We Were To Start On Horseback
Before Daybreak, Ride To One Of The Marshes About Two Miles From Home,
Shoot A Lot Of Duck, And Get Back About Breakfast-Time.
The main thing
was to keep the plan secret, then it would be all right, since the
sight of the number of wild duck we should have to show on our return
would cause our escapade to be overlooked.
In the evening, instead of liberating our ponies as usual, we took and
tethered them in the plantation, and next morning about three o'clock
we crept cautiously out of the house and set off on our adventure. It
was a winter morning, misty and cold when the light came, and the
birds were excessively wild at that hour. In vain we followed the
flocks, my brother stalking them through the sedges, above his knees
in the water; not a bird could he get, and at last we were obliged to
go back empty-handed to face the music. At half-past ten we rode to
the door, wet and hungry and miserable, to find the whole house in a
state of commotion at our disappearance. When we were first missed in
the morning, one of the workmen reported that he had seen us taking
our horses to conceal them in the plantation at a little after dark,
and it was assumed that we had run away - that we had gone south where
the country was more thinly settled and wild animals more abundant, in
quest of new and more stirring adventures.
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