The patriots who are looking for winter sports at
home need not limit their interest to ski-ing and their area of quest to the Scottish Highlands. Let me recom- mend a sport accessible to any one—wildfowl-shooting on the Norfolk coast little more than a hundred Miles from London. In black darkness at three o'clock in the morning, wearing all the clothes you possess, you stumble over the mud-flats to some point far out near the edge of the tide, where you settle yourself in a sort of grave. There you wait, 'silent and frozen, while all around you, is the stir of invisible wings. Presently in the east appears a faint line of grey which changes into silver, and you can dimly see *certain objects looming monstrous in the' half-light.
Then from the sea come the birds–Lhalf a dozen 'wit; of , wader, widgeon, wild-geese of every breed except the grex
lag. You may be lucky or you may not for it is not easy to hold straight with icy fingers, and a wild-goose ia aIlard bird to kill. The silver in the east is now a bar offlaming gold, the sea is a cold pearl, and a church spire far inland catches the sun. You will have seen something unfor- gettable, and, when you are thawed in a hot bath you Will Marvel at your appetite for food and tobalexios.
Previous page
