OCTOBER IN BROADLAND. 105 



awkward for the eels to get out agin. Eeturn tickets ain't issued, 'bor, you may 

 lay your hand to your heart on that. Sometimes they do well, sometimes badly; 

 dirty weather an' a wanin' moon suits the business best. 



1 But come down, sir, afore you leave us; breakfast's ready, an' don't that 

 kettle of tea smell just refreshin' an' delicious ? ' 



We leave the eel-merchant getting ready to resume his up-river voyage, for 

 we have been moored to a staith while breakfast was being discussed, and much 

 fish and folk-lore with it; we wish we could have invited the reader down into that 

 snug warm cabin, and surely he would have relished the humble meal of brown 

 bread and cheese, and enjoyed it none the less for the novelty of the situation and 

 an increased appetite, nor have hesitated to wash it down with a basin of steam- 

 ing, milkless tea. 



We make our way along the river-bank towards the little brick bridge which 

 spans the stream. Our eel-man has ' shot ' it, and with upraised mast and sails 

 has again caught the breeze. How the wind sways the quivering reeds to and fro! 

 now bending low as it strikes them, they lower their woolly-head tufts, as if some 

 giant reaper had drawn his scythe through their slender stems, but a moment after 

 they have lifted again, to be swayed in another direction. Like the troubled waves 

 of the wild North Sea, they are incessantly in motion. Their dry leaves rustle like 

 the sound of shingle thrown up by the curling sea-waves. A heron rises with 

 startled scream from a ditchside, and lets fall an eel as he mounts upon his great 

 grey wings and takes to flight ; a moorhen runs in a skulking manner upon the 

 broken sedges that line the ditch-margin, jerking its funny white tail-feathers, 

 and then vanishes in a clump of rushes. Nature has assumed a somewhat desolate 

 appearance. A pavement of decaying leaves marks where the water-lilies spread 

 their summer-time beauties; the iris, and many another characteristic Broad-plant 

 are flowerless, and leaf and stem have become yellow and shrivelled. The Broad- 

 land botanist has all but discontinued his rambles, but has plenty to do in the long 

 evenings in arranging specimens he has already collected. The alders and willows 

 shake their decaying foliage in the blast, and many a leaf falls into the debris that 

 has been blown in a tangled mass beneath their overhanging branches. The swans, 

 with their still grey cygnets, pay scant heed to the fury of the elements. A flock 

 of wild ducks pass overhead, and yonder long-billed birds, dashing by sideways to 

 the wind, must be curlews, their weird, mellow call-notes unmistakably proving 



o 



