LOOK back, my memory, through the dim labyrinth of the past,
through the mingling joys and sorrows of twenty years. Rise
again, my boyhood's days, by the winding green shores of the
little lake. Come to me once more, my child-love, in the innocent
beauty of your first ten years of life. Let us live again, my
angel, as we lived in our first paradise, before sin and sorrow
lifted their flaming swords and drove us out into the world.


The month was March. The last wild fowl of the season were
floating on the waters of the lake which, in our Suffolk tongue,
we called Greenwater Broad.

Wind where it might, the grassy banks and the overhanging trees
tinged the lake with the soft green reflections from which it
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
sense.

The dog followed the bailiff, and we followed the dog.

Arrived at the paling which surrounded the decoy, the dog sat
down to wait until he was wanted. The bailiff and the children
crouched behind the paling, and peeped through the outermost
dog-hole, which commanded a full view of the lake. It was a day
without wind; not a ripple stirred the surface of the water; the
soft gray clouds filled all the sky, and hid the sun from view.

We peeped through the hole in the paling. There were the wild
ducks--collected within easy reach of the decoy--placidly
dressing their feathers on the placid surface of the lake.

The bailiff looked at the dog, and made a sign. The dog looked at
the bailiff; and, stepping forward quietly, passed through the
hole, so as to show himself on the narrow strip of ground
shelving down from the outer side of the paling to the lake.

First one duck, then another, then half a dozen together,
discovered the dog.

A new object showing itself on the solitary scene instantly
became an object of all-devouring curiosity to the ducks. The
outermost of them began to swim slowly toward the strange
four-footed creature, planted motionless on the bank. By twos and
threes, the main body of the waterfowl gradually followed the
advanced guard. Swimming nearer and nearer to the dog, the wary
ducks suddenly came to a halt, and, poised on the water, viewed
from a safe distance the phenomenon on the land.

The bailiff, kneeling behind the paling, whispered, "Trim!"

Hearing his name, the terrier turned about, and retiring through
the hole, became lost to the view of the ducks. Motionless on the
water, the wild fowl wondered and waited. In a minute more, the
dog had trotted round, and had shown himself through the next
hole in the paling, pierced further inward where the lake ran up
into the outermost of the windings of the creek.

The second appearance of the terrier instantly produced a second
fit of curiosity among the ducks. With one accord, they swam
forward again, to get another and a nearer view of the dog; then,
judging their safe distance once more, they stopped for the
second time, under the outermost arch of the decoy. Again the dog
vanished, and the puzzled ducks waited. An interval passed, and
the third appearance of Trim took place, through a third hole in
the paling, pierced further inland up the creek. For the third
time irresistible curiosity urged the ducks to advance further
and further inward, under the fatal arches of the decoy. A fourth
and a fifth time the game went on, until the dog had lured the
water-fowl from point to point into the inner recesses of the
decoy. There a last appearance of Trim took place. A last


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