CHAPTER X.
hickling broad.
“This gate hang high
But hinder none,
Refresh and pay
And travel on,”
The omission of the s in the third person singular of the verb is truly Norfolk, and common even among the middle classes. At the bridge is the “Waterman’s Arms,” where one or two bedrooms, and a small parlour, all scrupulously clean, are obtainable. Just by the bridge, in a sort of wooden “Peggoty’s Hut,” lives Applegate, who has good boats, sailing and rowing, for hire, stowed away in a remarkably neat boat-house. The fishing all round is as good as it can be, and I never fail to get a jack near the bridge, while, within four miles lie Hickling and Somerton Broads, Heigham Sounds, and Horsey Mere. For myself, I should prefer this as a fishing and boating station, to any other, because of the wildness of the district.
The tide ebbs and flows strongly; and I caught Wynne standing on the bridge, and looking in a perplexed way at the rate the perfectly fresh water of the river was running up stream. The exit of these waters—at Yarmouth—was twenty miles away, by water; Heigham Bridge is only between four and five miles from the sea, in a direct line, and the water was now running eastward, towards the sea, and the lakes, which daily rise and fall, though only a few inches, actuated by the salt tide, “so near, and yet so far.”
“Verily, this is a strange country,” said Wynne, “and not, I should think, beyond the possibility of a sudden visit from the sea.”
“No, those light-coloured mounds in the distance are the sea-banks, of sand, only held together by scanty marram grasses. We will pay them a closer visit.”
We got the lateener through the bridges, taking sufficient things for a night’s absence, and sailed away up the Thurne, which seems now to lose its name as a river, and take that of the “Hundred Stream.” About half a mile above the railway bridge is the mouth of Kendal, or Candler’s, Dyke, a narrow winding stream, up which we turned, soon to find ourselves bordered by tall reeds on either hand, and then sailing through a wilderness of water and reeds so tall that they bounded our view. This is Heigham Sounds, now greatly overgrown, and a capital place for wild fowl; also for rudd, which here attain a very large size, and go in immense shoals. Out of the channel the water is extremely shallow. In the channel, particularly in Kendal Dyke, I have caught a good number of pike.
The fishing on all these Broads—Hickling, Horsey, and the Sounds—is nominally preserved, but fair anglers do not seem to be interfered with. At all events, in the channel and the dykes one may pretty well do as one likes, and no attempt has ever been made to set up an exclusive right to the rivers. I note that a Fishery Preservation Society has been formed to abolish illegal netting, and to overlook this district, and under the auspices of this it is probable that riparian owners will not object to anglers taking a share of the superabundant fish out of the Broads. I call the fish superabundant advisedly, and will adhere to the term until anglers can assure me that they know what to do (usefully) with the number of fish they catch, and cease from throwing them away on the bank, after ascertaining their weight and number.