332 SHOOTING 



a piece of thin ice, or a stick, making them rise, and 

 I then had the pleasnre of seeing them fly off and 

 drop into a reed-bed half a mile off, which I could 

 not get at. 



I had often been warned that the ditch was 

 dangerous, and proved it on one occasion, very 

 nearly to my cost. Some ducks dropped into a 

 rushy pool in a field on the opposite side of it, and 

 as I should have had a walk of a mile to get round 

 to them, I determined to try and cross, fortunately 

 for myself selecting a place where there was a stout 

 young willow ; so putting down my gun, and catch- 

 ing firm hold of the tree, I put one leg into the 

 ditch, and soon found, though it passed down 

 through the mud above my knee, that no bottom 

 was to be found, and on trying to withdraw it, 

 discovered that my leg was fixed as if in a vice. 

 Fortunately the willow was strong, and having one 

 leg on the bank, after pulling until I thought the 

 other must be dislocated, I succeeded in extricating 

 myself. 



But the meadows on the further side were where 

 the best sport used to be got. These, as I have 

 said, were divided by laige haw^thorn hedges fully 

 twelve feet high, and intersected by deep ditches 

 full of reeds, with an open pool here and there. 

 The meadows, too, had narrow gutters cut in them 



