48 SOUTHERN ESTUARIES 



middle-aged farmer, with whom the writer had a 

 chat on the way from Christchurch to the "Run," 

 gave the following terse description of the chances 

 of sport with the rod at Christchurch. He was 

 a sincere admirer of the " Run " fishing, which 

 is a kind of social institution for the Mudiford 

 gossips who sit in the parlour of the little inn on 

 the spit, and drink their ale, while they watch the 

 hauling of the nets, and discuss the annals of the 

 fishery with others " in the fancy." " They pays 

 a deal of money, and they fishes very industrious ; 

 and what they catches they aren't always allowed 

 to keep. And often it so happens as them as fishes 

 hardest toils in vain. Others come, and fishes with 

 a light heart, and happen on the luck." By this 

 time my friend had got well into the narrative style 

 and continued like a book. "Once there came here 

 a cricketer ; he was a cricketer, not a fisherman, any 

 one could see. He never changed his cricket coat, 

 but he took a boat just as he was, Yes ; just as 

 he stood in his cricketing clothes. And the said 

 cricketer hadn't fished ten minutes before he caught 

 a thirty pound fish, and he landed him, that's what 

 he did ; and he might never live to catch another." 



The fishermen of the " Run " mostly belong to 

 the little village of Mudiford, which lies close by, 

 and are without exception the best mannered and most 

 taking set of men I have ever seen in rural England, 

 though I have heard of a fishing community near 

 Land's End, who seem to have much resembled them, 



