On English Lagoons. Being an account of the voyage of two amateur wherrymen on the Norfolk and Suffolk rivers and broads ... With an appendix, the log of the wherry 'Maid of the Mist' ... Illustrated, etc

Appendix

THE LOG OF THE WHERRY "MAID OF THE MIST From September ij, i8go, to August 31, 1891 3sIta8trateJ fcp JFtftetn Copprrptate ©nsraiJtttg-u anU ©tsbteen -JEietos from PJjotoffrapljB tafetn bp tbe Stutfw LONDON DAVID NUTT, 270-71 STRAND 1S93 [Ail rights reserved] TO T. R. D. AN occasional companion of voyage Ubis Dolume IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR Beaumaris, 1892 a CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE

Introduction

I I. HER HISTOEY 3 II. THE MONSTER EEL 5 III. SAILING ON THE BDRE IO IV. GREAT YARMOUTH AND BREYDON WATER . . .12 V. BURGH SMELTERS 1 4 VI. SAILING ON THE YARE — A MISTY NIGHT . . .21 VII. MOONLIGHT BY BRUNDALL 24 VIII. AT WOODS END 25 IX. A STORMY PASSAGE TO NORWICH 3 1 X. LOTUS-EATING ON THE WENSUM 33 XI. ROUND ABOUT NORWICH 36 XII. AT BUCK2ENHAM FERRY 39 XIII. ON ROCKLAND BROAD 48 XIV. ON THE YARE 64 XV. NOVEMBER ON THE BROADS 66 XVI. AN UNPLEASANT MOORING 73 XVII. AT LODDON . . . . 76 XVni. CURIOUS CANTLEY 79 XIX. PHILOSOPHIC REEDHAM 82 XX. GLOOMY BECCLES 85 XXI. SAILING ON THE WAVENEY 90 XXII. THE GREAT SNOWSTORM — SNOW-BOUND AT GELDE8TON LOCK 97 XXIII. A WINTRY SAIL TO BUNGAY IO9 XXIV. EEL-CATCHING Il6 CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE XXV. A SLEEPY COUNTRY VILLAGE 120 XXVI. A DECEMBER SAIL TO OULTON BROAD . . .126 XXVII.

FROZEN UP ON OULTON BROAD . .• . . . 1 32 XXVIII. ESCAPE FROM OULTON • M7 XXIX. EXCURSION TO ORMESBY, ROLLESBY, AND FILBY BROADS I49 XXX. UPTON BROADS 155 XXXI. WINTER ON THE BURE 1 58 XXXII. DULL DAYS AT AYLSHAM 1 63 XXXIII. DESCENT OF THE BURE 17 1 XXXIV. ON WROXHAM BROAD 1 82 XXXV. WROXHAM BROAD TO SOUTH WALSHAM BROAD BY WAY OF ANTINGHAM PONDS 1 86 XXXVI. ON SOUTH WALSHAM BROAD 204 XXXVII. OLD FRIENDS ON SOMERTON BROAD . . . • . 2IO XXXVIII. SPRING IN THE HORSEY DISTRICT . . . . . 21 5 XXXIX. MAY ON THE BROADS 225 XL. JUNE ON THE BI.OADS . . . . ' . . 237 XLI. JULY ON THE BROADS 249 XLII. FROLICS ON SOMERTON BROAD 253 XLIII. AUGUST ON THE BROADS 263 XLIV. BY THE NORTH SEA 268 .

APPENDIX.

. THE LOG OF THE WHERRY "MAID OF THE MIST " . . . LIST OF PLATES. A Misty Morning at Norwich Frontispiece The Moonlit River to face page 21 Buckenham Ferry „ 39 Children of the Broad „ 48 At the Ferry — A Misty Morning ... . „ 73 A Frosty Morning „ 97 The Snowy Marshlands „ 109 A Frosty Morning at Coltishall ... „ 158 The Village by the River „ 171 The Edge of the Broad „ 210 Marsh Farm in Early Spring . . . . „ 215 Sheep on the Marshes „ 225 The Marshes in June _. „ 237 A Daughter of the Marshland .... „ 253 Marshes by the North Sea „ LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Our Fleet at Anchor 4 Old Norwich 31 On the Wensum 33 Gloomy Beccles 89 Floods round Beccles . . . •" 96 The First Snow 99 Geldeston Lock after the Great Snowstorm . . .101 Geldeston Lock 102 A Nor'-East Snow Squall 103 End of the Storm 108 Our Moorings on Oulton 133 The New Cut. . 148 On Ormesby Broad 154 Antingham Ponds . . . \ 194 Snow Squall at Stalham 200 The Perch 207 On South Walsham Broad 209 Reed and Alder Swamps " Tjaotljmg to ronetant but r!)ange— notljtng; rertain but Seatl)."

