r " ‘ Dad ta — v3 q r / - ae 4 ae Ny 4 ‘ aur ee ie . . . . é * be" ij EGE # ey =. 7 | 4 | a | . a | a i ha Es Pai . ‘| Pr if vad A WINTRY SAIL TO BUNGAY EEL-CATCHING ° NIGHT PAGE 109 116 vill CHAP. XXV. XXVL XXVII. XXVIII. XXIX. Pe.60" xx XI, XXXII. XX XIII. XXXIV. XXXV. XXXVI. XXXVII. XXXVIII. XXXIX. XL. XLI. XLII. XLIII. XLIV. THE CONTENTS. A SLEEPY COUNTRY VILLAGE . A DECEMBER SAIL TO OULTON BROAD FROZEN UP ON OULTON BROAD ° ESCAPE FROM OULTON . . . EXCURSION TO ORMESBY, ROLLESBY, AND FILBY BROADS UPTON BROADS ‘ : : WINTER ON THE BURE . DULL DAYS AT AYLSHAM DESCENT OF THE BURE . Paes ON WROXHAM BROAD : - . WROXHAM BROAD TO SOUTH WALSHAM BROAD BY OF ANTINGHAM PONDS . ON SOUTH WALSHAM BROAD . OLD FRIENDS ON SOMERTON BROAD SPRING IN THE HORSEY DISTRICT . MAY ON THE BROADS . ° . JUNE ON THE BROADS . . JULY ON THE BROADS . FROLICS ON SOMERTON BROAD AUGUST ON THE BROADS BY THE NORTH SHA APPENDIX. LOG OF THE WHERRY ‘MAID OF THE MIST” . 273 Pee ILE USTRATIONS. Our FiLert at ANCHOR OLp NoRwIcH ON THE WENSUM. Gioomy BEcCcLEs . FLOODS ROUND BECCLES Tue First SNow GELDESTON LOCK AFTER THE GREAT SNOWSTORM GELDESTON Lock. A Nor’-East Snow SQuaLh END OF THE STORM Our Moorineas on OULTON THe New Cor On OrmeEsBY BRoapD ANTINGHAM PONDS Snow SQUALL AT STALHAM THE PERCH . On SoutH WaLsHAamM Broad REED AND ALDER SWAMBS . tg ; al s ‘ a. = oe : i” ‘ ‘a beth £ * ri “ ve ‘ mA - ' ’ ‘ ' : eee 4 “ othing is constant but change—noth ~ : i . ‘ - * sat ae ‘ | ; “ : ty i | ei « ‘ : f ee ; - “ -“ i of, ; ” y oy - : feral ISH LAGOONS. INTRODUCTION. “7 am bound, I am bound, for a distant shore, By a lonely isle, by a far Azore, There tt ts, there it ts, the treasure I seek, On the barren sands of a desolate creek.” —D. THOREAU. fete MAID OF THE MIST” Sept. 15, 1890. mar LOATED with a rakish and unmaidenly air | upon the clear shallows of Hickling Broad, the wherry’s low bulwarks and tall mast, stepped far forward, giving her a devil-me- care appearance from the willow-embowered staithe towards which my messmate Jim was rowing with jerky sea-strokes to ship the pile of cases and packages upon which I sat contemplating the sand- martins alighting with twitterings upon the yielding gladen leaves bordering the broad, for the September moon was waxing full—that moon that inaugurated the meteorological Annus Mirabilis 1890-1891... . Reader, will you pack up your impedimenta and join us ? Ah, you will—good! Jim is coming too, and here’s a hand upon it. Iam skipper, and therefore must write the log, so forgive any omissions or commissions which are not quite to your taste, for what is called life is merely what we like to make it. Kindly remember, then, that your appreciation of the observations narrated in this log depends in part upon your point of view... . | A oa 2 ON ENGLISH LAGOONS. But here we are alongside our future home. She looks clumsy as you step aboard, but is very handy and sails very close to the wind, is comfortable and well found, and Jim there is obliging and musical—what would you? Go below, kind reader, and be careful not to slip on the narrow plankways. Now, please judge what comfort you can get in a twelve-ton wherry. Down the steps there before you is a pantry. On the right, you see, is the kitchen; hasn’t Jim made the pots and pans shine? On the left, through that sliding door, is the saloon—if you are six feet high you can just stand there, if you are over a fathom long then you ean lie on the seat along one side, or you can sit on the other lockers by the tortoise stove—how that will roar in midwinter, and boil our grog water, when the Great Bear sparkles with a new beauty in the frosty skies. Yes; open the door. There is the cabin—two good berths and shelves for our library and guns—cosy, isn’t it? Never mind the rooms looking small now; they will grow bigger to you as the days shorten. . . . Yes; the polished match- boarding is cleaner than paint, and wears better. . . . Jim? He sleeps outside in his cabin, and is quite comfortable with a stove of his own. Come now, messmate, make yourself at home, and arrange your household gods for a year’s cruise, whilst I cook an omelette and curry you some shrimps freshly snared from the cold North Sea. | Peale LER el. HER HISTORY. “My canoe ts growing lazy Ln the atmosphere so hazy, Waztle I dream, Flalf tn slumber [am gliding Lastward, tndistinctly gliding, Down the stream.” E. P. JOHNSON: Jz the Shadows. S}ERHAPS no “conwersions” are more in- teresting than those of Norfolk wherries. After having led boisterous and irregular lives, many of these strange craft don fresh dresses—become family house-boats, and settle down to respectable careers. The history of my own boat may serve as an exemplar of the innate virtue that lurks in the hearts of such craft, for the Maid of the Mist is one of a numerous class. Built in the year when the Prince of Wales took unto himself a bride, the Little Spark, as she was named, began life as a common labourer—she carried marl between the pits and the big river wherries—not even her beautiful lines, for she is one of the prettiest models afloat, savine her from such base uses. After “marling,” she fell into the hands of the extinct Columbia fishing fleet, and was employed upon the baser toil of icing—that was terribly rough on her skin, and did much to spoil her complexion and age her. When that ill-considered venture collapsed, she fell into the possession of one Gaby Thomas. I know not to what base uses she was not put by him—she even carried ash-pit siftings—was once sunk and fished up again, and finally Gaby died, but the Spark flew onwards, passing through 2 4 ON ENGLISH LAGOONS. many hands, until she fell into the clutches of old Tommy, the one-eyed winkle-seller. He, too, used her for icing, and it was at such work that I saw my beauty, and determined to possess her. The one-eyed winkle merchant hummed and hah-ed, and sold her for a small sum, his single eye glittering greedily as he signed the receipt and pocketed the money. I quickly gave her over to the dressmakers, and she was in five weeks converted as you see her in the perspective drawing. Being like myself a lover and fre- quenter of mists as well as of bright sunshine, I renamed her the Maid of the Mist, after the plucky little steamer that for- merly lived in the foam of the falls of Niagara like a sea-diver on the edge of the rollers. It is irksome not to know the Muaid's pedigree when you haye to live with her, for, as the reader will discover, many will tell him some new fact concerning his mistress which is perfectly untrue ; but such is the way of historians—lI have forewarned my fellow-passenger, and now he must only be amused at the myths and traditions thrust upon us. The Mard’s attendants were a jolly-boat with a balance lug sail, and a gun punt with outriggers—a most handy craft, for it is comparatively easy to scull and very stable—one can safely stand and quant (pole) it along—if you know how. The Maid’s sole tire-person was Jim, a light-haired, blue-eyed, unconventional waterman, whose ancestors, I suspect, came over with some Danish rovers. He never spoke of Friday, but of Frida; never said lucky, but always lucka, and so on. But come now, the omelette, aux fines herbes, is on the table, and the Beaune .cork has been drawn—the curry smells savoury—and how cheery the dinner looks spread under the topmast light swinging from the beams overhead. We have music, too—the water-fays are playing upon our timbers—do you not hear them ?—clapotemen, clap-clap : curious music, but their own. OUR FLEET AT ANCHOR. CHAPTER II. THE MONSTER EEL NEAR AICKLING BROAD. “ And then, with souls grown clear In that sweet atmosphere, With influences serene, Our blood and brain washed clean, Weve tdled down the breast Of broadening tides at rest.” C. E. D. ROBERTS: Birch and Paddle. =ept, 16, spent Tuesday in getting the running gear in good working trim, whilst two comely girls poled about near us in an old coble, smiling and chattering to each other like the last remaining swallows who were chas- ing the flies in the clear September day. The wind blew warmly and softly from the south-west, veiling the bright sunlit landscape in a delicate haze brought from the sea. The reeds, already turning yellow in the stalk, with brindled tossing plumes, were greyed by the mist melting into the low sky. Still a band of rippled water gleamed like burnished silver beneath the green willows, breaking their low-toned reflections with shimmer- ing hight. This was the slack period of the seasons; lush summer had faded, and autumn had not come on many- coloured wings; the seasons wavered and hesitated, like a fickle beauty between two lovers. But to the seeing eye the signs of the multi-coloured fall were present. The martins flew low, and began to alight in little flocks on the ropes of a boat floating on the broad; they felt the subtle influence that yearly drives them south, and before nightfall the lines of rigging were crowded with their little bodies, recalling a fanciful Japanese decoration o 6 ON ENGLISH LAGOONS. on a grey background. At eventide the sky was darkened at times as flocks of starlings flew across the broad, and spreading fan-like, alighted on the reed with scolding voices. As the black and gold flocks increase in numbers they will crush the reed stalks with their common weight and sharpen the watchfulness of the sentinel, who with rusty old muzzle- loader already keeps guard at twilight beside the swampy crop. It was a good evening for darting fish—the water was “sheer;” * as Old Josh glided out from the reeds, pushing with dexterous strokes of his quant into the middle of the broad. Peering into the depths, he saw a bubble rise—his arm instantly flashed in the sunshine; there was a splash as the barbed dart broke the surface of the water, the shaft trembled in his hand, and he knew full well he had darted his quarry, and “something like” was his prize. He pulled up the dart with a huge eel wriggled round its prongs. Josh had got the “ warmin’” this stroke. Striking the end of the boat deftly with the shaft of his pick, the eel—a monster—fell on the flat bottom-board and coiled up, looking like a black snake ready to spring. Josh was a bit of a philosopher and naturalist. He sat down quietly and eyed his victim, who returned his serutiny with evil-looking countenance, “He be a wopper,” muttered Josh, as the eel raised his head and came towards him with wicked-looking eyes. “That won't do, though,” he thought, taking up a piece of wood and striking the eel three hard blows on the tail, resuming his seat with an air of well-merited rest. The eel wriggled a little, its flat, broad head lying serpent-wise on the bottom of the boat. “Thet’s done fur him,’ muttered Josh complacently. Still the eel gazed wickedly at him from his bead-like eyes. Josh determined to examine his prize more critically, so kneeling in his boat he scrutinised his capture, his thick, brown fingers hanging carelessly within three inches of the “ woppers” mouth. * Clear. THE MONSTER EEL NEAR HICKLING BROAD. 