60 JUNE IN BROADLAND. 



There certainly is not much that is awe-inspiring in these great solitudes, and 

 there is a strange sameness about them all ; but they are lovely with a beauty 

 peculiarly their own. Grand indeed are these great indented ovals of silvery water, 

 apparently shut out from the rest of the busy workaday world by an interminable 

 belt of reed and sedge and bulrush, and an environment of stunted woodland, where 

 you might almost imagine dull care and the strife of life would scarce find a loop- 

 hole for an entrance. Yonder is our friend the fenman's cottage standing upon the 

 higher ground, with its fore-shore sloping to the water's edge in autumn; the tree? 

 on one side shake their leaves into it. Great white ducks are guarding their young 

 broods in the sluice which trends towards the house, and several geese are cropping 

 the grass near by them. The old punt is away to-day. Towards eventide we may 

 expect the return of the master, for this morning Jem Trett's at 'haysel;' he is yet 

 hale and hearty, and the old lady has something in the cupboard to which he will 

 do ample justice on his return in the evening with his boat piled up with gladdon 

 and other coarse herbage, to be used as litter in the pigsty, and bed for the- ancient 

 donkey whose scraggy appearance would suggest him to be as aged as his patron. 

 Yonder is an artist at work with brush and maul-stick. Let us run the boat ashore 

 and saunter towards him. A moorhen flutters out of the little reedbed as our oar 

 sweeps through it; beneath, a shoal of small roach dash away in affright, all making 

 for the open broad. Our friend of the easel is throwing on his canvas a delightful 

 bit of scenery. In the foreground big broadleaved sedges dip their reflex in a pool 

 of crystal, above them is a willow's drooping foliage, tall graceful reeds on the right 

 lose themselves in the background in a cul-de-sac of alders, whilst a plank-bridge, 

 with a rustic fencing, is thrown across the pool. A trio of black-headed gulls show 

 up boldly against a bit of blue sky. Was ever such a lovely little corner-piece ? 

 Our artist friend is loud in the praises of Broadland. An aged man, bent with many 

 years, wending his way from the fenman's cottage, sidles up to us and expresses his 

 opinion upon the picture, as well as upon the state of things in general. 



6 Wai, 'bor, yow ha' done that ar' suffin proper. W T hat nimble fingers some folk 

 hev, tu be sure ! I might ha' tried these seventy yeer an' more to ha' done that, 

 an' cudden't,' says Jem Trett's elder brother, for the merest tyro of a physiogno- 

 mist could have told his relationship to the old man of the fens. 



1 Ah ! 'bor, these 'ere Broads,' he continues, * aren't what they wor fifty yeer 

 ago, not at all, they ain't like the same; not as the water is different, or the bards 

 an' other critters ha' altered, although there's summat wrong with them, there 

 ain't so many on 'em as there was by a wery long chalk. Talk of carryin' a gun 

 noii'adays, why, it ain't no use at all, but a waste of good powder an' time time 