INTRODUCTION.

. " I am bound, I am bound, for a distant shore, By a lonely isle, by afar A sore; There it is, there it is, the treasure I seek, On the barren sands of a desolate creek." — D. Thoreau. THE "MAID OF THE MIST" &pt. 15, 1890. ILOATED with a rakish and unmaitlenly 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 Mirahilis 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. I am 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 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 can 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.

Chapter 1. Her History

" My canoe is growing lazy In the atmosphere so hazy, While I dream, Half in slumber I am gliding Eastward, i?idistinctly gliding, Down the stream." E. P. Johnson : In the Shadows. EBHAPS no " conwersions " are more interesting 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, saving 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 sittings — was once sunk and fished up again, and finally Gaby died, but the Spark flew onwards, passing through 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 frequenter 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 seadiver on the edge of the rollers. It is irksome not to know the Maid's pedigree when you have to live with her, for, as the reader OUR FLEET AT ANCHOR. will discover, many will tell him some new fact concerning his mistress which is perfectly untrue ; but such is the way of historians — 1 have forewarned my fellow-passenger, and now he must only be amused at the myths and traditions thrust upon us. The Maid'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 heroes, 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.

Chapter II. The Monster Eel Near Hickling Broad

" And then, with souls grown clear In that sweet atmosphere, With influences serene, Our blood and brain washed clean, Wive idled down the breast Of broadening tides at rest I' C E. D. Roberts : Birch and Paddle. Sept. 16. E 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 light.

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 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 scrutiny 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 Jo.sh 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 " wopper's " 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, " Noa 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 ! I 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 nay 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 ! you're 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 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 ? " " Yes, sir. " 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." " ' Oh,' 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 ; ' I'll 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. t Plump, well-favourtd. THE MONSTER EEL NEAR HICKLING BROAD. 9 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 Bootes stood ready to chase the rising Bear to the frigid North. * Deserted. H

Chapter III. Sailing On The Bure

" Leave old thinkers to their dreams, The treasure of the ages ; Leave dusty scientific reams, Arid study Nature's pages. Her poetry is better far Than all men write about herj Old Homer's song of love and war Had scarce been sung without her" An Indian Summer Carol : Fidelis. Sept. 18. |E lest Hickling early on Thursday morning in bright sunshine, 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 SAILING ONiTHE BURE. 11 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 IV. Great Yarmouth And Breydon Water

" Slowly down the West the weary day is 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. IIUNDAY 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 &park, sir ? " 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." . . . The 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, Her robes of beauty laid aside; The hectic Summer sighs to glide From the flushed Earth, to yield a place To dry foliage, sere and gold, And trees whose rugged arms are bare, And shrill meanings of the air, And dim glories of the wold." J. C ASCHER : Indian Summer. Sept. 22. IHE first quarter of the moon was past and gone, the tides began to die away. This was of supreme interest to these smelters, living in their house-boats, moored in dikes cut into the soft rond — a fringe of peat bordering the estuary formed by the meeting 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. M BURGH SMELTERS. 15 shifted from the south-east to the westward, and was blowing 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 I. 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. I can assure them they are wrong. I can smell a shoal of fish as easily as a rose. A flock of starlings flew clown 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 rivers. He was a good hour paddling slowly and with effort, whilst singing an old love song with croaking voice — ' 0 Joe, the boat is going over ; 0 Joe, you naughty man, she cried ; 0 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 — " I 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. " I dunno," grunted the old Crab indifferently, still paddling, working his blades as a spawning or sleeping 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. 17 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.