In the morning the retriever searched for and picked up the dead birds, and the young gunners finished off the wounded. For four successive nights they enjoyed good sport in this manner, and then it was put an end to by a singular accident. Frank lit a match to see what time it was, and a lighted splinter fell among the dry straw, which instantly blazed up.

"Look out for the powder!" shouted Frank; and he and Jimmy and the dog scrambled out of the cask pell-mell, tumbling over each other in their eagerness to be away from the dangerous proximity of the fire. Frank had the powder-flask in his pocket, and fortunately no fire came near it.

The boys too escaped without injury, except that their hair was pretty well singed by the rapid rise of the flame. The retriever was so frightened that he turned tail and bolted, never stopping until he reached his kennel.

"This is a pretty go," exclaimed Jimmy, as with their guns under their arms they watched the tall, roaring column of flame and smoke which ascended from the burning tub.

"The people all about will wonder what it is. What a pity we have nothing to hold water in, so that we could try and put it out! The tub has caught, and will be burnt up."

The sound of oars was now audible across the water, and presently d.i.c.k's voice shouted,--

"What's the matter? Are you all right?" and a boat was run ash.o.r.e, and d.i.c.k and Mary, well wrapped up, stepped out.

d.i.c.k had been spending the evening at Mr. Merivale's, and just as he was leaving the house, the bright tongue of flame on the opposite side of the broad alarmed him, and Mary insisted upon coming with him to see what mischief her brother had been perpetrating.

They rowed back, followed by the fitful glare of the fire, which shone in their eddying wake, amid the clamour of wild-fowl startled into flight by the unusual apparition. Then as Mary was silently admiring the strange weird scene, there was a blinding flash, followed by two loud reports, which made her start and scream, and then two splashes in the water, as two ducks out of a number which had been pa.s.sing over the boats fell to the aim of Frank and Jimmy.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

Punt-shooting on Breydon.--A Narrow Escape.

The Christmas holidays had commenced for the boys. Frank had a consultation with Bell, which ended in Bell's borrowing a duck-shooting punt from a neighbour, and d.i.c.k's looking up the big duck-gun from his father's lumber-room. The punt was a flat-bottomed one, pointed at both ends and covered fore and aft, so as to form two watertight compartments. In the bows was a rest for the gun to lie upon. As the gun took a pound of shot at a load, Frank was rather nervous about firing it off, for the recoil, if not broken by mechanical appliances, would have dislocated his shoulder. So he bought some india-rubber door-springs, and with them constructed an apparatus to take off the recoil of the gun, and, lest it should by any chance hit his shoulder, he got Mary to make a stout cushion, which he fixed to the b.u.t.t.

Reports came that Breydon Water was swarming with wild-fowl, so, taking Bell with them as a guide and instructor, and with the shooting-punt in tow instead of their own, they set sail for Yarmouth, and sailing up Breydon Water they moored the yacht by the Berney Arms, a public-house situate where the Yare debouches into Breydon.

As the night fell they could see and hear wild-fowl of various kinds flying to and settling on the muds. d.i.c.k preferred staying on board the yacht, for his frame was not yet so inured to winter cold as it had been to summer heat, and the other two, with Bell, set out in the punt about eight o'clock. They rowed down Breydon Water with the last of the ebb, and then floated and paddled up again as the tide rose. Bell crouched in the stern and worked the two short paddles by which the punt was propelled when approaching the birds. Frank lay in the bows, with the big gun in position in front of him, and Jimmy cuddled up in the middle, armed with Frank's light double-barrel, ready to knock over any of the wounded birds which might try to escape. The night was rather light with the brightness from the stars, which shone resplendently from the deep, dark blue, and in the east the moon lifted a faint curved horn above the trees.

"There are a lot of birds on that mud-bank; I can hear them quite plainly," whispered Frank to Bell.

"Hush! Don't you speak or fire until I whistle, and then pull the trigger; but have the gun ready covering the birds. They are too scattered now. Wait until the tide rises a little higher, and covers most part of the bank, and then they will huddle together, when you will kill twice as many."

They waited for a quarter of an hour, gradually drawing nearer the birds, which were now collected together on a large dark patch on the mud which was still uncovered by the rippling waves. Frank had his eye on them, the gun covering them and his finger on the trigger, waiting breathlessly for the signal.

A low whistle sounded behind him. A sudden silence took the place of the chattering and gobbling sounds which had before proceeded from the birds. Frank pressed the trigger. The mighty gun flashed forth its deadly contents with a tremendous roar, and Frank found himself hurled back upon Jimmy. He had incautiously put his shoulder to the gun. He was not hurt, however, for the cushion had saved his shoulder. The birds which were unhurt swept away with a great clamour, but the mud was covered with dead and dying. Two of the winged ones were swimming away, when Jimmy fired and killed them. They landed on the mud, taking care to put on the mud-boards. They picked up the dead ones, and had many a lively chase after the wounded ones on the mud and in the shallow water.

They recovered five-and-twenty birds. Half of them were wild-ducks, and the rest dunlins and other sh.o.r.e birds.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILD DUCK SHOOTING.]

They pa.s.sed on up Breydon, but they could not get another shot of such magnitude. Another punt was on the water, and the noise of its firing and oars disturbed the birds, so that they were difficult to approach.

They got, however, two more long shots, and killed six ducks at one and three at another.

The tide had now covered most of the flats, and the birds had either left the water or were floating on the surface, and could not easily be seen because of the waves. Bell then said he knew of a spot where the mud had been artificially raised, so as to form a sort of island, for the express purpose of enticing the wild-fowl to gather on it as the tide rose. He therefore paddled them towards it. Some clouds had obscured much of the starlight, and the night was darker. Frank became aware of one dark patch on the water in front of them, and another to the left. He thought they were both flocks of birds, and selected the left hand one, as being the nearer. He covered it with his gun, and waited somewhat impatiently for Bell to give the signal.