7 Suddenly the evil eyes gleamed maliciously, the snake- like mouth opened wide, the shiny neck curved, and the serpent’s head darted at Josh’s finger. But Josh was too quick. Moving his hand swiftly away he muttered, “ Noi you doan’t, my bewty.” Then drawing out his large clasp knife, he crushed its flat head with his heel, and divided the spinal cord. “That will do for his bacin,” said Josh thoughtfully, as he replaced his knife into his huge pocket. “But he be a sharp shot, the warmin’; he know; that he dew,” he solilo- quised, rising and shoving off to his ark-like house-boat moored in the gladen beds. On reaching his eel-ketch, Josh brought forth his rusty scales into the well, and hooked on the eel. “Six pound and a harf! IL knowed he was a wopper,’ he said aloud, with a tinge of pride. “Now let’s see the warmin’s masure,” he continued, drawing a dirty tape from his pocket, and applying it carefully to the wriggling body. “ Forty-tree inches. Hum! an’ gude masure, tew,” finished the man of science. Going into his cabin, Josh fastened the eel’s head to a hook over his primitive fireplace, and began to flay his booty with zealous care. As he flayed, he moved back step by step until his broad shoulders were to be seen in the doorway. The eel and its skin reached from one end of his house-boat to the other. After the skin was removed, Josh got down an old jar, and taking out a handful of salt, he rubbed it into the flesh. The dead eel wriggled and squirmed worse than ever. “The warmin’!” Josh exclaimed, in astonishment; then added, addressing the eel, “ Fare ter me, bor! youre rare wicious.” Taking up his knife, the experimental Josh placed it within the eel’s lips, and the jaw of that flayed and salted “ water-wiper,’ with its spinal cord cut asunder, closed with a snap upon the thin blade, gripping it fast. “By goms, what a wicious warmin’!” exclaimed Josh, in admiration, as he withdrew the knife-blade, and proceeded 8 ON ENGLISH LAGOONS. to cut the body into sections for his frying-pan, in which . melted lard was already bubbling. “He died wicious, but he ate werry nice,’ was Josh’s epitaph. Wednesday found us all ready to weigh the anchor, so Jim was asked in to smoke. I offered him some toddy. “No thank you, sir; I don’t live in that street!” “Water Street, eh ? ” SCS 28t8 “Well, Jim, did you ever get those photographs that fellow took at Heigham Fair ?” “Oh yes, sir, they have come; I thowt I was better- looking nor you, sir, but you bested me that time; looked as tho’ I was in a fog a hundred yards off, and I sat afore you too.” I smiled at Jim’s wonder; the itinerant “artist” had focussed me, since I it was who paid. “How did you get on with the party in the summer, Jim?” I asked, referring to a family Jim had waited upon in August. “Oh, werry well, sir; he wos a stockbroker, and he ‘plained how that work. He say that’s like this—if you owned that mash, and wanted to drain it, and had no money, and you could prove that would pay well to drain— well, you'd get up a company, and people as believed in it would shoot,* and they’d have stocks or shares, and get so much every year on their money.” “«Qh,’ I say, ‘ that’s good; I like that. Now, if all you Londoners wos to shoot a shilling a-piece, that would get me a rare big wherry.’ ““ Yes, he say, laughing; ‘Il head the list.’ He wos a good sort; so wos Miss , his wife’s sister—she had a fine eye, and wos up to the nine score: stuggy.’ T “Oho, Jim, what did she say to you then ?” “Said I had fine eyes, sir, and called me ‘ dear old Jim.’ He remembered her only too well—her name was often * Subscribe. ' + Plump, well-favoured. THE MONSTER EEL NEAR HICKLING BROAD. 9g on our lips in the bleak winter—so does the spirit of a pretty woman haunt a lonely ship. The stars shone brightly in the clear solemn night, and we could see swans floating near us. “This place ain’t wery cold * arter all,” said Jim, turning out and disturbing the swans. They sailed away with dignity, and were lost in darkness, disappearing on the vast reed-fringed broad to the low banks where osier-trees and cottages broke the sky-line. Low down in the northern sky the Great Bear was rising, and the Archer and Sea Goat blazed to the south, whilst Pegasus galloped in the orient, and the Herdsmen Béotes stood ready to chase the rising Bear to the frigid North. * Deserted. CHAPTER Il. SAILING ON THE BURE. “ Leave old thinkers to thetr dreams, The treasure of the ages ; Leave dusty scientific reams, And study Nature's pages. Fler poetry ts better far Than all men write about her; Old Flomer’s song of love and war Hlad scarce been sung witheut her.” AN INDIAN SUMMER CAROL: /delis. Sept. 18. ee eal left Hickling early on Thursday morning ? NA in bright panehiees and sailed to Acle Bridge with a favouring wind, the river banks green with reeds and bright with sea-asters and hawkweed. On Friday we reached Yarmouth, and moored against an old barge at Runham. Near by a fisherman was tanning his smelt-nets (for shrimping was over and smelting had begun) with kutch. The fishermen hereabouts use either oak-bark or kutch. The old man filled his cauldron with water, breaking several pounds of kutch into it. When the mixture was boiling, he packed in the light,. flaxen-coloured nets, cooking them for an hour, smoking his pipe stolidly meanwhile. After they were tanned, he and his boy spread them upon the dingy marsh. I saw them gathering up the dry lint in the yellow light of the setting sun. At eight o'clock they rowed past us in their coble under the young moon, the newly-browned nets piled high in their stern seat, on their way to smelt on Breydon flats. The water felt warmer at Runham than at Hickling, and Io SAILING ON THE BURE. II the water thermometer registered five more degrees of heat, although the day seemed closing in cooler, thus exemplify- ing the law that when fresh water mixes with the salt tide the mixture is of a higher temperature than either con- stituent. The eels were already quick to feel the change of temperature in the river, for as we descended the stream eel-catchers told us “the eels were on the move ”—like ourselves going seaward. CHAPTER ebve GREAT YARMOUTH AND BREYDON WATER. “ Slowly down the West the weary day ts dying ; Slowly up the East ascends the mellow, mystic moon ; Swiftly swoop the hawks; the hooting owls are flying ; Through the darksome splendour breaks the lonesome cry of loon.” B. STRATTON : Evening on the Marshes. Sept. 21. ae AIUN DAY broke cold and bright: the wind (#)) was blowing from the East, the branches and leaves of the trees rigid against a hard, flat, blue background. With the turn of the tide we started from our unsavoury moorings—a sordid land where flourished a scentless flora—wild wormwood, goosefoot, sea- lavender, glasswort, and grass-leaved sea orache growing amongst rotting timbers and decaying boats. Pushing with lowered mast through the gloomy and austere bridges, we passed a picturesque corner of old Yarmouth, lighted up by the morning sunshine, discovering groups of fishermen clad in blue guernseys, all smoking clay pipes, as they watched the sailing craft go through this narrow neck of water that joins the Broads and Breydon Water. As we neared the bowling-green, a row of heads in blue caps bobbed up over the black fence gazing at us, some old friends hailing vociferously and running down to help us moor. Just off the green, the Harnsee, splendid in new sealskin cap, blue guernsey, duffel breeches, and tall polished boots, was mopping out his gun-punt. He stopped, and leaning upon his mop handle, said— . “ How do, sir?” “ How do?” “Aint that the Spark, sir?” r2 GREAT YARMOUTH AND BREYDON WATER. 13 “What! do you know her?” “Oh yes, sir. She used ter belong ter Gaby Thomas, then she used ter ferry ice for the Columbia fleet out of the old ship what they kept on Breydon in them days.” ... Lhe tide was running swiftly, eight jolly knots an hour, carrying a boatload of laughing girls up Breydon, past the codling fishers moored in midstream. Everywhere were signs of coming winter—loafing yachting hands, their yachts laid up under tarpaulins; and all around luggers taking in ballast, for the fishing had already begun, and the herring harvest was being garnered. We soon followed the laugh- ing girls across Breydon with a fair wind behind us, passing old Darkel’s Black Maria by the cross stake. In response to our greeting and chaff, he said— “Yes; I take pertikkler care of my wessel. She’s looked arter better than any wessel in the world—look at her paint!” She had not been painted for thirty years. The water grew choppy at the junction of the Waveney and the Yare, and we had to tack so discovering the roofs of the smelters’ house-boats peeping over the ronds. Some of them were cleaning their nets as we dropped sail and moored to the Berney Arm’s staithe. CHAPTER V. BURGH SMELTERS. “With dying splendour on her face, Fler robes of beauty latd aside ; The hectic Summer sighs to glide From the flushed Earth, to yield a place To ary foliage, sere and gold, And trees whose rugged arms are bare, And shrill moanings of the air, And dim glories of the wold.” J. C. ASCHER : /rdian Summer. Sept. 22; porn TT first quarter of the moon was past and SS KX: gone, the tides began to die away. ‘This Cx Nase] was of supreme interest to these smelters, AQ Eeei2) living in their house-boats, moored in dikes cut into the soft rond—a fringe of peat bordering the estuary formed by the meet- ing of the waters before they broaden over Breydon, finally to flow through Yarmouth into the North Sea. Before the end of the August wane the smelters’ old house-boats had taken up their stations. Any nightfall after those peaceful days you might have seen the yellow firelight streaming from their doorways, and shadows flickering to and fro, as they sat and joked cheerily on their rough wooden lockers that served them as beds by night; whilst the “boys” fried the “auffol” *—as they distinguish all fish taken in their nets except smelts—the desired quarry. By day their black-pitched roofs cut the low sky line, leading the eye up to the rows of posts, across which their kutch-stained nets hung stretched to dry. The wind had * Offal. 14 BURGH SMELTERS. 15 shifted from the south-east to the westward, and was blow- ing freshly as the flood began to make underneath the tide, for the ebb was then gurgling past the bows of my wherry ; but those men on the quays, in their souwesters, blue guernseys and duffel trousers stuffed into long sea-boots, knew well the flood was creeping up along the river bed. The wherries had already left Yarmouth—it was not far off. ‘There sat the fishermen, like four cormorants, staring into their rowing boats laden with nets and gear, all talk- ing and laughing. They wanted the ebb to run down a bit more. “Plenty of: fish a-coming,” exclaimed the patriarch of the party; ‘I can smell ’em.” So could L. That repulsively clammy odour that betrays the passage of a shoal of fish was in the air; the smelt smell is, however, of finer quality than the bream bouquet. I believe arm- chair naturalists contradict this fact. J can assure them they are wrong. I can smell a shoal of fish as easily as a Tose. A flock of starlings flew down and alighted on the rond opposite, and one of the smelters drew up to me. “Will you shoot some on ’em for us, governor ?” “Starlings—what for?” I asked a one-eyed man. “To make a pie.” “ Are they good ?” “Good? Yes, sir. Skin ’em, and soak ‘em in salt and water, and cut their tails off.” I shot twelve with two barrels, and presented them to the Cyclops. He stowed them away in the house-boat. At length another—the “old Crab”—arose; he had a rough-hewn face, like a piece of South Sea Island sculpture, with bleared eyes. He entered his boat, throwing the line to the Cyclops, his partner in the strange vicissitudes of a smelter's life. Seating himself comfortably, he began rowing across the river paying out the hundred and eighty yards of net, the Cyclops trudging slowly along the river wall with the line. Having pulled across the stream, the old fisherman eased to paddling, working laboriously along the dicky works— a wooden pier that separates the waters of the meeting 16 ON ENGLISH LAGOONS. rivers. He was a good hour paddling slowly and with effort, whilst singing an old love song with croaking voice — “QO Joe, the boat is going over ; O Joe, you naughty man, she cried ; O Joe, I wish I was in Dover, Before you took me on the water for a ride.” The Cyclops stumped down the bank until he reached an old swill stranded in the mud; then he