BREYDON IN LEISURELY AUTUMN 177 



feet again, and wade after his runaway in comparative 

 safety. 



There is not a gunner afloat to-day. Jary the watchman 

 is Jary the preventive man ; as with a policeman, it is not 

 so much for the crimes he detects as for the infringements of 

 the law he prevents that he is employed here. Time often 

 hangs heavily on his hands on the top of the flood and at 

 dead low water ; but he has his smelt-net and little trawl, 

 and sometimes he picks a mess of eels for supper. His 

 smelt-net lies there at the stern of his open boat, and he has 

 hailed me to go and have a turn at smelting with him. I am 

 nothing loth to join him. . . . 



" Now, then," said he, " look lively. I believe there's a 

 lot of smelts up, and I mean gettin' a few." 



Jary had unshipped his mast and sail and thrown them 

 across the houseboat roof. The eighty-yard net is a simple 

 seine, with a row of cork-floats above and a ground-rope 

 weighted with leaden bullets. At either end is a short 

 pole, weighted at the lower end to keep the net in position, 

 while a long tow-rope at either end completes the apparatus. 

 In days gone by braiding the nets was the work of the 

 women, who were helped on the rough days by the more 

 industrious of the men who did not prefer idling at the 

 inn. Nowadays the net, minus the floats and sinkers, may 

 be purchased ready made. When the men go off to fish it 

 is placed, carefully stowed, in the stern-sheets, fold upon 

 fold, so that in paying out it goes over smoothly and with- 

 out kinks, righting itself as straight as a wall as the boat 

 leaves it behind. Two pairs of oars, a basket in which to 

 gather and wash the fish, and a trunk to contain them com- 

 pleted the paraphernalia, with the exception of a bottle of 

 tea I had taken care to bring, and the pipe and matches, 

 which Jary thought even more essential. 



We rowed half-way up Duffell's drain, and should have 

 gone further ; but " Snicker " Larn and his confederates were 

 " well up'ard " and waiting for the first of the ebb. In 

 smelting you must have the assistance of the tides, either 

 up or down down preferably, because the smelts will have 

 drawn off the flats into the deeper waters, and the water 

 is thicker from the mud drawn into the drain. 



Having reached our desired starting-place, I slipped over 



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