"Surely we are near enough;" he thought, when Jimmy crept up behind him and whispered, "Bell says that is another punt, they must be making for the mud we are, that patch in front."

"By Jove," exclaimed Frank, "I was aiming at the boat, and about to fire. Perhaps they are aiming at us."

"Don't shoot," cried out Bell to the other boat, and Frank immediately twisted his gun around and fired at the birds which rose from the mud-bank.

"I say, you there!" cried out a man in the other boat, "that was a narrow escape for you. I was on the point of firing at you. You should give me half the birds you shot then."

"All right, you shall have them, if you will help to pick them up," sang out Frank. Only a dozen, half of them dunlins, were secured and divided.

"That was a danger in punt-shooting which I hadn't foreseen," said Frank to the stranger. "It was a close shave for you as well as for us. Will you come on board our yacht and have some supper?"

The stranger a.s.sented, and proved to be a sporting lawyer from Yarmouth, and a very pleasant fellow.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

Drifted to Sea.--A Perilous Position.--Rescue.

The next day Bell went off to Yarmouth to sell some of the fowl in the market, and unfortunately got fuddled, so that when the evening came he was unable to accompany the shooters. Frank and Jimmy resolved to go out by themselves. Making a mistake as to the time of the tide, they found themselves carried swiftly down Breydon Water on a tide which had yet four hours to ebb. The night was clear, cold, and starlit, with a stinging north-easter sweeping over the broad water, and whisking the snow on the land into fantastic drifts. The new moon had not yet risen, but every star was blazing brightly, and glimmering reflections shone in the water. As they listened they found that the night was full of strange noises, of quackings and whistlings, and that the air was cleft by the sweep of wings. It was a night of nights for a wild-fowl shooter, and the boys resolved to stop at Yarmouth until the tide turned. As they neared the twinkling lights of the town a flock of wild geese took wing, out of shot, and made for the estuary.

"Oh, do let us follow them, they are sure to alight before they reach the bar," said Frank.

"Very well; but we must take care not to drift out to sea."

"There is no danger of that, we can always run ash.o.r.e."

So they pa.s.sed by the quays and fish-wharves, and one by one the lights opened out, and pa.s.sed behind them, resolving themselves into a cl.u.s.ter in the distance. Ghostly vessels lifted their tall spars against the sky, the water became more 'lumpy,' and prudence suggested that they should turn back; but the love of sport urged them on, and triumphed.

Further still: yet the geese were nowhere to be seen, and not very far off was the white water on the bar. They were fast drifting out to sea, and thought it time to turn. They did so, but could make no headway against the wind and tide, and the sh.o.r.es were so white with surf that it would have been folly to have attempted to land.

"I say, Frank, we've done it now," said Jimmy, as they drifted nearer and nearer to the bar.

"Don't be alarmed: we are all right," said Frank,--but privately he thought they were in a very awkward fix. All the outward-bound vessels, which, had it been earlier, might have picked them up, had left at the commencement of the ebb. The punt was now in the midst of the rougher waves which broke over the banks of sand at the mouth of the estuary, and they were expecting every moment to be swamped, when Frank uttered a cry of joy, and seizing the paddle, made for a black spot which was dancing about in the foam. It was a buoy, and Jimmy seized the 'painter,' and stood up. As they neared it, a wave bore them on its summit within reach. Jimmy succeeded in slipping the rope through the ring on the top of the buoy, and in another moment they had swung under its lee. They were now safe from drifting farther out to sea, but in imminent danger of being swamped, and the time seemed very long while waiting for the tide to turn. The curling waves continually broke over them, and had it not been for the decked portions of the punt they would have been sunk by the first two or three duckings. As it was, they were kept hard at work baling with a tin scoop belonging to the punt, and fending off from the buoy.

Forwards and backwards, up and down and sideways, they were tossed. A great black wall of water, with a thin crest through which the glimmer of a star could occasionally be seen, would come surging along, making their hearts sink with apprehension, and then would sometimes break and die away close by, sometimes dash them against the buoy, and sometimes with a side chop nearly fill the punt. There was a dash of excitement about it all which made it not absolutely unpleasant, as long as the sky remained clear and they could see the stars, which seemed to laugh at their puny battle with the elements. But by and by the stars began to disappear in the direction of the wind, and finally were blotted out over the whole heavens by a huge pall of cloud, and the darkness became awfully oppressive. The wind dropped, and its roar subsided into a low moaning sound. They felt the cold intensely as the snow came down quickly and silently, covering them with a white coating. A black cormorant suddenly appeared hovering over them, to be driven away with the paddle, and they could hear the swoop of gulls about them.

"We are not quite food for the birds yet; but I can't stand this much longer," said Jimmy, his teeth chattering with the cold.

"Hold up, old man. The tide will turn in half an hour."

There was the sound of a sudden snap. The rope had parted, and a receding wave bore them away, leaving a rapidly widening distance between them and the buoy.

"Keep her head to the waves," said Frank, "or we shall be upset."

At this critical moment the sky cleared in one patch, and against it they saw the outlines of the dark, square sails of a schooner. The boys hailed her long and loud, and in answer came the hoa.r.s.e cry, "Where away?"

"Here, on your weather bow. Fling us a rope!"

In a few minutes they and their punt were safe on board, and in another hour they were in an hotel at Yarmouth, dressed in borrowed suits of clothes, and enjoying a hot supper.