stopped, exactly opposite his partner. Turning, he looked at the other smelters, who were shooting their net a hundred yards higher up the river. One of them suddenly stopped and began to haul the net in again. “They've got foul o’ summat,” shouted the Cyclops to the Crab. The old man looked up the river slowly and said— “T nevar got on thar; thar’s a steak agin the quay, I know; but I never heerd of nothin’ thar.” “ What is it, bor?” asked the Cyclops. “JT dunno,” grunted the old Crab indifferently, still paddling, working his blades as a spawning or sleepin fish does its fins. “They've lost their draught,” roared Cyclops, “that’s sartin.” The old man shook his head doubtfully. The first sail away from Yarmouth on the young flood was already visible across the rond when the old Crab began to row towards the Cyclops. When within twenty yards of the rond, he climbed slowly out of his boat, stepping into the water, pushing his craft before him to the shore, pulling the line after him. For they only draw the nets into the boats in the neaps—it requires three men for that job. Mooring his boat close to the salting, he hobbled up the slippery bank and stood on the rond, Cyclops having mean- while drawn in his line and fixed the trammel stake firmly into the mud. I drew up like a gull on the look-out for “ auffol.” Their partners had got their net off “the foul,’ and shot BURGH SMELTERS. uy it again. All was going well with them; their trammel stake had not disappeared under water “this journey ”— they were all clear so far. Bending double, the old man started hauling, the line cutting his shoulder, crushing the sea-asters and hawk-weeds beneath his heavy-heeled boots as he plodded along in a straight line across the rond. When the corks described a segment of a circle, curving gracefully against the line of the shore, he stopped and turned, and they both began to haul in the “lint” slowly and with peculiar care, one standing upright, the other stooping against the picturesque background of windmills and cottages that loomed on the verge of the marshes. As they reached the poke, there was a gleam in the sun- shine, and the first smelt was drawn from the meshes and cast into a pail. Hauling in carefully, they recovered the belly of the net, and dragged it, dripping with sea water, festooned with seaweed, and gleaming with fish, on to the mud. Sorting the fish, the Old Crab threw the codling aside contemptuously. Here I made a remark. “Them warmin’ dew a lot of harm; they be arter the smelts. They eat the smelts, and the smelts eat the shrimps.” I nipped the beard of one codling; he jumped nearly a foot into the-air. This was clearly his tactile organ. The air was full of the scent of freshly-cut cucumber. I have smelt it right across the river when they have been clearing their nets to windward of me. At the end of his task the Old Crab straightened himself with a grunt and counted twenty-one smelts. “Too much wind, too much wind,” he complained ; “ that fare no good smelting in a wind,” he concluded, turning to me with a serious face... . | ... “Well, I ha’ taken twenty to forty score at a draw. . . . A hundred score be the master-draw as ever I heerd on about these parts. “Wull I sell you any? Take what you like, sir. Smelts, two shillun’ the score. Take the ‘auffol? if you'll have it, sir, for them starlings.” B 18 ON ENGLISH LAGOONS. The “auffol” comprised six codlings, two eels, one dab, a few shrimps, four sprats, and a fish a little larger than a sprat, which he called by a name since forgotten. The Cyclops selected the smelts from the “ auftfol,” and went down to the water to wash their mouths carefully. ‘“‘What’s that for?” I asked curiously. “Ef yow doan’t dew that, sir, directly they’re caught, yow can never get ‘em clean.” “Thar,” he says, handing them to me in the pail; “doan't yow go and mix them with them other fish, or theyll go bad.” The Crab joined in here : “You'll enjoy ‘em. Smelts be on’y good when fresh taken. Them Lunnoners doan’t know what smelts be like. They presarves them in ice. Now, directly you put a smelt inter ice, that go bad. If you was ter take a piece of ice an’ put it inter a smelt, directly that ha’ done melting, the smelt would be bad.” I ejaculated and went off with my nie Our larder was low. They were cleaned at once; and that evening I rolled them in flour and beaten egg, ace fried them in oil over a quick fire. Smelts and codling a la Juwe. They were, aS my man said, “up to the nine score.” On the way back to my boat I passed a famous poacher, one who had netted fish in the dark by tons. He was hauling in his net, and admonishing his young apprentice. “Don't yow put yourself out; don’t yow hurry, bor. Let them who I owe money to fret theirselves. Don’t yow fret yourself, matey, though we only got seven fish the first draw. ‘Tan’t no weather for smelting, this ere—too much wind, boy.” Further up the rond an old sow, long and thin in the flanks, a true Norfolker, was trying to bite the end off a fish-box. I stopped and watched her; she looked at me suspiciously with her cunning eyes, and resumed her pas- time. She caught the fish box in her teeth and turned it over; she tossed it with her snout, and (the rogue) a eodling fell out, to be immediately gorged with gusto. Before I could cry, “Stop thief,’ the landlord of the inn—for it was BURGH SMELTERS. 19 his sow—came running out and drove her off. She was a noted fish-stealer. All round my boat the smelters were hauling in their nets with varying success, but no one got many—there was too much wind. Having done fishing, they washed their nets and hung them out to dry. The Cyclops went off to fill his water- bottle at a crystal spring that wells up on Burgh Flats, amid a garden of sea-asters. So moist is the soil that the trees growing there show bare stag-horned tops—that fell disease of excessive moisture—against the blue sky. Asters and coarse grasses alone flourish there. As I fried my fish, I could see the beautiful evening landscape. The south-west wind had draped the distant trees and veiled Burgh ruins in a veil of vapour—a salt haze, whose fresh and invigorating breath reached me amid the fumes of boiling olive oil. The dew was already falling in the peaceful eventide; the dying sun flickered on the dew-bespangled plants and reeds. lLarks rose a short distance and hovered, pouring forth their “full voice ;” they and lapwings are the last birds to go to sleep, and the first to awake. A smelter came forth and stretched him- self sleepily in the well of his boat; he had had a nap since I last saw him, and was now going to “on pan” for supper. Flocks of starlings settled, after indecisive wheelings, into a bed of reeds, where their noisy voices were long to be heard as they were startled by wherries sailing past on the river. A girl dressed in white, with dark sunburnt cheeks and a lissome figure, beckoned to her father, who was coming home along the river wall, with dog and coil of rope, returning from counting the stock on the marshes. It was one oclock in the morning when I finished read- ing, and as usual I turned out to have a look at the night. The Maid of the Mist was rocking gently with the ebbing tide. A clear, still night saluted me; Pegasus gleaming brightly in the eastern sky, first attracting my gaze. Across Breydon I could see the eight lights of Yarmouth flash on _ the water-line as of yore in those happy days chronicled in 20 ON ENGLISH LAGOONS. “Wild Life on a Tidal Water.” I had thought, whilst smoking, that I heard a gruff voice on the water near by. It must have been one of the smelters in the house-boat moored alongside. It was. He came out again, stretched himself, remarked sleepily, “ It’s a fine night,” looked at the water carelessly for a minute or two, and asked, “It doan’t flow yet, dew it?” “No,” I replied. He grunted “Good night,’ and turned in to his hard boards to snatch another sleep and dream of bursting smelt nets. Kels were smacking all round in the starlit water. The sharp cough of sheep came across the marshes; a dog barked hoarsely at a marsh farmstead, and I could hear rats feeding in the mud under our stern. A deep cough from the smelter’s craft told me some one was awake in there—the ever-restless “ Old Crab,” I suspected. Peaceful as was the night, the air was filled with the murmur of life, as myriads of fish, flesh, and fowl fought their fierce battles in the air and water and on the earth. The horizon was shrouded with vapour, but in the zenith the constella- tions shone and blazed brightly with varied colours, the mist encircling the larger stars with delicate wreaths. I was lost in admiration and wonderment as I sat on the dew- spangled cabin roof looking up into the purple sky. Our world is exquisitely beautiful, and life joyous to the brave and the true-hearted. It is useless sighing for the knowledge that is withheld. Verily, as Heine has said, a fool is wait- ing the answer of the great mystery that the Lords of life and death have hidden from us. A slamming of doors and the sounds of gruff voices broke the spell—the smelter obscured my thoughts—the atom eclipsed the infinite-—and I went below. CHAPTER VI. SAILING ON THE YARE—A MISTY NIGHT. “ Upon the glassy stream the boat Glides softly, like a vision ; And, with tts shadow, seems to Sloat Among the isles Elysian.” AN INDIAN SUMMER CAROL: Fidelis. melee. =<) HK mushroom or eel moon was “ getting,” =| as they would say in Norfolk; but the day was still warm, with a slight westerly breeze, as we hoisted our sail bound for Norwich. Soon after starting a fine rain began to fall, powdering the grass-blades with soft droplets, and bedewing: the marshes that stretched far and wide about the misty clumps of sallow looming like veiled islands upon a misty sea. Far away on the verge of the landscape wind-mills and_ trees lazily stretched their arms against the grey sky as if awakening from a soft vapour-intoxicating sleep. Then the gentle breezes arose tossing the white-leaved grasses to and fro, rippling the still pools, and lIulling our senses with their sweet low music. In such soft scenes the toil of man seems to become easy and pleasant, the ditches on the marshes dig more easily, and the wherries seem to float through the landscape and melt softly out of sight. The very smoke is reluctant to rise from the cottages hidden in a dreaming clump of elms where the old church bells have just struck the noontide hour with muffled voices. We sailed dreamily all day without adventure, but towards evening we witnessed a curious and beautiful * * Waxing. 21 22 ON ENGLISH LAGOONS. phenomenon. Just before sunset a current of wind blew from the east bending upon itself the upper part of a column of smoke rising from a brick-kiln. Immediately a heavy dew began to fall and collect upon the marshes, suggesting in places pools of water that appeared to grow quickly, spreading and widening, until, lo! the marshes resembled broads extending right up to the marsh walls. A man with a cart drove through the water-like mist, the bullocks crowding up to him as he passed along throwing out lumps of cake on to the marshes. Pearly in the vapoury landscape, six bronzed men were poling the last of the marsh hay that had been left on the ronds during the more pressing toil for harvest. The tranquillity and placidity of the landscape was mar- vellous—you might have heard a pin drop. The landscape seemed asleep, save where the smoke from the burning brick-kiln floated lazily through the air, shadowing an angler trudging home in the yellow splendour of the sinking sun. Then pillars of mist began to rise from the river, and we sailed solemnly through an ever-thickening expanse of sea- like fog gathering on marsh and river, burying the herds and flocks. Already the cows stood dewlap deep in the rising flood, and the grey smoke of the first * day’s burning at the brick-kiln, though still discernible, grew fainter as the encroaching grey from the plains slowly closed over the eastern sky. The herds and flocks had disappeared, and the sleeping windmills but just showed their heads over the grey sea. The moon arose silently growing like a flower in the night, a silver grey ball slowly flushing to a golden tinge. Higher and higher rose the grey sea, so that only the vane of a passing wherry was visible as we glided past each other on the hidden river. The sense of spaciousness and breadth was unpaintable, indescribable, wonderful. When we reached Cantley, through the grey world shone the inn lights, streaming yellow over the cold water where we dropped our anchors, or ever we went below with faces bedewed with the soft exhalations wherein the mushroom grows mysteriously. * The smoke of a burning brick-kiln is dark on the second day. SAILING ON THE YARE—A MISTY NIGHT. 