when the report of a gun, and the sudden flight of a drooping heron across the Trent, arrested their music.
"By Jingo! she's a dead bird, in three minutes!" exclaimed Zed; "mark how her right wing droops, Phil!"
"I wish I could mark it," said Phil; "but you always forget that my poor old eyes are blanks, when you've——"
"There she goes, plop among the osiers!" cried Zed, in an ecstasy; "pull away to the larboard, Phil. I'll have her in a twink."
"'Don't say so till you're sure!'" observed Phil, but pulled away like a dragon in the direction recommended by his companion, nevertheless.
Zed leaped out of the boat in a confounded hurry, when he thought it was near enough for him to gain the shore; but he leaped out too soon, for he fell flat on his face among the "warp," as the mud of the Trent is called in Lincolnshire, and floundered like a flat fish when it has been left by the water in a situation where it cannot get away.
"Holloa! what, in the name o' bad luck, are you about?" cried Phil, hearing poor Zed make a mighty scuffle among the mud.
Zed made no answer, but kept struggling on; for the fact was, that he was so eager to secure the bird, that he had succeeded in laying hold of one of its legs, and, keeping hold, prevented himself from rising. The heron and Zed made a desperate flapping and floundering, insomuch that Phil roared out, more than once,—
"What, in the name of heaven and earth, are you about, I say, Zed?"