e ground, its place
being occupied by screens made of reeds and stakes, and all so placed
that there was room to go round them.

The boys now noted that the dog was following close behind in a way as
furtive as his master, and apparently quite as much interested as he in
what was to take place.

The water ditch increased in width rapidly now till the net tunnel
became six feet, twelve feet, twenty feet, and, close to the mouth,
twenty-four feet wide, while the light ash-poles, bent over and tied in
the middle, were quite twelve feet above the water.

They were now near the mouth of the curved ditch, whose narrow portion
bent round quite out of sight among the trees, while at a signal from
Dave they went to a broad reed screen in front, and gazed through an
opening, to see stretching out before them, calm and smooth beneath the
soft grey wintry sky, a large pool of about a couple of acres in extent,
surrounded by closely growing trees similar to those through which they
had passed, while at stated intervals were openings similar to that by
which they stood, in all five in number, making a rough star whose arms
or points were ditches or pipes some five-and-twenty feet wide, and
curving off, to end, as above told, sixty or seventy yards from the
mouth, only two feet wide, and covered right along with net.

All this was well-known to them before, and they hardly gave it a second
glance. What took their attention were some half dozen flocks of
water-fowl seated calmly on the smooth surface of the pool and a couple
of herons standing in the shallow water on the other side, one so
hitched up that he seemed to have no neck, the other at his full height,
and with bill poised ready to dart down at some unfortunate fish.

Here and there a moor-hen or two swam quietly about flicking its
black-barred white tail. There were some coots by a bed of reeds, and a
couple of divers, one of which disappeared from time to time in the most
business-like manner, and came up at the end of a long line of bubbles
many yards away.

Nearest to them was a large flock of quite a hundred ordinary wild
ducks, for the most part asleep, while the others sat motionless upon
the water or swam idly about, all waiting patiently in the secluded
pool, which seemed to them a sanctuary, for nightfall, when slugs and
snails would be out and other things in motion, ready to supply them
with a banquet on some of their far-off feeding grounds. The drakes
w