23 Why is mortal permitted to gaze upon such perfect beauty, why is he allowed to lift the veil, for after such magic visions the greater part of life must be prosy indeed, and yet we poor worshippers try to preserve such scenes in paint or fetter them in verse, living with the shadow of the thing that was. CHAPTER VIL. MOONLIGHT BY BRUNDALL. “Tt ts not Summer's fervid gladness, But a melancholy glory ‘Hlovering softly round decay.” S. S. MOopIE: /udian Summer. Sept. 26. (=— sry HE exquisite evening of the mushroom moon be =| heralded a storm. It was the wedge before the cyclone, for we were awakened next morning by a roaring gale. On looking out over the foam-tossed river, we saw the great wherries rushing past with reefed sails and dropped peaks. We determined, however, to essay the passage with full sail, for the sky looked dead. Truth to tell, this gale was but the outrider of the equinoctials, and by the afternoon it had died down to a light breeze, so that before we moored the night had settled down peaceful and moonlit. We went spinning for pike on the white river, but without avail piscatorially, but the river was a dream of colour and delight. Our fishing was followed by a bowl of royal punch, so that the record of that September night should be written in gold. 24 MigeoP LER VII. AT WOODS END. “O youthful prime! O golden hours / Ephemeral glories that have flown ; O future yearnings mellowed down, Yet tinted with the hue of flowers.” J. G. ASCHER : /ndian Summer. ent, 20 LEASURE-GARDENS for the citizen and his sweetheart — whither they come by steamers on moonlit nights to drink beer and walk stolidly along the flower-bordered terraces. But the season for such pleasures was over, and the cunning Caliban, Cerberus and groom, winked knowingly, chuckled hideously, and pro- posed skittles at eventide. It was a new game to me, but I was fortunate enough to “take the floor” the first shot—you must strike the foremost pin on the right or left cheek—voia the secret. After this unexpected success, the landlord and myself played a match against Ben, the rustic champion, and a gardener, and beat them. Our game had provoked drinking, so the landlord was happy, and when we had finished the lights in the skittle alley were put out, every one adjourning to the drinking saloon, for the ways of the publican are devious and wonderful. In the bright saloon, with its commonplace, tawdry furniture, the peasants danced and sang songs, one man singing and accompanying himself by playing a tattoo with his elbow, knuckles, and finger-tips. As 1 was watching the labourers disporting themselves, a North country gardener drew up to me and began abusing the Norfolk men. “They have no heart; thar's no fun in ’em. | Their 25 ay ome ~) PS 42 9 . 5 v, rh 26 ON ENGLISH LAGOONS. mawthers are fules, but,” he informed me incidentally, “my father had heart ’”’—he had been convicted for thieving. When these festivities were brought to an end, we wan- dered back to our ship, finding a tipsy fellow standing on the shore recounting the boat’s history to a little crowd of listeners. “The gentleman bought her; he gave .. . sovereigns for her” (four times her actual cost). “She was built for a model, she was; she is older than me misself.” As we stepped aboard the crowd moved on down the dark roadway. The next day being Sunday, a crowded steamboat arrived from Norwich, the pleasure-seekers scattering over the country side. About noontime two little girls passed our boat, the one a country-bred child, witha round, solid figure, simply clad in a plain print of chaste pattern, recalling grass pannicles upon a pale lavender ground. Her dead black hair streamed luxuriantly beneath a dark trim straw hat, and her well-shaped legs were encased in home-knitted stockings. As she went along the road she turned her clear, calm eyes curiously upon us for a moment only, walking along with a bunch of reed tassels in her hand, her dress swinging loosely and gracefully from her swelling hips— hers was the dignity and grace of strength. After her passed a little town-bred girl, with hesitant, mincing steps. She was clad in a bright red dress, all puffed and puckered, fantastically distorted to hide her ill-developed little body. Her head was decorated with a tawdry little bonnet, partially covering some thin, sickly-looking curls. In her arms she carried a velveteen bedizened doll, magnificent with tinsel. As she passed, she pointed with childish joy to the doll’s gilt necklace, saying proudly, “ My other doll has got bangles.” Poor child, barbarously spoiled by a cheap civilisation. Was she the only one who was exchanging the kernel for the husk? I trow not, for the devil stalks through the land, and points with leering face towards the city where degeneration awaits the race, where all is vanity and artifice AT WOODS END. a7 —for the curse of nature is upon it. When the land shall be all built upon and enclosed, and the peasant is no more, then may old England go grovel before the world. In the afternoon, two stalwart country girls, gaily dressed, came walking home from church along the river bank, passing the crowded steamboat on the point of starting. Coming toa stile, the girls climbed lightly over, amid the hoots and jeers of the steamboat rabble. Once across the stile, the foremost girl, superb in rage, planted herself firmly, and looking the mannikins full in the face, cried tauntingly, “ Did you see what you were looking for?” They laughed stupidly, while the two girls strode off across the marshes to their father’s little farm. Again were the city-bred discomfited. At sunset I saw these girls, with milking pails upon their arms, driving some cows into their yard. What were the browbeaten rabble doing then? Drinking ’arf and ‘arf at the Jolly Dorg with their Pols. As the moon rose, Jim looked wistfully at the sky, saying, “A spring-tide and a full moon—a good herring night.” The scene was peaceful and beautiful as a dream. The moonlight lay on the lone white road and misty river, the hush of the night being softly broken by musical voices stealing across the marshes from the old Norwich belfry, warning the people living in the dark, draughty streets of the old city that another midnight hour had passed. In the sleeping wood beside us a cow was cropping the tender shoots of the low tree branches, whilst in the silvery water fish were rising, marking the surface with curious patterns. These low sounds, hushed as they were by the deadening mists, increased the sense of calmness. Perhaps, too, that was why the rooks in the elms were quieter in their sleep that evening, for the night before they had started and cawed in the bright moonlight at every stroke of the cathedral clock. Storm after peace again. On Monday morning our boat was rocking, and the waves, made fierce by the roaring equinox, slapped savagely against her timbers. “I'was the breath of autumn bringing death to the leaves and water- 28 ON ENGLISH LAGOONS. plants. All garnered was the golden wheat and bearded grain, stripped were the fruit-trees, and fruitless the vines. The hectic of death was creeping over the water-plants and bright marsh-grasses, for September is the painted month of England. Nature's features here are not so bright and gay as those I have seen in the maple-woods of Delaware, still delicately bright and full of colour, more refined, per- haps, and less pretentious, but dear to painter and poet. At this season does the sanguine warm our blood, for the leaves are ripe and ready for the fierce harvest-man, the wind. Long has the death flush been creeping over the marsh crops—it was already visible in the wheat-harvest when the yellow sheaves were carried home in the long evenings; but men thought then only of yellow, for that is the colour of gold. After harvest, the sun awoke the sleep- ing daisies in the mornings, their drooping petals heavy with night-dews as they raised their heads from their grassy beds like laughing maidens. At this season, too, the wild parsley plants stream across the marshes, picking their way daintily through the watery grasses like some holy pro- cession of young girls following the priest across the fields to some French village. Around these plants the marsh thistles stand in serried phalanxes like scarred and weather-beaten warriors, and all adown the river banks as you wander you can still gather a strange and lovely posy—brindled reed with bright marsh marigolds blazing between, and leaves of ripe water- dock growing in the dikes; you may add to your bouquet the blood-red plants shedding their seeds in triple-faced shields, and white spots of water-celery and purple patches of loose-strife. If you go farther afield, you can still gather poppies and daisies, and many another blossom. But with September departs the Summer—the season of ripening and ingathering—and the face of the land bristles with yellow stubble, the moors are ragged, the dikes are full and characterless, and man is left with the homely partridge, the bright pheasant, and the rich and varied colour of decaying vegetation. AT WOODS END. 29 - On the last day of September I had to row sixteen miles down the river to meet some friends. It was severe work against the tide, with a roaring beam wind blowing the water into grey hollows wherein my boat rocked. In my passage silver rain-storms glittered athwart the sky and hid the landscape ere they passed, leaving me dew-spangled. On reaching my destination, I met a telegram instead of my friends. Ordering a capon and a bottle of Madeira, I prepared myself for the return journey, starting when the sun had sunk so low that a soft twilight already reigned in the reed beds and danced upon the boles and gnarled roots of some willows overhanging a favourite gravel-bottomed perch-hole. The tide was again adverse, and the wind abeam. Along Rockland Marshes flight shooters were busy blaz- ing in the growing dusk at wood-pigeons flying home to roost in the coverts, or, on the sly, at pheasants, who dearly love the marshland. Already the wild birds had begun that mysterious flighting at eventide; young flappers flew to the dikes from the broads, and clouds of starlings, peewits, and gulls filled the air—sure augury of autumn. As I rowed along in the lumpy water, I could see vast flocks of fowl high overhead, rolling through space in multiform battalions. Hach com- pany seemed to fly round a nucleus that changed not, but moved forward with mechanical regularity; but all about the nucleus the birds were for ever shifting and shuffling their positions, so that at one moment the flock resembled a mighty fish, then a balloon, and again a huge Chinese lantern, or at times a mighty skein of silk spun by some invisible goddess. Sometimes these figures were plainly defined against the sky, sometimes mysteriously lost and found, at