I rose slowly, wishing there were some way of wringing out my entire
back. "Of course not!" I gasped indignantly.
"Think not?" very benevolently from the other cock. "'Twouldn't have
kicked like that if you hadn't. Look at your gun and see."
I reseated myself damply upon the haycock. "I tell you I _didn't_. Why
should I shoot both at once, I'd like to know! I--never--"
Here I stopped, for as I broke open my gun I saw two dented cartridges,
and as I pulled them out white smoke rolled from both barrels. There
seemed nothing further to be said, at least by a woman, so I said
nothing. Jonathan also, though human, said nothing. It is crises like
these that test character. I turned my cool back to the east, that the
rising sun, if it ever really got thoroughly risen, might warm it, and
grimly reloaded. Jonathan continued his call to the birds, and when they
returned again I behaved better.
By seven o'clock the birds had scattered, and we left our places to go
back to the horse. On the way we encountered two hunters wandering
rather disconsolately over the marsh. They stopped us to ask what luck,
and we tried not to look too self-satisfied, but probably they read our
success in our arrogant faces, streaked with tar and sweet oil as they
were. Possibly the bulge of our hunting-coat pockets helped to tell the
story.
"How long have you been out here?" they asked enviously.
"Two hours or so," said Jonathan.
"How'd you get out so early?"
"We got up early," said Jonathan, with admirable simplicity.
The strangers looked at him twice to see if he meant to jeer, but he
appeared impenetrably innocent, and they finally laughed, a little
ruefully, and went on out into the marsh we were just leaving. Why does
it make one feel so immeasurably superior to get up a few hours before
other people?
We drove home along the sunny road, where the bakers' carts and meat
wagons were already astir. Could it be the same road that a few hours
before had been so cold and gray and still? Were these bare white houses
the same that had nestled so cozily into the dark of the roadside? We
reached our own plain little white house and went in. In the dining-room
our candles and the remains of our midnight breakfast on the table
seemed like relics of some previous state of existence. Sleepily I set
things in order for a real breakfast, a hot breakfast, a breakfast that
should be cozy. Drowsily we ate, but contentedly. Everything since the
night before seemed like a dream.
It still seems so. But of all the dream the most vivid part--more vivid
even than the alarm clock, more real than my tumble into wetness--is the
vision that remains with me of mist-swept marsh, all gray and green and
yellow, with tawny haycocks and glimmerings of water and whirrings of
wings and whistling bird notes and the salt smell of the sea.
Yes, Jonathan was right. Dawn hunting on the marshes is different, quite
different.