spring tides have left the 

 duck-hole half-full of sea-water and rubbish, and with 

 a " Do you hode the shootin'-irons while Oi diddle out 

 t' owd duck-hole," my companion sets to work to bail 

 out the superfluous water with a superannuated bucket, 

 which is prevented from floating away on the rising 

 tide by a length of cod-line fastened to one of the moulder- 

 ing timbers of the gunning-pit. 



Old Jasper is not long occupied in dipping dry the 

 hole, and bidding me " 'Bide patient a diddy while," he 

 pays a visit to a straw-stack on the adjacent marsh, and 

 very soon returns with a bulky bundle of clean wheat 

 straw under either arm. Then, having lined the duck- 

 hole with the " borrowed " Htter, he once more dis- 

 appears into the darkness, this time to take possession of 

 a second gunning-pit further across the salt-marshes » 

 declaring the while that I should be as warm and com- 

 fortable as " a caddler (jackdaw) in a chimbley corner." 

 Personally, I feel more inclined to vote my temporary 

 retreat as being unpleasantly moist and uncomfortable 

 in the extreme. A piercingly cold nor'-easter comes 

 howling in from the main to search out every nook and 

 corner of the unsheltered levels, and, though the greater 



