But as we rested a shadow fell from a cloud that covered the sun, and immediately a faint sigh arose from among the sedges and the reeds, and two pale yellow leaves fell from the willows on the water.  A gentle breeze followed the cloud, chasing its shadow.  Orion touched his rod meaningly.  So I stepped ashore with the gun to see if a channel could be found into the open water, and pushed through the bush.  Briar and bramble choked the path, and hollow willow stoles; but, holding the gun upright, it was possible to force through, till, pushing between a belt of reeds and round an elder thicket, I came suddenly on a deep, clear pool—­all but walking into it.  Up rose a large bird out of the water with a bustling of wings and splashing, compelled to ‘rocket’ by the thick bushes and willow poles.  There was no time to aim; but the old gun touched the shoulder and went off without conscious volition on my part.

The bird flew over the willows, but the next moment there was a heavy splash somewhere beyond out of sight.  Then came an echo of the report sent back from the woods adjoining, and another, and a third and fourth, as the sound rolled along the side of the hill, caught in the coombes and thrown to and fro like a ball in a tennis-court.  Wild with anxiety, we forced the punt at the bulrushes, in the corner where it looked most open, and with all our might heaved it over the weeds and the mud, and so round the islet into the next pool, and thence into the open water.  It was a wild duck, and was speedily on board.

Stepping the mast and hoisting the sail, we drifted before the faint breath of air that now just curled the surface, steering straight across the open for the stony barren islands at the mouth of the bay.  The chart drawn in pencil—­what labour it cost us!—­said that there, a few yards from the steep shore, was a shoal with deep water round it.  For some reason there always seemed a slight movement or current—­a set of the water there, as if it flowed into the little bay.

In swimming we often came suddenly out of a cold into a stratum of warm water (at the surface); and perhaps the difference in the temperature may have caused the drift, for the bay was in shadow half the day.  Now, wherever there is motion there will fish assemble; so as the punt approached the shoal the sail was doused, and at twenty yards’ distance I put the anchor into the water—­not dropping it, to avoid the splash—­and let it slip gently to the bottom.

Then, paying out the cable, we drifted to the edge of the shoal without the least disturbance, and there brought up.  Orion had his bait ready—­he threw his line right to windward, so that the float might drag the worm naturally with the wind and slight current towards the shoal.

The tiny blue buoy dances up and down on the miniature waves; beyond it a dazzling path of gold stretches away to the distant osier-islands—­a path down which we came without seeing it till we looked back.  The wavelets strike with a faint ‘sock-sock’ against the bluff overhanging bow, and then roll on to the lee-shore close at hand.