It is impossible for one destitute of a taste for fowling to conceive of the intensity which the passion will acquire by indulgence. Ben was so eager for birds, that he would lie on a ledge till Sailor froze his ears and tail. There were a great many minks on the island, whose furs were valuable: these Sailor would track to their holes, when Ben would smoke them out.
The widow Hadlock had brought up her family to cherish a great reverence for the Lord’s day. Ben had been trained by his mother in the same way; but, after leaving home, he, like most seafaring men, carried a traveller’s conscience, and did many things on that day which would not have met her approval.
One Sabbath morning a whole flock of coots swam into the mouth of the brook to drink; ’twas a superb chance for a shot. Ben, without a moment’s hesitation, took down his gun from the hook, and was just going out the door when Sally laid her hand on his arm.
“Ben, where are you going?”
“To shoot those coots; I never saw such a chance for a shot in my life. I shouldn’t wonder if I could knock over twenty with this big gun.”
“Why, Ben, you must be out of your head; do you know what day ’tis? would you go gunning on the Lord’s day?”
“No, I wouldn’t go a-gunning; but when they come right in under my nose, asking to be shot, I’d shoot them.”
“Well, I never would begin by breaking the Lord’s day; ’tis not right, and we shall not prosper; if we’ve not much else, let us, at least, have a clear conscience. What do you think your father and mother would say, if they heard you had fired a gun on the Lord’s day?”
“It wouldn’t trouble father much; he would do the same himself; but ’twould mother, and I see it does you.”
He took his ramrod, and thumped on the side of the house; the coots took to flight in an instant.