Again a call--the curlew are flighting.

He looks and looks, in his excitement struggling to his feet and raising his head incautiously far above the sheltering rock.

There they come, a great flock of thirty or more, bearing straight down on him, a hundred yards off--eighty--sixty--now.

Up goes the gun, but alas and alas! they catch a glimpse of the light glinting on the barrels, and perhaps of the head behind them, and in another second they have broken and scattered this way and that way, twisting off like a wisp of gigantic snipe, to vanish with melancholy cries into the depth of mist.
This is bad, but the ardent sportsman sits down with a groan and waits, listening to the soft lap of the tide.

And then at last virtue is rewarded.