IN SOMERSET 277 



Somerset's sea or river board to hear bobberies 

 kicked up at second-hand on the shore, however 

 profitable the Kensit agent In advance may find 

 It to be alternately jeered at and cheered by the 

 young 'uns. However, the party was "off" in 

 the morning, and the loveliest day on — just what 

 you get in Norway and Sweden before winter 

 goes, but after the sun gets power to assert 

 himself between the night's frosts. The town is 

 like bits of a score of seaside resorts made into 

 patchwork — all of good materials, mark you. 

 The air is Lowestoft or Redcar ; the dunes or 

 denes might be borrowed from Southport, 

 Walcheren, Rossall, Rye, or Yarmouth, or, for 

 that matter, 'Frisco. No other coast-line of my 

 acquaintance has quite such good sands. I 

 wonder these have not been found out for training 

 when frost grips turf gallops. The natives of sea- 

 going persuasions are — as West-country water- 

 men-fishers almost Invariably are — kind-hearted, 

 respectful, self-respecting, plucky, strong chaps, 

 who have put up with much ill-luck quite heroic- 

 ally ; and the rural country hands amiable, hard 

 workers well affected to the stranger. 



While difference between these two classes 

 displays itself automatically, you can hardly tell 

 quite where their spheres of usefulness should 

 begin or leave off. Sometimes it appears to be 

 the sea encroaching on the land, to the lord of 

 the manor's loss. Mostly the Crown or the 

 Admiralty has strong reason to call in the aid of 

 the law to restrain the land from going out to sea 

 and staying there on top. Meanwhile, pace local 

 observers, the denes grow, making a bigger 

 barrier between the water and the low-lying peat 

 country stretching over by the moors to Glaston- 