others invisible, the visual effect depending upon the position of the birds’ bodies in relation to the hight and the observer. The wind increased in force and roared through the latticed bowers on the banks, catching up the wan willow leaves as it would a maiden’s skirts, blowing them slant- wise, half turning their white under-parts towards me. The 30 ON ENGLISH LAGOONS. woods seemed to be showing their teeth vindie twilight, for long since any autumn sun had SI golden ball behind the alder carrs. a At last the welcome lights of the Maid * gleamed on the broad river, and I was soon abo with my friend, who had remained behind to fish aX re ear eee CHAPTER IX. A STORMY PASSAGE TO NORWICH. “ Vla Coon vent, vla jolt vent, Vela bon vent, ma mité m’appelle, Vela Poon vent, vla Cjoli vent, Vela Poon vent, ma mté mattend.” ST. LAWRENCE RAFTSMEN’S SONG. @ct. 1. = ig|OME men were trimming the hedge-rows in @)| front of the wherry, though the equinoctials still rocked and moaned through the trees on the low hills above us. After taking in all reefs, we started with lowered peak, sailing before the wind. It was an exhilarating journey to Thorpe Bridge, where we were glad to moor and go below for lunch. After the meal, we started for the New Mills through the Grand Canal of the old city, a waterway delightful in colour, but malodorous. We had hardly passed under Thorpe Bridge before a soaking rain- storm burst upon us, driving the crew into their oily suits. Thus clumsily attired, we quanted through the silver rain-shafts, the unwonted appearance of a plea- — : sure craft in these purlieus draw- ei ma ing towsled heads to the windows, and black-faced stokers to the quaysides. “Here comes the Noah’s Ark,” cried a coal-heaver, sheltering under a sack, worn capote-wise, but the grave old maltsters and the apathetic flour-men merely gazed at ou 3 ON ENGLISH LAGOONS. 32 us with wonderment Urchins on the bridges jeered, and drabble-tailed factory girls begged us to take them for a ride. The dark moat with its rich red walls, green with ivy-leaved toad-flax, seemed endless. We shot bridge after bridge, hoping each would be the last, but it was long ere the white walls of the New Mills gleamed before us, when we moored to a beacon; but the smell coming from the window of a warehouse, which we found to be full of stink- ing bones, drove us nearer to the dark arches of the Mill, where the water was once again cleav. “It can be drunk in winter, but it is only good for washing up now,” volunteered a civil wherryman lying alongside. As we were stowing up for the night, our tin maiden shipped overboard, whereupon a dark, lean, sallow-cheeked man came up softly and began to drag for her body, but his efforts were fruitless; yet he recalled sad visions of the crimes of town as he moved about stealthily in the dusk “ereeping” for the maid’s corpse. CHAPTER X. LOTUS-EATING ON THE WENSUM. “ We are waiting in the nightfall by the rivers placid rim, Summer silence all about us, save when swallows pinions skim The still grey waters sharply, and the widening circles reach, With faintest, stillest music, the white gravel on the beach.” E. P. JOHNSON: A? the Ferry. Oct. 2. ae a) PERFECT autumn morning, cool and tonic, “| greeted us as we turned out after break- fast. Going above the Mills, we hired a boat. : “ Beautiful scenery,’ volunteered the thick-featured rough, with dirty scarf and broken billycock, as he showed us a boat. The water was crystal clear, the shores furnished with cosy bathing-sheds shaded by willows. Here and there we passed pic- turesque inns, where the lads and lasses congregate in summer, exchanging vows and drinks in the latticed bowers fragrant with rose and honeysuckle.. Colts followed us along the eme- rald stained banks with outstretched necks, pricked ears, and meek eyes, hoping mayhap that we should open the gates that kept them prisoners. Patches of reed, blown aslant by the wind, waved their purple and gold leaves, shaking their powdered crowns at us as they bowed grace- fully before the music of the breezes like a bevy of trained dancers. When the wind died away for a moment, they 33 F C ON THE WENSUM. 34 ON ENGLISH LAGOONS. paused as if taking breath, but the ripples on the water and the music in the reeds showed its quick return, and immediately the blithesome crop started off on light feet tip- toeing, their branchlets quivering and fluttering like ribbons and flower-sprays. Then all was harmony till ruder gusts came down the river ending the dance in a wild rout. Beneath the crystal waves, perch, rudd, and roach darted in shoals over the subaqueous gardens, already showing the sere in their lush leaves. We rested under an arcade of willows, and smoked whilst some cattle wandered down to the shore for coolness, so hot was this October day. . When we got back to the wherry, the lean, rat-like man was dragging for our tin corpse, and beside him stood a city rough, thick-voiced, shiny-skinned, sleepy-eyed. “We got it up nearly to the top,” he volunteered. “Nearly, eh? I want it altogether,” I replied. They shook their heads doubtfully. “Can you Norwichers swim?” I asked the young rough. “ Best swimmers in the world,” answered sallow-face decisively. “Yes, I can swim,” interrupted the Ue “Can you see under water ?” “Yes; I dived off the second bridge for a dorg collar, and the ad gave me five shilling, tree pence, tree farthings, all he had in his pocket. ... See under water? Yes, we all see under water; never go inter the water without looking,” finished the rough. “Never dive in Norfolk without eyes,” crooned sallow- face, looking aside at the New Mills in disgust. “No, in course not,” echoed a thick-featured, pasty- fleshed, watery-eyed, husky-voiced gamin from a quay alongside. “Will you dive for it,’ I asked the rough, “when the water clears—early to-morrow morning ?” He shuffled, hung his head, and answered— “T’ve got to go away at tree o'clock ternight.” I smiled, and they went on with their work. es LOTUS-EATING ON THE WENSUM. 35 We found our corpse next morning ourselves, and put her back on the mast-top, giving sallow-face a douceur for his trouble. He thanked us, and offered to sell us his creepers ; they “might come in useful.” Jim looked upon these natives and the city with disgust. “T do like a countryman, and hate these loafers; they be all blackguards,” he said. As we were getting ready to start, the wherryman belonging to the craft alongside asked— “ Ain't that the Monarch ?” “No; Lnttle Spark, that was.” “Oh! ah! yes, to be sure,” he said, blowing a cloud of smoke; “used to lighter marl out of the marl-pits, was sold to the Columbia fleet, then belonged to Gaby Thomas.” It was all coming again, so I went below. The gale was still roaring above us, but we felt nothing of it; we were lying, as it were, at the bottom of a pit, the storm raging over the mouth with the noise of a_blast- furnace. We quanted back through this dismal land of factories, sawmills, breweries, tanneries, and gasworks, and when we moored at last against a garden bank near the Cathedral, Jim ejaculated thankfully— “Tm glad ter get back ter something green.” CHAPTER XL ROUND ABOUT NORWICH. “ Where ts thy home? On what strange food dost feed, Thou fairy hunter of the moonless night ? From what far nectard forest, or flowing mead, Glean st thou, by witching spells, thy shiny light ?” C. Mairn: Zhe Fore Fites. cts meeey N Friday morning we moved down below ‘w4| Thorpe Bridge, and moored by a tree- shaded walk much beloved by the lads and lasses. As they passed to and fro in the dusky. twilight, Jim grew sentimental, and began to talk of Miss “She was a sharp shot,” said Jim. “She's forgotten you,’ I suggested. “Not a bit of it, sir; shell remember me at Christmas.” “We'll see; she was fooling you, Jim; wanted you to wait on her particular.” “ Not a bit on it, sir.” “Why not?” “Well, one day she axed me if I wos single, and whether I'd have her or no.” “ And what did you say ?” “J gaid that all depended on circumstances, and she laughed.” After I had turned in, I heard a loud voice saying in passine— “Oh yes; she’s a market boat from Beccles—Jittle Spark she is; seven tons, that’s her measure. That saying only proved to me that the mainspring of historians is vanity. 36 ROUND ABOUT NORWICH. 37 Saturday was Norwich Cattle Market, and the bridge was kept warm from morn till night. very living thing pass- ing across seemed to be in a hurry—collies, girls, drovers, sheep, cattle, waggons, vans—the fever of the city was upon them all. A girl in red stopped beside the wherry, remarking— “What a dear little boat!” Jim could have kissed her for that. A beggar passed and said— “What a fine little ship,” and asked for bread. Jim gave it to him in open hands. As we left Norwich we passed along park-like grounds and suburban houses, where the inhabitants seemed to me to lead a freer and saner life than in the city. Couples sat in gardens flirting, regardless of all passers-by. Below Thorpe you come upon the marsh land, bringing with it a sense of space and freshness. The very ponies and cattle seemed to be happier as they rubbed the bark off the dead pollarded willows. Mooring to a new quay, we watched a great wherry glide past, the helmsman eating a savoury dinner as he steered. An angler was trying his flies on the small fry rising, but none of them caught on. He was evidently innocent of the habits of coarse fish. At Whitlingham, where we had moored, we saw the last of man spoiled by the city. flock of gulls resting on the oily water, their watchman perched on a stake. As we glided into the silent scene, he gave the alarm, whereupon several of his companions flew up, cackled, and alighted again; but as we drew nearer a large grey gull flew swiftly towards us, passing overhead, and immediately the whole flock arose with cries and flew away, disturbing a number of pochards—we counted fifty- two. The ducks flew in ever-changing geometrical figures, forming and reforming in beautiful patterns on the blue, their necks and wings appearing long as compared with their bodies. Further on, by a planting, we flushed several flocks of teal from their favourite haunts—stragely reed near plantations. ‘Teal dislike the open water, and when disturbed they keep flying round and round near the cover before they go right off. We stopped our boat and watched them. There were several parties varying in number from six to eighteen. When first flushed, they all arose, one bird whistling excitedly a short note with a little trill, one or two of the others at the same time making a peculiar sound resembling a snipe’s scape, a sort of ‘‘ juggle, juggle” in the ORMESBY, ROLLESBY, AND FILBY BROADS. 