264 MELTON AND HOMESPUN 



II 



From my " blind " I was able to watch the movement 

 of the marshmen working towards the fleet, and very 

 soon I noticed a nice little spring of teal dart out from 

 the sedgy pond-hole, and come twisting and screwing 

 over the marshes like a flight of erratic rockets. The 

 beautiful little duck, after wheeling round the farther 

 end of the fleet, pitched in a little reed-fringed bay, and 

 then mallard, pochard, and coot, in twos and threes and 

 small bunches, came in before the beaters to seek the 

 unsafe harbourage of the lagoon. At length the prin- 

 cipal drains were worked out, and the duck drive com- 

 menced in earnest. Distributing themselves along the 

 shores of the water, the marshmen brushed the sedges 

 with their leaping-poles, and every now and again a 

 whooping from the men warned us that something was 

 a-wing. 



In the majority of cases the duck, upon being dis- 

 turbed from the reed-cover, would come stringing along 

 the fleet and past the concealed guns at a great pace, 

 affording them very sporting shots. Comparatively few 

 returned to the fleet, however, and, after wheeling over 

 the marshes, the duck would either fly seaward or to the 

 neighbouring marshes lying beyond the creek. For 

 perhaps twenty minutes the sport was fast and furious, 

 and the " pop-popping " of the 12-bores amidst the 

 sedges well-nigh incessant. My fellow-guns pulled down 

 mallard after mallard, pochard after pochard, teal after 

 teal, and coot after coot in excellent style ; but, person- 

 ally, I am bound to confess that the numbers of empty 

 cartridge cases which lay strewn round my stand at the 



