SUMMER HOURS ON BREYDON 147 



drowned creature, 1 and gathered some of his mushrooms for 

 our trouble. He tramps a score miles each day, and often 

 thirty. We answer his knock, but grunt for a respite, and 

 slumber a full hour longer. When we turn out for a refresh- 

 ing bath the sun is well up in the heavens ; the meadow- 

 brown butterflies and the swallows, and a hundred other 

 creatures, are on the wing. Two or three white-sailed yachts 

 have already passed upstream ; the low banks hide their 

 hulls, and they seem to be ploughing through the marshes, 

 so serpentine is the course of the Bure. Brown-sailed 

 wherries are careering along before a gentle breeze, and the 

 merry " Good mornin', guv'nor ! " from a red-capped wherry- 

 man is the first salute we receive. The footprints of a heron 

 in the mud astern of us tell of the strange company we 

 have had since nightfall ; maybe he had one of the voles for 

 breakfast this morning. Half an hour later, our breakfast 

 over, you would have found us trudging merrily along the 

 New Road. In forty minutes we had left Mautby Mill four 

 miles behind us, by river distance ; and at nine o'clock we 

 timed our watch by the Town Hall clock. 



1 In all weathers and seasons, save in the depth of winter, these walks round 

 have to be undertaken. On one occasion a bull had blundered into a deep ditch, 

 and required the whole of the available men in the neighbourhood to pull him 

 out, whereon he charged all and sundry, and a hasty flight was expedient. This 

 was gratitude ! 