153 throat. As they grew more accustomed to us, and less excited, the leader’s note grew shorter and less frequent, finally dying away to a long soft note as they alighted again into the reed. Hach company was under the leader- ship of one bird—one voice did all the talking for each party. When they saw we did not move on, they flew up again, repeating the same manceuvres, their evolutions lasting for twenty minutes, when, seeing that still we did not move, they rose high in the air and flew away. As we were examining their floating feathers, we flushed a widgeon and a pair of ducks. It was evident these birds had already mated. The drake arose first, and flew in front of the duck quacking. All this time tufted duck and pochards kept flying overhead in large flocks—the broad was full of fowl. Already a straggly mass of pochards-had settled on the open water, whence we had startled them. We rowed round Hemsby Broad, and returned home, passing a large oak-tree on which we counted sixty wood-pigeons sitting moping in the misty air, and with their feathers spread out they formed a beautifully decorative picture from which Hokusai would have produced a gem. One bird was sitting apart on a lower branch——he seemed to be the watchman; and as we drew nearer, was the first to fly off with loudly beating pinions, the rest following. I am sure the rook is not the only bird who sets a sentinel—in fact, this very day we noticed gulls and wood-pigeons do the very same thing. It is remarkable that wood-pigeons are always mopy in misty weather—a fact well known to poachers. As we rowed home, startling the pochards from the open water, clouds of green plover flew across the broad, being the largest flocks I had seen since the early autumn. When I landed my head was full of the scenes we had just quitted— acres of still clear water, miles of ripe yellow reed, forests of coppice, and flocks upon flocks of wild birds. The subtle augury of the birds pointed to coming spring. I had heard two cock pheasants challenge from the misty plantations, and we had flushed five pairs of ducks. = ON ENGLISH LAGOONS. Feb. 7. The following day we left for the wherry, doing the journey from the market gardener’s staithe to the river in one hour and forty minutes. At the sluice-gates we picked up a dead weasel, and a stoat with a pure white skin except his black-tipped tail. On reaching the wherry, we worked up to Upton Dike. ON ORMESBY BROAD. Pele el ERs XXX UPTON BROADS. Afar from the stir of streets, The city’s dust and din, What healing silence meets And greets us gliding in!” G. O. ROBERTS: O7 the Creek. Seb. 9. eA ESH two broads are cut off from the river 3| by sluice-gates, therefore seldom visited, yet the acreage is considerably larger than many of the better known waters. Walking down to the edge of the lesser broad, we hired a marsh-boat, and a reed- cutter left his work to push us about. The day was calm and misty, with a fog at sea, for the melancholy notes of the horn on the Newarp Lightship could be distinctly heard. The reed-cutter informed us that the swans had deserted these waters, as there was some food they did not like. The water was shallow and clear, and the bottom muddy and soft, for we could see the furrows of the clams (anodente). Their trails were numerous, crossing and recrossing, vary- ing in length from a few inches to a yard, for progression is slow with them. ‘The clam-shells were of various sizes, the largest being nine inches in length. As we went round the broad, we discovered many of their shells broken on the banks, for they are greedily eaten by rats and otters in hard weather. Amongst the reeds were numbers of dead eels turned up by the frost. All round the margin, the chate (rushes) was remarkably green, more verdant and sappy than they would be in another month, for chate and watercress grow greenest in midwinter. We 155 156 ON ENGLISH LAGOONS. heard neither the voice of coot nor water-hen—they had not returned since the frost; but we flushed a mallard, who did not startle an old royston crow silently watching us from a dead branch. Grey crows become mopy and lethargic, like wood-pigeons, in misty weather, when they sit still for hours on a leafless tree-top. The old reed-cutter told us that the great crested grebes were a nuisance, for they always stole the bait from his hooks, but never were themselves caught. He said all birds were disappearing from these waters, because the ‘‘ stuff was full of warmin’.”” Himself had seen pole-cats on the shores in the old days, but none remained, though the place was alive with stoats. He assured us he had once met fifteen of them hunting like a pack of hounds, and much to his surprise they would not move out of his way, but merely raised their heads, glanced at him, and went on their trail “onconsarned as passengers.’ We startled several large pike from the shallows, and this old man informed me that the water-soldier (stratiotes aloides) is commonly called pickerel weed in this county. After making a tour of the broad, on parting with the reed-cutter, he asked us, concerning our ship— “Ts that wessel I see in the river the Great Hastern ?” Eee ‘““She ’on’t carry much more meal then,” he finished dreamily. As we walked to the boat, we saw a hawk chasing a Kentish crow, the hawk flying above the “ Kentish-man ” crying curiously “Curra, curra” every time the game bird darted at his big foe. The-crow, however, did not retaliate, but flew straight on, till the hawk gave up the chase. In a cottage I saw some miserable-looking pigs suffering from cramp, and in the dike a dead frog floated on the water —signs of the recent heavy weather. Hoisting our sail, we set out for Thurne, passing a flock of wild geese feeding on the marshes. We heard afterwards that they had frequented this district for a month past. We anchored at Thurne at nightfall, and on returning from the post-office passed a man with a lantern cutting some hay from a stack, a cow lowing in the manger behind UPTON BROADS. 157 him. It was a picture reminiscent of Millet. As we groped our way along the edge of the dike, we stopped to listen to Jim playing and singing— “Then ’twas I kissed her ruby lips As she laid upon the grass, And coming to herself again, Then she cried, ‘ Alas, Since you have had your will of me, Make me your lawful bride, And do not leave me here to mourn Down by the Shannon’s side.’ ” We immediately fell to dancing in the slippery mud. CHAPTER XXXI. WINTER ON THE BORE. “ February fill dike, The old house thatch.”—TUSSER. Feb. 10, Eya2e@74| LITHER rain nor wind, but calm grey days KEEN) favoured us during the month, and the old distich was stultified in the year ’91. On the following morning four degrees of rime frost greeted us. It was Shrove Tuesday, when in old times the labourers held cock-fights, or “ cock-fair,’ as Jim called it. To this day they feast upon Shrove Tuesday, but the holiday does not begin till the afternoon, as some marshmen, with their haversacks, shouting for the ferry-boat in the early morning, proved. The still bright air excited the birds—blackbirds, thrushes, and larks were singing joyously. After breakfast we started for Horning. ‘The first thing to attract us was a reed-pheasant by St. Benet’s Abbey, showing that some of these beautiful birds had escaped the cold. Suddenly a shrimper appeared on the river, and Jim looked at me curiously. Noticing this, I said, “ Well, Jim?” “T can’t make that out, something hang to it all. Look at that ’ere shrimper follering us, and then that Norra- wegian at Olton, he fared to know you right well as soon as he seed you, and then you fare to know everybody as own wherries, an’ they allus seem to know when you're a-coming. I can’t make that out, there’s something some- where.” 158 WINTER ON THE BURE. 159 I laughed, for I knew what was working in his mind—indeed, it had been a mystery to him all along that I should come and live out on a boat all that winter. Beyond St. Benet’s we passed a gang of marshmen digging out a ditch to top the wall, many of them hailing Jim as an old fellow-workman, whilst flocks of ducks flew overhead. By Horning Church we came upon a flock of redpoles feeding upon an alder-tree, all singing merrily a song, half sparrow, half linnet-like. Beyond the Church was another sign of early spring—a boy was scaring birds from a fence, calling loudly ‘ Car-whoo, car-whoo.” We moored at Horning and watched the villagers coming from the public-houses with foaming jugs of ale and porter to celebrate the holiday. On the land, ploughing-matcbes were taking place, and sparrow-shootings for legs of mutton and joints of pork. We began to make our first batch of pancakes, sitting outside beating up the eggs, and listening to a crow perched on a thorn-tree calling to his mate some hundred yards off. Thrice he shouted ‘‘ Quah, quah, quah!” his mate repeating the sounds, whereupon his voice became shriller and sharper, for he was getting excited. Then he cooled down, and dropped a note, calling with soft “ Quahs,” his mate always answering with the same number of notes, and much in the same key. As we were cooking our pancakes, clouds of rooks flew to the low carrs by the water to roost, for in winter time they do not always return to the rookery. In this district they seem to prefer to sleep near the water. The roosting rooks brought home the reed-cutters, eel- babbers, and tame ducks, which I saw curtseying to one another for the first time, making love in their ridiculous way. After dusk, the notes of an accordion and scraping of a fiddle, accompanied by voices, stole over the water from the windows of the houses where they were keeping up Shrove Tuesday. We brewed a bowl of punch to celebrate the occasion, and sang boisterous sea songs. 160 ON ENGLISH LAGOONS. Feb. Ur. On Thursday at ten o’clock we started for Aylsham, a town proverbial for its stinginess, for “ Aylsham treat ” implies that you pay for yourself. | A light breeze was blowing as we left Horning, with its quaint houses straggling along the low hills, and passed ragged Burnt Fen, and the well-preserved Hoveton—the home of the black-headed gull. In the reeds bordering this broad we heard the ‘‘ ching, ching” of a reed-pheasant, and as we sailed along the river we flushed a flock of tufted duck, who wheeled round and round over some reed-cutters working on the shores, finally resettling upon the broad. Beyond Little Hoveton Broad two men were cutting a new dike, They stopped to look at us and some mallard flying overhead. As we sailed tranquilly along, we suddenly heard a great rustling like wind through the tree-tops, and im- mediately a great flock of gulls flew over, ere they wheeled and settled on Great Hoveton Broad. We noticed a mangled spot in the reed bordering the river, a wound made by a shot- gun, Near by, a reed-bunting sang unconcernedly, the first we had seen since the ice, but a more certain sign of spring was the peeh-wheet-wheet of a coot, a sound characteristic of and peculiar to the breeding season, At this spot our sail startled a hen pheasant from the reed, and a moment after- wards, a large living object, looking like an otter, went creep- ing cautiously through the yellow reed-stalks. When it got into the clear, it raised its body, looking still more otter- like, but when it stood up, we beheld a cock pheasant. The old woman’s pulk was inhabited by some kitti- wakes, and from the woods near Hoveton a flock of long- tailed tits crossed the river, alighting on an alder-tree where fed some blue tits, whilst a reed-bunting sat calling on a neighbouring sallow. Next, Wroxham Broad appeared under our left bow, a couple of great crested grebe swimming with ever-widening circles towards the reed. On all hands we could hear coot calling, cock pheasants challenging, and at intervals flocks of wood-pigeons flew from carr to carr. By the entrance to the broad, a rook was chasing a great saddle-backed gull, WINTER ON THE BURE. 161 and in a dike opposite, two little dab-chicks were disporting themselves. The sky over the broad was darkened by a huge flock of green plover, and as we approached the bridge the air seemed alive with the chatterings of sparrows. We moored above the bridge, and lunched in the open air in spite of the cold regards of a sparrow-hawk sitting on an elm-tree, and a yellow hammer’s sly peeps from an alder- tree. As we lunched, a mavis sang his love song. After a pipe, we proceeded through a more hilly country vulgarised by commonplace houses. Near Wroxham Church we saw the first sprouting sallows, and flushed several pairs of ducks, and a flock of field-fares. Passing Little Switzerland, con- sidered by artless tourists beautiful, we sailed round many wearisome windings to Beulagh. At. sunset, 3.15, the tem- perature was delightful—so° in the air. We glided on till we sighted stragegly Coltishal, with richly-coloured malt- houses and picturesque residences. Following the winding