Just then a wild-duck rose from the reeds, followed by half-a-dozen young ones. They rose on Frank's side of the dyke, so it was his turn to shoot. He dropped his hat and handkerchief and fired, but in his hurry he missed with the first barrel, and Jimmy, fearing they might escape, let off his big single, and one of the young ducks fell to the ground with a flop which told how fat he was. Frank winged another with his second barrel, and it fell into the water, where it was despatched by a third shot from Jimmy, who had hastily loaded. The old duck flew far away, but the young ones only flew short distances, and then settled on the dyke and hid in the reeds, one here and another there; and then for an hour or so they had good sport beating about the dykes, and flushing them one by one until they had disposed of the whole brood.
"There," said Frank, as he handed the last of them to Dick in the punt, "it is too hot to shoot any more to-day. We have done enough to be able to say that we have been flapper-shooting, and that is all I care for this hot weather."
"I am glad you are leaving off;" said Dick, "that villanous saltpetre smoke hangs in the air so that one can see nothing."
"Then let us have a bathe, and leave the ducks until the winter-time," said Jimmy.
"Yes, but we won't leave them quite yet. We must shoot them when they come to the corn-fields in August."
Wood-Pigeon.
And as we are now writing about wild-duck shooting we will just advance a short time in our story, and take a glance at the boys shooting wild ducks when the fields are yellow with harvest.
Frank and Jimmy are perched in an oak-tree, which after many years of wrestling with the winds and storms, has assumed a very quaint and picturesque shape. Its mighty stem is riven and has great hollows in it, and its low, wide spreading branches shade more of the field than the Norfolk farmer likes. It stands in a hedge which separates the corn-field, where the stems are bowing with the weight of the ears and are ready for the scythe, from a meadow which slopes down to the marsh and the broad.