"And you're eleven? You'll be old enough to have a gun very soon, Jim. How would you like to shoot a real, live wild duck?"
"I have shot plenty."
Marche laughed. "Good for you, Jimmy. What did the gun do to you? Kick you flat on your back?"
The boy said gravely: "Father's gun is too big for me. I have to rest it on the edge of the blind when I fire."
"Do you shoot from the blinds?"
"Yes, sir."
Marche relapsed into smiling silence. In a few moments he was thinking of other things—of this muddy island which had once been the property of a club consisting of five carefully selected
and wealthy members, and which, through death and resignation, had now reverted to him. Why he had ever bought in the shares, as one by one the other members either died or dropped out, he did not exactly know. He didn't care very much for duck shooting. In five years he had not visited the club; and why he had come here this year for a week's sport he scarcely knew, except that he had either to go somewhere for a rest or ultimately be carried, kicking, into what his slangy doctor called the "funny house."
So here he was, on a cold February night, and already nearly at his destination; for now he could make out a light across the marsh, and from dark and infinite distances the east wind bore