110 



OCTOBER IN BROADLAND. 



The wind has so far spent itself (Jim Trett said he thought it would ease 

 when the tide ceased flowing) that we can with safety venture out. A few strokes, 

 and we turn a bend in the river, then up a reed-fringed lane of water, and we are 

 on the open Broad. The surface is still agitated, though it matters not much to 

 the grebes yonder, diving and disporting in the cool waters. They find it quiet 

 below ; and the small roach, crowding into the deep holes in the more sheltered 



THE SILENT HIGHWAY. 



4 bight,' fall an easy prey to the sharp-billed creatures. We row along under the 

 lee of a reed-bed, in which the clicking of the coots makes strange music; a parcel 

 of reed-pheasants (bearded-tits) fly off from some woolly reed-tufts, and still more 

 larks pass overhead. The froth, churned by the wind from the troubled waters, 

 drifts in amongst the floating leaves that are entangled among the reedstems. A 

 turn in the clump brings us into the teeth of the wind, and veritable ' white horse- 

 men ' splash over the boat's bows and wet our belongings. We soon tire of this, 



