Then all discomfort forgotten as the wildfowl sweep within range

These are the conditions that would have hunting folk checking their girths and settling closer in their saddles, for when the air is colder than the ground, scent lies low and less tricky, and in days gone by we would often have a short, fast, exciting scurry of a hunt at this time, as long shadows stretched across the fences, making jumps look even more forbidding than they really were.

Then the long hack back through silvering puddles and dark stubbles, talking and remembering, as horses stretched their necks to ease their backs, and breathed dragon-smoke in the cooling air.

For me, walking back the long way round and feeling the chill enough to close the top button of my coat, it was pleasure enough to see the dogs drinking in the scent trapped at their noses’ level, swinging their gait like pointers, jerkily through the long weeds in the uncultivated sides of the fields we were crossing.

In the distance, a yard dog barked, and a cock pheasant told the world that it was going to roost, and where.

Ground that had been too hard a few weeks ago was now yielding deeply to each footfall; my stride came to a brief halt as the track gave way into a furrow full of water, taking me half a boot-height with it.

As I pulled myself back on the path, I heard a scurrying away of the rabbit kind, followed by the dogs splashing through the plough. Far heavier, they made no good progress against their quarry, which was just as well for the rabbit, as its burrows were flooded out and its shelter scant.

We had caught one earlier which was so thin that its backbone was easily felt, and the fur was coming off its paws in the rabbit equivalent of trench foot, for it had no chance of getting out of the wet, day or night.

A sizeable group of mallard flew overhead, wings singing in the air as they headed for the flood plains: duck heaven, this time of year. I wondered if there would be anybody out to take the wild harvest this night, waiting tensely in hides for the low chatter, the whistling, the thin chorus of multiple voices, that told them their varied prey was coming in.

A bitterly cold wait, with body heat leaching from bones and extremities, straining eyes to see and ears to hear, then all discomfort forgotten as the wildfowl sweep within range.

Or else they would veer away and climb like fighters, having seen an incautiously upturned pale face against the murk, or maybe a glint of fading light catching a gun-barrel, treacherously or fortuitously, depending on which side you were on.

Night’s fist closed around the dusk now, the temperature dropping sharply as I reached the lane, and the dogs closed in at my heels for the distance back to the vehicle and our short journey home.