pay us during the Winter, and I fancy
that this upsets them a trifle. For hundreds of generations they have
been accustomed to nest in the pinions of certain roofs, to locate in a
determined chimney, and it is a most amusing sight to see them cluster
about a ruined spot and discuss the matter in strident chirpings.

Last season, after a family consultation, which lasted well nigh all
the morning, and during which they made repeated visits of inspection
to a certain favourite drain pipe, I suddenly saw them all lift wing
and sail away towards the North. My heart sank. Something near and
dear seemed to be slipping from me, and one has said _au revoir_ so oft
in vain. So they too were going to abandon me!

In one accustomed to daily coping with big human problems, such emotion
may seem trivial, but it was perhaps this constant forced endurance
that kept one up, made one almost supersensitively sentimental. Little
things grew to count tremendously.

At lunch time I sauntered forth quite sad at heart, when an unexpected
familiar twittering greeted my ear, and I turned northward to see my
little friends circling about the stables. Life closer to the front
had evidently not offered any particular advantages, and in a few days'
time their constant comings and goings from certain specific points
told me that they had come back to stay.

But if friend swallow may be praised for his fidelity, unfortunately
not so much can be said for another familiar passerby--the wild duck.
October had always seen them flocking southward, and some one of our
household had invariably heard their familiar call, as at daybreak they
would pass over the chateau on their way from the swamps of the Somme
to the Marais de St. Gond. The moment was almost a solemn one. It
seemed to mark an epoch in the tide of our year. Claude, Benoit,
George and a decrepit gardener would abandon all work and prepare
boats, guns and covers on the Marne.

Oh, the wonderful still hours just before dawn! Ah, that
indescribable, intense, yet harmonious silence that preceded the
arrival of our prey!

Alas, all is but memory now. Claude has fallen before Verdun, Benoit
was killed on the Oise, and George has long since been reported missing.

Alone, unarmed, the old gardener and I again awaited the cry of our
feathered friends, but our waiting, like that of so many others, was in
vain. The wild ducks are a thing of the past. Where have they gone?
No one know