ng till July. There she sits, cowering, just on the edge of the
reeds, uncertain whether to dive or fly. By the creak and cry of the
cradle of thy first-born, Hamish, spare the plumage on her yearning and
quaking breast. The little yellow images have all melted away, and are
now, in holy cunning of instinct, deep down beneath the waters, shifting
for themselves among the very mud at the bottom of the reeds. By-and-by
they will be floating with but the points of their bills above the
surface, invisible among the air-bells. The parent duck has also
disappeared; the drake you disposed of, Hamish, as the coward was
lifting up his lumbering body, with fat doup and long neck in the air,
to seek safer skies. We male creatures--drakes, ganders, and men
alike--what are we, when affection pleads, in comparison with females!
In our passions, we are brave, but these satiated, we turn upon our heel
and disappear from danger, like dastards. But doves, and ducks, and
women, are fearless in affection to the very death. Therefore have we
all our days, sleeping or waking, loved the sex, virgin and matron; nor
would we hurt a hair of their heads, grey or golden, for all else that
shines beneath the sun.

Not the best practice this in the world, certainly, for pointers--and it
may teach them bad habits on the hill; but, in some situations, all dogs
and all men are alike, and cross them as you will, not a breed but shows
a taint of original sin, when under a temptation sufficiently strong to
bring it out. Ponto, Piro, and Basta, are now, according to their
abilities, all as bad as O'Bronte--and never, to be sure, was there such
a worrying in this wicked world. But now we shall cease our fire, and
leave the few flappers that are left alive to their own meditations. Our
conduct for the last hour must have seemed to them no less unaccountable
than alarming, and something to quack over during the rest of the
season. Well, we do not remember ever to have seen a prettier pile of
ducks and ducklings. Hamish, take census. What do you say--two score?
That beats cockfighting. Here's a hank of twine, Hamish, tie them
altogether by the legs, and hang them, in two divisions of equal
weights, over the crupper of Surefoot.

THE MOORS.

FLIGHT THIRD--STILL LIFE.

We have been sufficiently slaughterous for a man of our fine
sensibilities and moderate desires, Hamish; and as, somehow or other,
the scent seems to be beginning not to lie well--yet