SEPTEMBER IN BROADLAND. 95 



rendered vacant by them. As the quack politely departs he gives us a supplemen- 

 tal wink, which this time is caught and interpreted by the snob and tailor. * I'm 

 gormed ! ' ejaculates the latter, ' if that 'ere fellar ain't a frawd ! ' and bolts out to 

 tell him so. But the ' frawd ' is too far on his journey again to be in any fear of 

 immediate retribution. 



We are once again afloat, and bent on devoting the hour or so of our leisure 

 to a jolly little sail in the trim ' lateener J that has kindly been placed at our dis- 

 posal. With a favourable wind we sail up and down the Broad until we tire of the 

 fun; and rare fun it is, too, to feel yourself spinning along as if the craft beneath 

 you were a living thing now this way and now that, speeds the buoyant vessel, 

 with the water hissing around your bows, and bubbling astern as you cleave the 

 sparkling waters. You feel a delightful exhilaration, a pleasant excitement, as you 

 dash past swaying reeds and nodding rushes, and the remnant of the water-lilies 

 part to let you speed on and on. You forget awhile the cares that press heavily 

 upon you in the toiling work-a-day world, and you return to them all the better 

 able to cope with their stern realities. The coots and the moorhens fly into the 

 shelter of the densest reeds, and wonderingly hold their peace as you bear down 

 upon them, and mayhap scandalise you with returning confidence. But a con- 

 tinuity of pleasure, like that of work and worry, becomes wearisome at length ; 

 and presently we glide into a secluded nook, lower sails, and make the painter fast. 

 We step out upon a low-lying fen. We have promised to take home a few Broad- 

 land plants to a botanist friend of ours. Here before us they lie, spread in con- 

 fusion ; unfortunately most of them have done flowering, and are past their best. 

 We gather a few that we may, and may not, get thanked for. Here is the marsh 

 cinque-foil, one of the sundews, the marsh veronica; some half-a-dozen others 

 complete the list, for before we've had time to travel far across the shaking bog the 

 weather has assumed so threatening an appearance that it is deemed advisable to 

 make for the shelter of an old boat-house at a not far distant corner of the Broad. 

 Away over the ruffled surface we glide, reaching the tumble- down place only just 

 in time to avoid a pelting shower. 



We have seen but few birds to-day. Kapid movement is, of course, prejudi- 

 cial to observation, and is anything but appreciated by the quiet-loving creatures 

 whose haunts we are intruding upon. A few late swallows are still darting up 

 and down; but they, like their prey, have become perceptibly scarcer. Many of 



