HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



49 



"ON THE BROAD." 



'And the creeping mosses and clambering: weeds, 

 And the willow branches hoar and dank, 

 And the wavy swell of the soughing reeds, 

 And the wave-worn horns of the echoing bank, 

 And the silvery marish-flowers that throng 

 The desolate creeks and pools among, 

 Were flooded over with eddying song." 



Tennyson. 



T was a fine sum- 

 mer evening — 

 ah ! how long 

 that evening was 

 ago we scarcely 

 care to tell. It 

 may be that it 

 was a quarter of 

 a century, for then we were 

 little more than boys together, 

 and now it would be diffi- 

 cult to pluck out all the grey 

 hairs. So it nmst be a quar- 

 ter of a century, but time 

 flies so fast with us that it 

 seems but as yesterday. There 

 is pleasure in contemplating 

 such a past, in dreaming over 

 again the enjoyments, and 

 listening to the voices of our 

 youth — 



" When falling on our weary brain, 



Like a fast falling shower, 

 The dreams of youth come back again ; 

 Low lisping of the summer rain, 

 Dropping on the ripened grain, 



As once upon the flower." 



And this summer evening, with its calmness, its 

 quietude, its peace, its golden sunset, revives again. 

 Why should that particular evening be so well re- 

 membered, and so many others forgotten ? It was 

 an evening "on the Broad." 



All who have lived in Norfolk, or made this 

 county the scene of holiday trips, will know well 

 enough what a " broad " is, and those who do not 



]S T o. 75. 



know from experience, will have learned, perhaps, 

 from some such a book as Stevenson's "Birds of 

 Norfolk." A few there may be who do not know 

 that there are large expanses of water, small lakes 

 if you will, though shallow, connected with the 

 river system. Sometimes they are beside the river, 

 and are entered by a "gatway," as at Wroxham ; or 

 they are expansions of the river itself, as at Barton : 

 in either case it is the water of the river which has 

 flowed over a large depressed tract of land, and 

 permanently converted it into a shallow lake ; not 

 amid the mountain scenery such as . one encounters 

 in "Wales or Cumberland, but with nearly a level 

 horizon all around, in the midst of a flat or slightly 

 undulating plain. Be not uncharitable, reader, 

 to hint of marshes and fens. There are marshes, 

 and what might be termed fenny districts, but 

 there are cornfields, and there are "broads." In 

 these " broads " are a multitude of fishes, and on 

 the evening in question we did "go a -fishing." 

 Strict disciples of old Izaak would have despised 

 us for our lack of science, but not for our want of 

 zeal ; for our " tackle " perhaps, but not for our 

 "take." 



It often surprised the "complete angler" to 

 see how we country bumpkins, in our plain way, 

 managed to beat them on our own waters in the 

 bulk of fish taken. At least, it did so a quarter of 

 a century ago; they may have discovered the secret 

 since. 



Barton Broad is long and narrow, and, taken in 

 conjunction with Irstead Broad, forms a consider- 

 able expanse of water. In those days we had 

 rather an exaggerated notion about it, which was 

 pardonable, and considered it a lake. Since then 



D 