river, we entered the tree-fringed stream below the lock, startling a water-hen feeding on the bank, and starlings and tom-tits from the tree-tops. At the lock the keeper inquired— “Ts this the Great Eastern?” “Yes.” “J thought so: you're expected.” Jim once more glanced at me and said—“ You see, sir, he know’d we wos coming; that do fare wery strange.” We moored by the bridge, and I went to a friend’s house to smoke. There were gathered together some farmers dis- cussing the bad times. One of them had known of land bought for £80 an acre, now worth £30. Another said— “My father bought land at C for 440 an acre; when he died it was worth £34; and this very year it was put up for sale, and there were no bids, so it was valued at £8 an acre.” Seb. 12. The next morning the landscape was covered with a heavy rime frost, which the sun melted completely before L 162 ON ENGLISH LAGOONS. ten o'clock. The water was remarkably low, for the winds had been in a bad quarter for a long time, and there had been no rain. We started a little while after a large, heavily-laden wherry, and soon passed her, much to the disgust of the surly fellow steering. The rooks by Burgh Church had returned to their nests, and were repairing them. At the bright little village of Buxton, the mill-hands turned out to watch us pass through the lock, wondering what we were about at this time of year. We sailed peacefully through the picturesque Lammas, and I ate my lunch as I sat steering through the silent plantations beyond. ‘Through the bridge we came upon a mole-killer, hard at work kicking over the old heaps and placing poisoned worms in the runs. He destroyed the heaps so that he could tell in the morning whether any moles had survived to work. The wind had changed from west-north-west to east, so we saw but few birds. Further up the country the ploughmen were at work in the fields, and some were drilling peas and beans. The landscape assumed a greenish tinge as we drew near Aylsham, but with the evening chills the winter returned, and we began to grow weary of the constant panorama of locks, mills, and bridges. Our spirits rose, however, as we saw the malt-houses on Aylsham Basin through the mist. As we moored after dark in the deserted basin, a wherry- man came up and remarked— “You've been expected.” Jim looked at me, winked, shook his head knowingly, and disappeared in his cabin. CHAPTER XXXII. DULL DAYS AT AYLSHAM. “ You say the Injuns are altke, A bad and sneakin lot; Aw aint no use for nothin’, So the cusses should be shot ? Well, praps they be, an fraps they ain't, A lazy, worthless crowd ; Yet durn my skin ef I kin see Why white men chin so loud.” J. E. LOGAN: Zhe [njuns. Feb. 14. HE heavily-laden postman reminded us that it was St. Valentine’s day, when the lambing season begins in Norfolk, But rain kept us prisoners to our ship. Sunday was quiet, and at first I thought we should be left alone in the deserted basin, but before nightfall I had learnt once more that the human animal is as curious as a wild-fowl in the mouth of a decoy, and though not to be attracted by a liver-coloured dog, yet a pleasure-boat in midwinter will draw him; but you shall see. In the early morning, a villainous tramp, with black hair, blear eyes, and a dirty gaudy scarf round his neck, came up and addressed Jim, who was sitting on the stern eating his breakfast. “What! are you feeding?” asked the tramp. es. “ What’s o'clock ?” “*Bout nine,” said Jim shortly, as he drew down into his cabin to stop further communications. The tramp walked off and sat on the bridge. 163 164 ON ENGLISH LAGOONS. Next came a group of boys. Jim reappeared and asked — “Which of you boys slung that mud at us yesterday ?” One said— Nou: And another— “ Sartenly I didn’t.” And the third— “Twas never up here afore.” They walked off sheepishly, one exclaiming critically— “Only her bottom be a wherry ; what be she, then ?” The tramp had changed his trousers and boots when he again drew up. “The sleepers are open,” he volunteered. “ How long will the water fall?” asked Jim. “A good bit lower yet.” ay Sjrghe “JT spose she be on the mud.” “No,” Jim replied, and went below, the tramp returning to his seat on the bridge. After a bit Jim reappeared and began to slack the mooring ropes, pushing her off into deeper water. Immediately the tramp returned, bringing with him two fellows more evil- looking than himself. - You'll lay better there,’ volunteered one. “That's deeper that way,” exclaimed a second. “You want to put her a little more that way,’ suggested a third. “She’s all right,’ snapped Jim, and drew down to his cabin, and they to their bridge. Then a labourer appeared. “That's the Great Eastern.” “ Indeed,’ I replied. “T have seen her up here with eleven ton.” “Wonderful!” I continued, and he drew off. Then an old man in a wideawake, his coat caked with - wet flour, and carrying in his hand a white-painted walking- stick, appeared. “What! are you going to take that old tree in?” he DULL DAYS AT AYLSHAM. 165 asked, pointing with the white stick to a huge log lying on the bank. “What old tree?” asked Jim quizzically, “That one with the chain round. S’pose, though, that’s too big for you ?” “That would just do for kindling,” retorted Jim im- passively. “Oh, that ain’t no use for that,’ said the old fellow seriously ; ‘look at all these old lumber standing about here; take a long time to throw one of them down; then there’s your waste time and slight of tools, and then arter all you can go and get a hundred of coal for a lot less money.” “Oh,” answered Jim gravely. “That ain’t long enough for a mill-stick, neither,” said the old man, pointing to the fallen tree. “If that be, that ain't thick enough,” he finished, and struck it with his white stick. Then he measured its length, looked up and down the road with hesitancy, finally hobbling off. Jim shook his head and went below. Then two little girls came. The eldest asked— “Will you have a cushy, sir?” “What's in it? Something that will burn my mouth ?” “No; what, do you like ’em hot ?” “ No.” “Why don’t you go for a sail in your little boat?” “There isn’t any wind.” She looked me full in the face and remarked suspiciously— “What! do you want any wind to go for a sail?” “Why, of course.” Her companion remarked— “T should like to go for a sail in that little boat ; wouldn’t you?” “Yes,” she answered, looking at me wistfully; but seeing no hope in my face, they walked off with reluctant feet. A very fat man and fatter woman dressed in Sunday finery took their places. “Well, that’s the smallest wherry ever I see,” gasped the woman, and they waddled off, whereupon two street boys ran up, spelled out our name, shouted ironically, and ran 166 ON ENGLISH LAGOONS. away stoning each other. They were followed by a little girl, who remarked innocently— “You're painted with white; the other what came up here was all red,” and she went on her way. During the dinner hour the bridge and roads were deserted, except by an old man about sixty years of age, whose boyish face smiled from beneath a wideawake, and whose ample body and extremities were covered by a loose overcoat and corduroys. On his feet he wore old patent leather shoes. Pointing to the smoke coming from the funnel, he remarked to Jim— “You're blowing off steam, then.” “Yes,” replied Jim solemnly. “You've got a nice little ship here, then.” “Yes,” repeated Jim. “She ain’t a big ’un.” No.” He drew off, stopping every now and then to look back. When he reached an opening between two malt-houses, he turned, stared at us, and began talking excitedly to himself, till he backed round the buildings and disappeared. A boy in corduroys ornamented with brass buttons passed on the road, where he found a pocket handkerchief. Holding it up by the corners with his fingers and thumbs, he hung it against the light, looked at it critically, then he scrutinised the border, and finally boisterously blowing his nose thereon, stuffed his prize into his pocket, and skipped off home shouting — “'Tiddle-wink the Barber Tried to shave his father ; The razor slipt And cut his lp, Tiddle-wink the Barber.” After lunch, three servant girls, clad in rough finery, passed, walking with characteristic bumpiness, as if pick- ing their way heavily and laboriously over the stones. They saw Jim, giggled, and hurried on, turning several times to giggle again. They were evidently going to join the Salvation Army, whose music and shouts proclaimed their DULL DAYS AT AYLSHAM. 167 approach, ‘The Salvationists came round the corner with a hideous burst of brass and impudence. An old _ bloated- looking man carried the banner self-consciously, followed by a bevy of buxom lasses, who looked rather too interestedly at Jim. Behind them the red-coated band jarred past, followed by a crowd of hysterical-looking creatures with the shifty eyes of the neuropath. A few servant girls flirting with young mechanics brought up the rearguard of this tatterdemalion army, recruited from the hysteric and avaricious. Jim looked longingly after them—the music had stirred his soul. He began to beat time with his fingers on the cabin top: he could not keep still, so he followed them at a distance up to the bridge, where his old friend the tramp was lying in wait, and instantly button- holed him. “So you're looking about the country.” ves." “Tt looks wery nice this fine still day.” oo 08.” “That station was all a bare place about nine year ago.” Oh. “I suppose I shall have to go that way to-morrow,” the tramp said, looking sentimentally at his boots. “Where do you go to that way?” “T shall go to Cromer,” “What for?” “ Arter work.” “T should have thought you'd have got plenty of work about this part of the country, instead of going to Cromer.” “TI was brought up here—I went to school here for three year—was brought up here just across where your wherry lay.” “What trade are you, then ?” “Tm a waterman.” “Oh, I thought, being that you was brought up here, you was a boat-builder,” said Jim sarcastically. “No; I’m a waterman. Say, are you all alone in that wherry ?” 168 ON ENGLISH LAGOONS. “No; my master is there.” “ But there was another gent helped you up here.” “Yes; my master’s friend.” “Well, you two be all alone then!” (eagerly). Yes.” “Say, can’t you get us a berth aboard ?” Jim whistled, bid him good-day, and returned to me, when a portly old man in a wideawake, black coat, cor- duroy trousers with white stripes down the legs, and buskins, his hands thrust beneath his coat tails, hailed Jim with— “What! are you all alone?” “No; my master’s here,” “JT suppose she go like this all the year round; don’t carry nothin’.” “No; don’t carry noathin’.” “She look wery comfortable; I suppose you lay her up in winter.” | “ Sometimes.” “ Well, isn’t she ongain for the bridges; she look a rare height.” “She’s been through Ludham Bridge often enough.” “T suppose yo can walk about inside.” “Yes; six foot clear.” “Oh! she look wery comfortable—that and plenty of money would do.” ... “Yes; that what makes the pony go;” and the old man walked thoughtfully away, two Salvationists taking his place. One said— “Tf I’d plenty of money, that’s just what I should buy, and live about on the rivers. That would be much cheaper than a house, because you see you wouldn't have to buy your land, and there'd be no rates, no taxes, no noathin’.” “*Qeptin’ the brownkitis and the screwmatics,” said his mate solemnly. An artilleryman passed up the road, and the first Salva- tionist remarked— “ He’s been away six years and six months.” A waterman joined the party, and observed to the Palas tionist, who was smoking— | DULL DAYS AT AYLSHAM. 