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Updated: June 5, 2025
"Ay, ay, sir!" cried Billy Widgeon, and Mark's heart sank as he felt that his father was only secondary in power to the fierce red-nosed mate. But the next instant a thrill of satisfaction shot through him, for his father said in a calm, firm way: "Stop!" "Ah, we'll soon set him right," said the mate; "a miserable, snivelling cur!"
So he looked as far as he could see in every direction, and at last he spied some little lakes way down on the tundra. "I'll just go over there and see if there is any one I know," he said to himself, and went trotting away as fast as ever he could. He came right down by the lakes and at last he saw some one he had met in his own home land. It was Mr. Widgeon Junior, a son of Old Mrs.
Mine host bowed again as he made answer: What say you, good masters, to a squab pigeon pasty, some collops of venison, a saddle of veal, widgeon with crisp hog's bacon, a boar's head with pistachios, a bason of jolly custard, a medlar tansy and a flagon of old Rhenish? Gadzooks! cried the last speaker. That likes me well. Pistachios! Aha! cried he of the pleasant countenance.
It was by no means a difficult job, for Small and Billy Widgeon soon set the boat mast free from its lashings, which were utilised to fasten the slight spar horizontally between two thin cocoa-nut palms at about three feet from the ground, which was here, as for the most part about them, covered with soft dry drifted sand.
The sun had already vanished in a haze of regal purple hanging low along the western horizon when at length I managed to bag three brace of the widgeon that I had been hoping for; and with these neatly strung together by the feet, and slung across Jack's shoulders in front of the saddle, I was just preparing to mount and canter away back to camp when, looming monstrously through the thin, grey mist that was insidiously rising from the veld, I beheld a long procession of enormous forms gradually resolving out of the fog wreaths about half a mile away.
The sound was so awful in its intensity that Mark shuddered as he stood there almost petrified, while at the first burst poor Billy Widgeon loosed his hold and dropped down shrunken up together as if he were trying to emulate the manner of a hedgehog, and as he fell, he just touched the ground, sprang up, and began to run. "Mr Mark, sir, run run, my lad, run!"
A number of birds, ducks, teal, widgeon, and others, were either floating lazily on the surface of the lake, or rising and circling round it, while others were bobbing their heads beneath the water, or diving in search of their prey which swam below.
Gradually chances for work slipped away; the machines were given up, and the partnership of workers dissolved, and at twelve, Nan and the baby were beggars and the mother in prison for aggravated assault on a neighbor. She died there, and thus settled one problem, and now came the other, how was Nan to live? Old Widgeon answered this question.
Waiting for wild duck coming into the "spring" on a frosty night is cold work, but very good fun. They breed here in fair numbers, and fly away in August. Teal and widgeon may be shot occasionally in the same manner.
It was a toughish task, but with Small and Widgeon for his helpmates he soon had it off, and before long the two sailors were holding it crosswise over the saloon sky-light, while Mr Gregory rapidly secured it in its place with screws.
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