It was at the time when these birds were most frequent, that the young fowlers of the port used to have extraordinary tales to tell of the numbers they had killed, and the escapes and adventures they had met with in the pursuit. One of Mr. Cobbold’s younger sons had a great penchant for this sport, and, though quite a lad, would venture upon the most hardy enterprises with the weather-beaten sailors, who had been long accustomed to the river. He was a good shot, too, for a boy, and would bring home many a duck and mallard as the fruits of his own excursions.
It was about four o’clock, one winter evening, when this young gentleman was seen descending the steps of the Cliff, with the oars over his shoulder, and his gun in his hand. He looked at the cloudy sky, and thought he should have good sport upon the river before the morning. His sisters, Harriet and Sophia, saw him stealing down the Cliff, and he requested of them not to take any notice of his absence. He unlocked his boat, and shoved off into the channel alone, rejoicing in the thought of the spolia opima he should expose next morning at the breakfast-table.
At tea-time, all the numerous party seated themselves round the table, before piles of hot toast and bread and butter; and the venerated father came from his own private room to take his seat with his affectionate wife and children. He cast his eye upon the party, and looked round the room, evidently missing one of his children. “Where’s William?” he inquired. The sisters, Harriet and Sophia, began to titter. “Where’s William?” again asked the anxious parent; and the lady, who had been reading some new book, which had absorbed her attention, had not until then missed the boy.
Mr. Parkinson, the confidential clerk, a distant relative, replied, "Master William has gone out in his boat to shoot wild-fowl.”
“What! on such a night as this? How long since?”
“Two hours or more, sir.”
The worthy parent rose from his seat, summoned the clerk to follow him immediately, and, with a fearful expression of countenance, which communicated terror to the whole party, he said, “Depend upon it, the child is lost!”
It was a night on which no reasonable man would have suffered even the stoutest and strongest sailor to go down the river for such a purpose. The tide was running out fast, and the ice was floating down in great masses, enough to stave a stout boat. A piercing sleet, the forerunner of a snow-storm, drifted along with the wind. Altogether it was as dismal as darkness and the foreboding anxiety of a fond parent’s heart could make it. Yet Master William, a mere stripling, was upon the waters, in a boat which required at least two stout men to manage her, and at the mercy of the storm. Had not his father by mere chance missed him, and made inquiries about him, he would not have been heard of till the next morning, and then they would have spoken of his death. As it was, the sequel will show how nearly that event came to pass.
The brewhouse men were summoned, two stout fellows, who were put into the small boat, and it then came out that Master William had taken the oars belonging to the little boat, to manage a great, heavy craft that was large enough to hold a dozen men.
Mr. Cobbold and his clerk went along the shore, whilst the two men in the skiff, with great oars, shoved along the edge of the channel. Occasionally the parties communicated by voice, when the lull of the waves and winds permitted them to do so; but no tidings of the lost boy could be obtained.