took its name. In a creek at the south end, the boats were
kept--my own pretty sailing boat having a tiny natural harbor all
to itself. In a creek at the north end stood the great trap
(called a "decoy"), used for snaring the wild fowl which flocked
every winter, by thousands and thousands, to Greenwater Broad.

My little Mary and I went out together, hand in hand, to see the
last birds of the season lured into the decoy.

The outer part of the strange bird-trap rose from the waters of
the lake in a series of circular arches, formed of elastic
branches bent to the needed shape, and covered with folds of fine
network, making the roof. Little by little diminishing in size,
the arches and their net-work followed the secret windings of the
creek inland to its end. Built back round the arches, on their
landward side, ran a wooden paling, high enough to hide a man
kneeling behind it from the view of the birds on the lake. At
certain intervals a hole was broken in the paling just large
enough to allow of the passage through it of a dog of the terrier
or the spaniel breed. And there began and ended the simple yet
sufficient mechanism of the decoy.

In those days I was thirteen, and Mary was ten years old. Walking
on our way to the lake we had Mary's father with us for guide and
companion. The good man served as bailiff on my father's estate.
He was, besides, a skilled master in the art of decoying ducks.
The dog that helped him (we used no tame ducks as decoys in
Suffolk) was a little black terrier; a skilled master also, in
his way; a creature who possessed, in equal proportions, the
enviable advantages of perfect good-humor a nd perfect common