THE “GREYS” AND FATHER TIME

Evening Star, Issue 19550, 7 May 1927, Page 22

THE “GREYS” AND FATHER TIME

[By Decoy.]

Received a pair of “greys ” to-night *' with the shooter’s compliments.” Tiiey lie before me now, the sleek beauties, with the glint of green on their wings. The nearer one must have been % pretty shot; right-to-left, about 40yds, flying high and fast, I should •my, by the pattern; head, neck and left under-wing. The old feeling, the quivering keenness surges through me, und Father Time halts a moment and turns up his old ledgers. His impatient anger marks a page, and I loan closer to read the faded date. I have the old man by his mildewed robe, and there is no escape for him until my dream is out. I feel again the bite of <in icy wind on the long rido to the lagoon. A sickly moon cowers behind a racing scud, and a thin drizzle glistens against the buggy lamps. Uncomfortable, cold, and sleepy, but the thrill of the game is my heritage, and I am happy. The long cold wait in the “ mai-mai,” trigger finger warming in my armpit as I watch the decoys bobbing on the •vmd-ruffled water.

The raupos sway and nod knowingly, and a whisper steals through them on the north wind. The retriever, snug at mv feet, stirs and cocks a listening ear. Then faint and indefinable comes a waccato whistljug, “When, when, when, when,” sending the blood in a 'mated rush to my very finger tips, and 1 spring to my feet, all a-tremble. "Steady, son.” whispers the voice of Experience beside me, “Head down, and wait for low shots. You’ll get ’em against that light patch to your right; lead them about 3ft. and you’ll seo the white splash on the water straight ahead when they come to the decoys] shoot about a foot ahead of it.” Everywhere the air is full of sound: the whistling beat of unseen wings and a swift rushing. The old dog stiffens against my leg and growls low in his throat. ,f ’Waro right, son!” I hoar, and my cheek cuddles the stock, the wory bead lined out against the patch of light. A black shape hurtles out of space like a quenched meteor, and is halfway across the space when my finger draw’s on the trigger. Comes the flash and the honest humn of good powder as the charge of Number 4 gets away.

1 can’t see the result, but more experienced eyes have noted it. “He’s down! Oh, good laddie!” and my right hand is crushed by a good sportsman’s, in a man-to-man grip. My first bird! And I listen quietly ns we crouch in the “ mai-mni,” and he tells me of how, long ago, his father watched by a lagoon with a. stripling by bis side, and of his first bird. I want to talk, but there is a tightness in my throat, and fears of exaltation are wiped away stealthily as I watch a motionless speck on the bleak lagoon. Aly first bird! “What’s this, old man? You must keep moving? Very well, off you go and take your musty old home under your arm; I have my memories.”

There’s a law of compensation pinned on to life, I’m told, and it’s no use kicking against the pricks, hut to spend tho duck season in town—oh, h