agitate until the road is taken over by the highway authority or the county would require about as much diplomacy, local influence and log-rolling as it would to pass a London Water Bill. Anyhow, I as a non-resident have neither the time nor the will to waste on such a job, and as I can send all the hay which my farm produces to market by water and the stock can use their own legs to walk to Rochford or Colchester, as the case may be, I must just put up with a two mile drag through the mud or over the grass at the side, and allow an hour instead of half an hour to reach the station.
The shepherd, a cheery young fellow, meets me at the ferry with the intelligence that all is well with the ewes, which at this moment are the principal part of my stock. It is the only place I had to do with in England where ewes will winter and keep in good condition the whole year round on grass alone* At present I have only two hundred and fifty because a lot of the grass is only newly laid down and not fit to carry sheep, and also because I have found that overstocking is the very worst thing you can do if you want sheep to thrive; but in two or three years* time this farm will carry five hundred easily, besides some bullocks in summer, and make a lot of hay as well. Though the snow has been four inches deep in Gloucestershire there has been little or none here, and the grass is green and growing under the influence of rain and mild sea air. The sheep arc blooming, except a few which were not dipped and are ap¬ parently suffering from parasites, which cause them to tuck or pull at their sides. I therefore gave instructions to pour some Cooper’s dip into their fleeces, as it is now too late in the year to dip them properly.
The next morning I rise an hour before dawn in order to get the morning flight of the wild clucks, which are becoming very numerous on this island since I have kept it quiet. There is a sharp frost, and on going out at 6.30 I find that there is a skin of ice over the brackish water of the long fleet which divides the island in nearly two parts. The eastern sky is just showing the approach of clay, a time which to my mind in summer or winter has an intense charm to the sportsman, naturalist or lover of nature. I always pity people to whom early rising is a trial, as it is to many, for it always seems to me that when a man has health and a hot cup of tea or coffee inside him, the hour before sunrise is the most charming hour of the day. There are mornings, no doubt, when fog, rain or wind make it pleasanter indoors than out, but it has always seemed to me that if you go to bed in time to get the necessary seven or eight hours’ sleep it matters nothing whether you get up at six, seven or eight o’clock, and as a sportsman I can say that much of my success, especially in wild¬ fowl shooting and elk-hunting, has been got by early rising.
Though it is still too dark to sec, I can hear the rapid “whish” of the ducks’ wings as they fly in from their feeding-grounds, and I know no more exciting or delightful sound than this except, perhaps, the "wheaw" of an immense flock of widgeon when one is just pushing a punt over the last few yards of ooze and expecting to make a heavy shot the next moment. My days for this, perhaps the most difficult and exciting of all small game shooting, are now over, however, as there are hardly any places left in England where punting can be carried on except on very rare occasions,
