CAN anything new be said about the Norfolk Broadland? If so, I shall be only too glad to hear of it, so that I may be able to set down something here which will claim attention. It is an unthankful task to follow in the steps of one writer who has set his mind on doing justice to a district; but when one has a hundred predecessors, each of whom has, by the conditions of travel, been compelled to follow practically the same river-routes, there cannot be much left for a late-comer on the scene to deal with. To whose benefit will it tend if I tell of the quiet enchantment of Wroxham Broad, the golden glories of the Broadland sunsets, and the placid enjoyment of cruising on the inland waterways, when all these things, though comparatively recent discoveries, are not only as a tale that is told, but as a tale that has been re-told until most people know every word of it? Is it surprising then, that at the outset of my venturing upon some description of Broadland I find my pen halting while I try to discover some aspect of 134 BROADLAND CHAP. Broadland life I can deal with in such a way as to make a worn theme a welcome one? Then, there is another reason for my hesitancy. I have seen so much of the Broadland, spent so many days by its riversides and nights on its waterways, that I fear I may be tempted to make much of little in describing what is so familiar to me. I have no right to expect that the chuckling of a sedge warbler in a reed bed will mean so much to every one as it does to me; or that a man who is able to spend a few days only in sailing on the Yare, Bure, and Waveney will appreciate the scenery, wild life, and hamlet life associated with those slow winding streams, as I do who have known them from my earliest days. For to know Broadland and fully understand what a unique and interesting district it is, a man must see more of it than is visible during a summer cruise on its broads and rivers. He must see it in spring, when the dark brown shoots of sedge are springing up like lance-heads by the waterside, and the warblers are returning to the reed shoals and sallow carrs; in late autumn, when the fog hides the marshes, the hooded crows croak harshly on the river-walls, and birds whose quavering plaint lately broke the silence of northern ice-fields are heard on the Breydon flats and around the reed-fringed lagoons; and in winter, when the rivers are deserted save for the trading wherries and reedcutters' rafts, and even by them when the frost has fettered their watery highways. The summer voyager on Broadland rivers never sees Hoody scavenging among the heaps of water-weeds left on the dyke-banks by the marshmen, nor can he hope to experience that delight which a native of the district feels when he goes down to the riverside one morning and finds that, after a long and wearying flight from South Africa, the sedge warblers have come back to their old haunts, and the grasshopper warblers are reeling out their strange songs on the water-meadows. The methods of the punt-gunners on the tidal waters and the eel-catchers of the Bure and Thurne V NIGHT WITH A BROADSMAN 135 must remain a mystery to him, so long as he is content with idle drifting down the rivers on sunny summer days; and he cannot hope that many of the secrets of the wild creatures of the lowlands will be revealed to him. If he wishes to solve those mysteries he must not mind enduring a few hardships. He must be ready to "rough it" with the men who spend the bitter winter nights in cramped little houseboats on the rivers or in trudging mile after mile along muddy riverwalls and over swampy rush-marshes. Instead of lounging about in boating flannels, he must don weather-proof garments, including marsh-boots which reach above the knee; and he must risk the chill douche which results from mistaking "hover" for "rond" by the riverside. From a yacht's deck he will never see the redshank's beautiful eggs in their grasscup on the water-meadows, or the dainty pink bog pimpernels trailing over the bright-hued bog-mosses. While I write my brain is filled by a rush of recollections. I am back again in a water-bailiff's houseboat on the Waveney. My companion is an old broadsman, who has lived his life on the rivers, meres, and marshes. The door of the houseboat is open, and we are watching the air bubbles which a shoal of bream is sending up to the surface of a narrow creek. Somewhere amid the lush grass of a neighbouring meadow a cock pheasant is crowing; near a windmill which has lost two of its sails a kestrel has been hovering ever since it appeared from beyond a fir-crested ridge on the border of the marshes. Seated at the end of the long wooden locker which serves the waterbailiff for a table by day and a bed by night, I can watch the wherries sailing down the river, their large dark sails sometimes brushing the reedy banks like gigantic birds' wings. There is scarcely wind enough to fill the sails; so the wherrymen, lounging listlessly at the tiller, let their gaze wander from the river to the far-spreading, cattle-dotted marshes. Towards Somerleyton the river takes such a winding course that much of it is hidden by the "walls" which protect the marshes, and 136 NIGHT WITH A BROADSMAN CHAP. the wherries seem to be sailing hull-deep in a wide green sea. All day the water-bailiff and I have been afloat in a little lugsail punt, and though we have caught no fish-poachers drawnetting the river we have not spent an idle day. That is to say, we have not been what we would call idle. At a riverside inn near the quaint old church at Burgh St. Peter, we learnt from a wherryman that the herons had again tried to establish a colony at Burgh Castle; near the Seven Mile Carr we had a glimpse of an otter watching for the roudding bream. Trivial things these, you may say; but they are of engrossing interest to the river-men of Broadland, to whom they serve as subjects of discourse in many a wherry's cabin and marshland inn. Also, they have served to remind the water-bailiff of events he had half forgotten; and since we returned to his snug little house boat he has entertained me with many reminiscences. He has told me of his struggle with a trapped otter which he tried to carry home alive; of a marshman's encounter with a winged heron; and a gamekeeper's adventure with a wily owl that came to rob his pheasant coops. Meantime he has been cutting a poacher's net into lengths which will serve to keep the birds off his garden beds. Far into the night we sit talking together. Although summer is almost upon us we do not find the heat of a small fire burning at the bow end of the cabin too intense; for even in summer there are chilly nights and dawns in Broadland, and the mists often creep into one's cabin if care is not taken to keep them out. Our wooden walls are a sufficient barrier against this discomfort, but not too thick to prevent us hearing the songs of the night-singing birds and the lowing of the cattle on the meads. Now and again our cabin rocks a little, and we know that a wherry is passing up or down the river and setting a slight swell flooding up the quiet creek. It sets the reeds, too, in motion, and we hear them rustling for a minute; then they are silent again. For a little while my companion sits lost in thought, and I know that my questions have V FISH-POACHING 137 reminded him of the early days of his life, when there were no Wild Birds Protection or Fish Preservation Acts, and he was able to shoot and fish almost whenever and wherever he chose. Presently he speaks again, to tell me of his first day's puntgunning on Breydon; and this reminds him of some of the wonderful doings, in the direction of wild fowl capture, of the old-time Breydoners. To be moved to recount some of his own adventures is the natural result of following this particular line of reminiscent thought, so I am not surprised when I find him recalling, with a gleeful appreciation delightful in a waterbailiff, some of his own fish-poaching escapades. Of many of these he is ready to speak fully, so far as they relate to the dodging of the river-detectives; but when they arouse a not unnatural curiosity concerning the methods of fish-poachers I have to rest content with a knowing smile. Telling you how you may find safe concealment not only for yourself but for |