as the slub.

You can only fire in the direction you think they should be from the sound of their feeding, and then send your dog. But dunlins are not the game to-night.

The geese are here; Finny and Den can see them coming up, a waving cloud. They are lowering, have pitched, and begin feeding. As the water floats them, they will come nearer and nearer. Even now can be discerned some grey spots just off the spit; they will be in sight directly. Now they show in the full light, as they swim and turn down their necks to reach the grass, which is covered with them. Their hind parts show white as they guzzle away, all unconscious of the fowlers' nearness to them.

The coverings are taken off the locks, for the guns had been carefully loaded with swan - shot before starting. Rover pokes his nose just over the punt's

Now for it! The guns

side, ready to dash away. just touch the shoulder, when, from the other side of the spit, from the little bay hidden from their sight, comes the report of four duck-guns, one after the other. Two had been fired at the geese as they floated up, and two as they rose in dire confusion.

They heard them fall, thud, thud, and then a skiff

was put out.

It was enough, more than enough: Den and Finny crept off, after looking at each other, without a word. When they were about two miles on their homeward way Fin stopped, looked earnestly at Den, drew the bottle from his pocket, took a long pull, and handed it to him, saying, "Finish it."

Then his tongue was freely loosened. "Of all the rum starts that ever I cum across since I first paddled about, this licks all." Den quite agreed with him. It was by no means pleasant to be forestalled.

All fowlers know that the best-laid plans are apt to fail. When they are told of some one who never goes home empty-handed, they say, " He uses silver shot."

CHAPTER XIX.

HOW THE CHOLERA CAME TO MARSHTON.

ONE summer Marshton had a worse foe to contend

against than even fever and ague. The fishing community to which most of Den's mother's people belonged occupied the lower part of the village, close to the water's edge. Their cottages were comfortable, but the

solidly built, roomy, and living-rooms of most of these were below the level of the pavement; you had to go down three or four steps to reach the doors. No doubt they had been built in this way to shield the houses and their inhabitants, in some measure, from the fierce blasts that blew directly off the water. At one time the tide never reached them, as it had a vast extent of uninhabited flat to flow over, there being only a

sea-wall on one side of the creek. Later on fresh people came and settled on those low-lying lands; they built themselves a sea-wall, as well as quays and ship-yards. Then the water, having nowhere to spread at the time of the high tides, flooded the streets of the fishing quarter.

The fisher folks, being neither able to carry their houses up higher nor yet rich enough to build others, had to make the best of it, and to get out the water when it invaded their homes as best they could.

Now their favourite food was pork-fish they only ate when it was a matter of necessity. Every fisherman managed to keep a pig, and each cottage had its own garden; the pig was always kept in the lower part of the gardens, where the tide made most havoc.

All who have had anything to do with pigs, know well that more obstinate, more cantankerous creatures do not exist. If any doubt this fact, let him try to root a pig out of his sleeping-place after he has settled down for his night's rest. The fisherman, finding the water had risen up to the animal's bedplace, would curse its obstinacy, and his forcible expostulations, added to the expostulating gruntings of the pig, made the scene a very lively one. Some

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times the pigs managed to break loose, and then, instead of making for dry land, they invariably took to the open water, and their owners had to run for their boats to go to the rescue of these valuable but wilful animals.

The mischief done by the flooding of the lower parts of the houses, and the refuse left everywhere, was most disheartening to the fisher folk, added to their days and nights of unremitting toil, which was poorly repaid and full of hazard.

As the shipping that visited the creek lay at the bottom of the town, all the dressing required for the land of the upland farms had to be drawn through the whole length of the place; there was only one approach for waggon traffic. The manure mainly used was fish, in some shape or other, tons upon tons of it, varying in kind according to the seasons. Guano or chemical dressings were then unheard of about Marshton.

Sprats they carried through, waggon-load after waggon-load, then star-fish, commonly called "fivefingers," mussels, and other small matter that they dredged for. The sprats and other fish were fresh and good, but there was no sale for them.