169 “So you like your pipe then.” “That’s better than a pint pot,” he replied calmly, and they went off. A crowd of boys came down and began fishing, some of them, like learned antiquarians, holding a spirited discussion over a straw bottle case. They could not divine its use. The tramp and his companions lighted a fire on a waste place opposite, and made some soup, stirring the pot with a broken stick. They sat on a log and ate their supper, after- wards disappearing. At dusk, a stupid-looking woman, carrying a hungry-looking, peevish baby, came up, and said to Jim— “Will you take us?” “Where to?” asked Jim, amazed. “'To Newcastle; you’re going to Newcastle, ain’t you ?” “ Not to-day ; not as I know on,’ said Jim. After dusk, a thick mist arose as usual, and hearing foot- steps near-by, Jim went out. I heard some girls shout and laugh. Jim came back, saying he had chased them on to the road, and told them if they came about again, we should take them to Newcastle. They were our last visitors. “These town joskins talk of us country joskins,” said Jim, the last thing at night, ‘‘ but I’m blowed if ever I see such a lot of duzzy fools. The questions they ax too, lor’! they're enough to craze a donkey’s heart. I shall be glad to see the green again, sir. Fare to me, towns spile men, sir.” «“ Amen to that,” I answered, and we turned in. Feb. 16. The still misty weather continued. The picturesque old oak on the river bank seemed asleep. Near-by I found the first daisies. In the hedgerows flocks of sparrows were chattering, and on a freshly ploughed field a boy was calling “‘ Car-whoo, car-whoo,” through the mists. I stopped at the lock to listen to a mavis in full song, for he was the first I had heard sing in the day-time, for 170 ON ENGLISH LAGOONS. the earliest had poured forth their courtship songs in the evenings only. The lock itself seemed asleep, and looked as though it would not like to be disturbed. As I returned at noon in the bright sunshine (70°) a group of cart-horses passed me, their riders seated picturesquely sideways, looking like irregular cavalry, as they went on their way chattering and laughing, stopping at the picturesque old mill-pool to water their horses. At noon-time the air was so mild that one’s personality seemed to melt away into nothingness, a characteristic feel- ing of early spring when your strength seems to ooze out into the languorous air, depriving you of all fighting spirit. Your being seems to relax and yield itself up to the soft influences of heat and moisture. Feb. 17. Four degrees of frost last night followed by another still day glorified by rime and softened by mist. The men at the granaries were busy selling flour to country people who drove up in light carts. An old maltster with red cap came down to examine his rat-traps set upon the piles under water ; they had caught three huge brown rats. In the afternoon the trees round about us were alive with the songs of thrushes. It seemed as if they had all decided to begin their love songs with one voice; but they gave us their best and fullest notes at closing-in time, when they poured out their full voices all heedless of the gathering mists. CHAPTER XXXIIL foeest ey OF THE BURE, “Where mists and fogs—in ghostly bands, Vague, dim, moon-clothed in spectral white— Drift in from far-off haunted lands, Across the silence of the night.” | W. W. CAMPBELL: To the Lakes. Feb. 18. x)| HE next morning the sun rose, a pale silver {| plate upon a grey background, and melted the rime, scattermg the mists; when the blackbirds, blue-tits, thrushes and sparrows began to sing joyously in the ruddy willows. We hoisted in a light N.N.E. wind, and left Aylsham, startling a pair of ringdoves, who flew to an ivy- covered tree. As we descended to the lock, we crushed some of the thin ice-tables left high and dry by the tide; tables supported upon reed-legs. By the lock a flock of thirty mavises flew across the river, and. the trees overhead were black with rooks calling to their friends who fed on a field green with the first blades of young wheat. When we got within gunshot they flew down to a field scattered with frost-spoilt turnips. As we sailed along we had to stop frequently to lower and hoist, for we had to go through eleven locks and bridges between Aylsham and Coltishall. | At Burgh Bridge we moored for the night, when we were serenaded by a couple of joyous mavises from a roadside tree, and this was their song— “'Too-wheet, too-wheet, too-wheet, cheep, cheep, cheep, plu-wheet, plu-wheet, plu-wheet, plu-wheet,’ the last note dropping into a chuckling laugh. Every morning and 171 rp ON ENGLISH LAGOONS. evening these birds sang, and to-day we passed several pairs of partridges, showing that the warm weather was doing its work. When Jim lit the fire to cook the dinner our smoke rose a few feet into the damp air and floated softly towards the yellow sunset, forming a sky about thirty feet high of the most beautiful colour, in which artificial delicate grey clouds of rare form melted into a yellowish background. This phenomenon lasted but a few minutes, when our sky took a mushroom form, turned a delicate pale orpiment, and floated away. One of the mavises on the tree was disturbed several times by passers-by, but he always returned to the same branch, singing in the quickly gathering mists that rose from the river until they buried the branches of the tallest elms. Still a cock-pheasant called and the thrush sang on until a quarter to six o’clock, when the love-sick bird suddenly stopped. After this the night brought some labourers across the bridge. They were talking excitedly of an argument they had had with their master. A lumbering cart followed, mid the sounds of neighing horses, barking dogs, and voices from the village which gradually died away, leaving us alone in the ever-thickening mist. When the moon rose an owl began shrieking, and we decoyed her so that she flew directly over- head, going to an ivy-covered oak. At bed-time we could hear the roar of the water through the weirs at Burgh Mill, and the ca-ak, ca-ak of a coot calling ; and near by in a garden ex yie) a man was digging and whistling in the misty moonlight. Feb. 20. Hight degrees of frost—“ A rare old rimer and a 8.H. wind,” said Jim, as he laid the breakfast-table. Our friendly mavis was singing half-heartedly from his tree, and a boy was digging in his cottage garden, while his old mother cleaned her churn. A wherry came up with lowered mast, one of the crew grumbling because we dared to navigate these narrow waterways, but his mate apologised, saying—‘‘Don’t pay no regard to him; he’s allus like that ; the fog have got into his lights.” DESCENT OF THE BURE. 173 We could hear the girls laughing in the cottages and the voices of men working in the fields; but we could scarcely see beyond the end of our boat, and as we passed the rookery by Burgh Church: the trees were invisible from the river, though we could hear the watchman and elders cawing— indeed, an old bird flew out to spy who we were. Lower down we passed a huge weeping willow-tree, on which the rime was melting and dropping with short sharp cracklings into the river—indeed, the whole tree seemed to crackle like tinsel paper, and the water agitated by the dripping crystals looked mysterious in the foggy air. The willow seemed alive and bewitched, and to be weeping solid tears. This was the only willow I have ever seen weeping. Several shoals of rudd swam past us ere we moored at Burgh Lock, where we determined to wait till the foe cleared. The past fortnight’s warmth and moisture had turned the marshes emerald green, and here we saw the first cattle graz- ing since the snow had melted. ‘The fog-muffled mill-wheel was churning the water with a gloomy sound, and everything was so depressing that Jim got his accordion, and we sat singing songs amid the dripping trees and oppressive fog. Feb. 21. At daylight the fog was there again, together with another rime frost. A wherry passed up, the helmsman informing us the weather had been so thick at Yarmouth the night before that the wherries dared not move through the bridge. At noontide the mist cleared up a little, discovering six dab-chickens feeding in the mill-stream. They swam near the shore, working up stream towards the weir. I think they sight their food before they dive; they seem to make their dives so suddenly, giving a quick dart forward of the bill when they dive, as if pecking at something visible. Ata distance they appear to sink suddenly out of sight. When the mist cleared a little more, and as there was a nice S.E. wind, we hoisted and started down stream, disturbing starlings, jackdaws, and rooks from their marshy feeding- 174 ON ENGLISH LAGOONS. grounds. At intervals the sun burst through the clouds, giving that peculiar chequered appearance of light and shade so characteristic of early spring. As we passed a coppice between Oxnead and Buxton, we noticed some sallows covered with bud-like bosses resembling silver. The oaks in the plantings still retained some of their old leaves, and the woods were full of the voices of birds singing of spring. The loud-voiced tom-tits called to each other, the softly shrill notes of the long-tailed tit-mice, together with the full voices of the mavises, the “spink, spink” of the chaffinches, the “weeping” notes of the blue-headed tits, the linnet-voiced greenfinches, with the soft cooings of ring- doves, were all blended in concert—all harbingers of spring. We passed two hazels green with catkins, a still surer sign of returning life. At Lammas, a group of men and children stood at the malthouse door, the children calling to us, until the elderly maltster with great delicacy reproved them. We moored below the lock at Buxton, and spent the day watching the flocks of mavises, starlings, and rooks feasting upon dew- worms and wire-worms. Feb. 21.. Saturday turned out a lovely day, though it began eloomily enough, with a thick fog, in which flocks of teal and mallard flighted. During breakfast, a young hawker and two dragele-tailed girls passed along the road—one of the wenches pointed to the boat, and asked the “ chal ”— “ How would you like that cottage ?” “Tf I had a pound a week, that’s just the life I should like,” he replied. “Would yer, now? I likes the road best,” retorted the girl, “Do you, then?” he replied, and they went on their way. Immediately a gun fired, and a wounded mavis began to cry like a child. After breakfast, the rime fog, together with the east wind, still hung heavy and gloomy over the DESCENT OF THE BURE. 175 landscape. These fogs are not picturesque and bright, like the S.W. mist, but coarse and indiscriminating. There are or course fogs and fogs—some mysterious, soothing, luminous, transfiguring the world; others heavy, oppressive, seizing your heart with heavy icy fingers. Feb, 22. On Sunday the wind shifted to S.S.W., breathing an air more congenial for bird and beast—indeed, the atmos- phere was warm and amorous, as some swans seemed to. think, for two couples began their love-making to-day, creating a disturbance in the silent mill-pool. The short, sharp, eager whistles of some hedge-sparrows showed they too were full of desire, and even the “ grass lions” * were: noisier and more musical than usual. Feb. 23. Monday brought a fall of six degrees in the thermometer ; the landscape was again covered with rime, and the river laid with a thin sheet of ice. Directly the mill began to work, the current broke the fine crystal crust, then the sun arose and melted the rime crystals, staining the marshes. yellow and softening the earth for the greenfinches and mayises now singing loudly in the tree-tops. The school- boys on the bridge breathed forth steam whilst they stopped with numbed fingers to play marbles in the frozen road. After breakfast I rowed down to the bridge on a per- fect spring day. Sitting in my boat, I felt to perfection the sentiment of rural peacefulness so often written about. but so rarely experienced.