CHAPTER IV 

 BREYDON IN SPRINGTIME 



A MARCH EXCURSION 



TARDY springtime comes to Breydon full of caprice 

 and with varying humours. One day you may push 

 your punt afloat on an unrippled tide, with insuffi- 

 cient breeze to belly your little lugsail; and an overcoat becomes 

 burdensome with the lightest of oars. Twenty-four hours later 

 may see the sky overcast with a dull grey curtain, and the 

 cold north-easter, strengthening as the day wanes, reminds 

 you of November. Rain, hail, and snow come by turns, 

 occasionally even until the merry month of May is with us. 

 In April, 1904, Breydon put on a most uninviting aspect; 

 some of my " notes " for the month are as follow : 



" April ^th. This is Thursday so far Easter week has 

 been too rough for a trip on Breydon. It is blowing from the 

 N.N.W. Over the clear, raw, yellowish sky broken and 

 lumpy clouds are hastening. The water is like polished 

 pewter silver-white here and there ; and in the channel the 

 blast freckles the ebb tide with bars of white edged waves, 

 hissing strangely as they speed towards and break upon the 

 flint-stone wall. The gulls sit head to wind on the flats, look- 

 ing by no means happy ; and a bunch of dunlins, scattered to 

 feed on the flat near the Five-stake drain, seem equally 

 depressed." 



"8^. First time I dared to go on Breydon this week ; very 

 poor tide. Saw six geese, also fifty or sixty wigeon ; and a 

 flock of dunlins, many of them as yet grey and white as in 

 winter. Probably they are the later hatched young of last 

 year. Saw one grey plover, and one oyster-catcher." 



Jary, the Breydon watcher, who sways his sceptre over the 

 vast area of mudflats during the close season, brings up his 

 houseboat at the close of February and moors it by four 

 stout guy-ropes to four sturdy poles driven deeply into the 



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