ON MARSH AND DYKE 



DREARY, desolate- 

 looking spot was the 

 little marshland island 



of N , situate as it 



was seven miles from 

 anywhere and every- 

 where, and its inhabit- 

 ants — an old man, his 

 wife and nine children — 

 were, if anything, more 

 rugged and inhospitable 

 than the island itself. 

 N Island (now inundated every tide, from the sea- 

 wall having been washed away some seven years ago) 

 consisted of some 1700 acres of dyke and fleet-inter- 

 sected marshes, and was as bare and flat as a billiard 

 table. But one road led to the place, and that was pass- 

 able only at low tide, for the simple reason it lay along the 

 Maplin sands. Clumps of broom sunk in the sand at 

 intervals marked the course of the road, and woe be to 

 the unhappy wayfarer who ventured along that track in 

 fog or darkness, for the chances are he would wander out 

 to sea and drown, as have others before to-day. 



It was late in November when B and myself 



left the fogs and rains of London and journeyed down to 



304 



