group of midges appears moving in the blue heaven, or relieved against a white cloud, every one within summons is called to see. Those are the days when children are told why wild geese fly in a string, or in wedge-like form, and are taught to observe by the change in the figure, when the leader is tired, and drops back to make way for another. Gulls are at the same time winging their slow flight to inland marshes. If they do this early, and the wild-fowl are early, and the fieldfares assemble on the ploughed lands about the same time, all observers expect a long and hard winter; and the farmers lay their plans accordingly. They watch for the departure of the last house-marten, and the arrival of the hooded-crow and the redwing. The woodcock drops in solitarily from the Baltic, wearied and belated when it reaches the dim shore, and glad to cower in any ditch, where it is too likely to be found in the morning by people who well know where to look for such arrivals. The snipes manage to get safely to the marshes, in great numbers. But the grand object now is to get hold of teal, widgeons, and wild ducks; for there is an immediate demand for such delicacies among the operatives of the manufacturing towns, and other home-staying people; and the London poulterers will be wanting tens of thousands of them, as London fills again:—perhaps even if London remained “empty,” as the citizens know what is good as well as any great man’s cook. Out to the marshes, then, go the lovers of the sport,—no boy ever being permitted a second opportunity if he has not kept an exemplary silence on the first occasion.
How vivid appears in memory the grass on the sloping dry bank beside the little canal! And vivid the hue really is; for the grass is never of a lovelier green than in October; and these sloping banks are kept dry and comfortable for the birds to dress their feathers, instead of being rank and woolly as in more fenny places. Near at hand there are coverts of rushes and reeds, and islets of long grass, for the feeding and hiding of the fowl; and here is the hubbub and the noise. Such a fluttering and dashing and splashing,—such a quacking and screaming and clatter, is heard nowhere else. The inland poultry-yard, from this time to Christmas, is nothing to a decoy district. While the new arrivals are making acquaintance with their predecessors, and are feeding on the flowering rushes (one species of which gives its excellence to the canvas-back duck of the Potomac) and are making themselves beds among the islets and banks, man, boys, and dog are watching from behind a screen of reeds. What an excitement it is when the trained ducks mix with the wild birds! and when they tempt them into the right canal, and to dress their feathers on the bank till the dog appears! Then all take to the water, of course. The question is which way will they turn. The trained ducks once more lead; and having been daily fed at the place where the nets are now laid, at the head of the decoy, they tend that way now, followed by scores of new friends. As often as there is any lingering, or appearance of turning back, the dog appears again, and perhaps man or boy, looking through the fence. Once under the arch of nets, supported on hoops, the rest is short work. The birds rush up to the furthest point, as the net is dropped behind them; and there the fowler fetches them out by dozens, leaving only his coadjutors, the decoy ducks.
The hiding, the silence of the fowlers, the liveliness of the birds, the genius and patience of the dog,—now seeming to saunter accidentally to the spot indicated by his faculties, and now standing for minutes together with the water running over his back, seeing after a duck or a waterhen; and the pleasure of being wet, and cold, and hungry in the pursuit of sport, are bewitching to boys; and would be, no doubt, to girls, if they could be allowed to dabble their frocks in the slime of the fens. But there is another department for the girls. It is too late now for plucking geese alive for this year. The last of these pluckings takes place before Michaelmas. If my readers shudder at the notion, they are probably unaware of what this plucking amounts to, though the process ought to have been put an end to very long ago. The Michaelmas goose of the Fens is not like Plato’s man,—a two-legged animal without feathers; but each has given up a small portion of its finer down and a few quill-feathers,—both of which had better be let alone during the bird’s life. When the consumption of autumn geese begins, what an avidity do the women and girls show for the feathers! What bags are made and hung up in out-houses, or locked into closets, till the mistress is led by the nose to the discovery, and orders them out of the house! What a baking of them there is, if possible, when the family are off to the market; and how well it is if the wind sets the other way! And when the collections are sorted, and prepared, and weighed, what dreams there are of the prices to be offered at the fair! and what a chaffering there is when the fair-day arrives!
Townspeople know very well what a fair is. Any citizen can describe a fair from beginning to end, with its cattle sales to begin with; and, when they are over, its stalls of wares of all kinds, its caravans of wonders, in the shape of giants, dwarfs, monsters, play-acting, conjuring tricks, wild beasts, peep-shows, and all the rest of it; and then again the games, from the old merry-go-round to the fashionable Aunt Sally. All this is as familiar as gingerbread to townspeople; but they little know what a fair is to rural folk in remote places. To many of them it is a greater occasion than Christmas-day itself; for it is the only day in the year in which they see a throng of strangers. For this the women save their silver, and buy ribbons and gay shawls; and for this the children prevail on themselves not to spend every halfpenny as they get it, for months before. The importance of a day which is thought of, and talked of for many weeks by people who never otherwise see twenty persons assembled, except at church, or a funeral, can hardly be imagined by those who are accustomed to the buzz of human voices, and the stream of population in a street . In some parts of the country, too, the autumn fair promises something more than the bustle and fun, and presents and good cheer of the day. It is the occasion for the hirings of the year. I may