This was a delightful experience to the ferryman, and the sight of the dog-like creature swimming after the boat was also an entertainment to the passengers and a cause of surprise to many. But there was nothing remarkable in its action; the seal, like the dog, is a social creature; it is well known that he readily grows tame towards, and even attached to, the human beings he is accustomed to see who do not persecute him. The old Cornish author, Borlase, refers to this character of the seal, which he classes with his "Quadruped Reptiles," in the following quaint passage: "Whether it is delighted with music or any land voice, or whether it is to alleviate the toil of swimming, it shows itself almost wholly above the water frequently, or near the shore, ibid. Add to this that the great docility of the creature (little short of that of the human species) and his being so easily trained to be familiar with and obedient to man, may make us with some grounds conclude, that this is the creature to which imagination has given the shape of half-fish half-man, a shape nowhere else to be found."
The estuary attracts a good number of wild fowl, duck and shore birds, in winter, and as a consequence is much frequented by sportsmen. One day the ferryman took one of these gentlemen, a visitor from a distance, across the river, and was not half-way over before the seal appeared as usual and with its head well up swam after the boat, and gaining quickly on it was soon not more than an oar's length from the stern. The ferryman, looking back, was watching it, and by and by, thinking it would be a pleasant surprise to the other, he remarked, "My baby seal is just behind you, coming after us." The other looked around, and instantly, before the boatman could cry out or even divine his intention, threw up his gun and fired and the brains of the young seal were scattered on the water. "You have killed my pet seal—the animal I loved best," the boatman cried, and the other was surprised and expressed regret.
He wished he had known it was a pet seal; he wouldn't have killed it, no, not for anything, if he had only known. And why had he not been warned? and so on, until he stepped out of the boat and went his way with his gun.
He had not been warned because in spite of all the ferryman had seen of sportsmen and their ways he never imagined that any one would have done so brutal a thing or that the murderous shot would have been fired so quickly.
He also told me about an osprey which appeared one autumn at the estuary. It was the first bird of its species he had ever seen, and when it first appeared, flying high in the air and hovering directly over his hut where he kept a number of fowls and turkeys, he became alarmed for their safety, thinking it was a kite or other large destructive hawk. By and by the strange bird sailed away and began circling above the water, coming lower down, then after hovering at one spot like a kestrel for some moments he saw it drop into the water and rise with a good-sized fish in its talons. Then he knew that the strange big hawk was the famous osprey.
For some days it displayed its magnificent powers to all who came to the water-side, exciting a great deal of interest; then one of the sporting gentlemen succeeded in getting a shot at it and wounding it badly. But it did not drop; it was watched flying laboriously away over the moor until out of sight and was never seen again.
Another season he had a great northern diver in the river, and this bird after a week or ten days lost its wildness and took no notice of the ferryman, although he sometimes rowed his boat to within forty yards of it to watch its movements when it was fishing. The sportsmen he ferried across wanted to shoot the diver, but he prevented them. Then one gentleman told him that he would hire a boat and go out and shoot it, in spite of him. He said that a bird so destructive to fish should not be allowed to live in the river. The ferryman said he would prove to him that the diver was doing no harm, and rowing him out to where the bird was diving at its usual feeding-ground they watched, and presently saw it come up with a small green crab in its beak. The sportsman was convinced that the bird was not taking fish, and gave his promise that he would not shoot it. However, a day or two later it was shot at by one of the sportsmen and badly wounded in the side, and from that time the sight of it was a constant pain to him as it moved continually round and round in a circle when attempting to swim and was hardly able to dive. Finally he took his gun and put it out of its misery.
The young seal, the osprey, the great northern diver were but a few of the creatures he told me of, which, when living, were a source of delight to every one who watched them, whose lives had been wantonly taken in the estuary by gentlemen sportsmen. Stories equally sad and shocking were told me by other lovers of nature and observers of wild life at other points on the coast, of how every rare and beautiful species, every owl, buzzard, harrier, chough, hoopoe and many other species, had been slaughtered by men who call themselves sportsmen and gentlemen. How is one to explain such a thing—this base destructive passion—unless it be that the gentleman, like the gamekeeper, cannot escape the reflex effect on his mind of the gun in his hand? He too has grown incapable of pleasure in any rare or noble or beautiful form of life until he has it in his hands—until he has exercised his awful power and blotted out its existence. And how hard of heart the exercise has made him!
One afternoon at Wells-by-the-Sea I entered into conversation with a sportsman I found sitting on a grassy slope, where he was waiting for the wild geese which would come in by and by from feeding to roost on the sand spit outside. He was, physically, a very fine fellow in his prime, tall, athletic-looking, with a handsome typical English face of that hard colour which comes of an open-air life, with the hard keen eyes so often seen in the sportsman. Talking with him I discovered that he was also a man of culture, a great traveller, a reader and a collector of rare and costly books on certain subjects, especially on the forms of sport he loved best. It was impossible for me not to admire him as he sat there reclining idly on his rug, thrown on the green slope, smoking his pipe, his gun lying across his knees, his big black curly-haired retriever stretched out at his side. And at intervals, as we talked, a little meadow-pipit, the only other living creature near us, flitted out of the grass and, rising to a height of twenty or thirty feet, hovered over the still water beneath, as if to get a better view of us, to find out what we were doing there; and as it hovered before us it emitted those sharp, sorrowful little call-notes which have such a charm for me. And every time the small bird rose and hovered before us the dog raised his head and watched it excitedly, then looked up into his master's face. Then the little thing with an anxious mind would drop back on the turf again and go on seeking its food as before, so near to us that we could distinctly see its bright eyes and thin little pale brown legs and all the markings and shadings of its pretty winter plumage—the olive-browns and dull blacks, the whites and the cream faintly tinged with buff on the striped breast.
By and by I got up and strolled away to the dunes on the sea-front, and when I had gone about seventy or eighty yards a shot rang out behind me. Glancing back I saw that the sportsman had also got up and was now walking to a point among the dunes where he had planned to lie in wait for the geese. The retriever was some distance behind, playing with something; and then, instead of following his master, he came on to me, and seeing that he was carrying something I stooped down and drew it from his mouth. It was the titling—the little meadow-pipit; its anxious little question and challenge had been answered with an idle charge of shot when it flew up and hovered before the man with a gun.