Braid

[laughs] We love it.

Well, folks, if you wanna learn more about HorseTober, excuse me, HorseTober and Pass the Braid, we're gonna drop the links for that in the show notes below.

Lynn, thank you for coming back on 1,000 episodes later, and we can't wait to see HorseTober really take off.

Oh, I appreciate you guys.

Frontmatter.

To Threw Broadland in a Braid and Punt by John Noletal.

A pseudonym of the writer and naturalist Arthur Henry Patterson.

this is a librivox recording all librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org through broadland in a braid and punt by john knowlittle front matter to my many east coast friends i dedicate this little book as i love nature as i love singing birds and gleaming stubble and flowing rivers and morning and evening and summer and winter i love thee my friend by thoreau and nature the old nurse took the child upon her knee saying here is a story book thy father hath written for thee come wander with me she said into regions yet untrod and read what is still unread in the manuscripts of god and he wandered away and away with nature the dear old nurse who sang to him night and day the rhymes of the universe by henry wadsworth longfellow author's note the following chapters originally appeared in the autumn of nineteen nineteen in the columns of the eastern daily press and met with a most gratifying reception from the readers of that popular newspaper many of whom strongly urged me to republish them in permanent book form i have to thank the editor of that paper for reserving to me the right of republication and also one of his assistants for a discriminating use of the blue pencil in eliminating certain small portions of matter of an ephemeral character that were more suited to current journalism than in a published volume the chapters were written as i proceeded on my voyage mostly in the punt under the stars at other times when drifting on the tides or leisurely waiting for wind and tide signed john knowlittle march the sixth nineteen twenty preface to second edition with some degree of trepidation the first edition of this little book was prepared for the press its reception by those who know and love broadland and many more who are not ill-disposed towards my output of nature scribbling has been not only flattering to myself but satisfactory to my publisher to whom i am greatly indebted for his enterprise in these days of expensive materials and costly labour and if my endeavours to interest my friends and a considerable reading public have succeeded in giving them pleasure and an increased love for the delightful inland waterways of norfolk and suffolk what greater satisfaction can i desire signed john no little ibis house great yarmouth june the first nineteen twenty introduction dear john knowlittle i do not think that any book of yours requires an introduction but since you wish for one here it is close on half a century ago i was sitting in my home in shropshire reading the field when i came across an article by one greville f descriptive of the norfolk broads up to that time my boating experiences had consisted only of voyages down west country rivers and canals in a home-made rob roy canoe in norfolk there seemed more scope for a water vagabond i had just passed my final examination for the law and procuring a legal journal i searched the advertisements and found one for a managing clerk in a norwich office i applied at once and obtained the post on the evening of my arrival in norwich i strolled as far as the river and jumped on board a wherry drifting downstream to be landed past midnight on the brundle marshes whence i walked back getting to my lodgings between two and three in the morning to find my landlady sitting up for me and wondering what kind of a young man her new lodger was that was the beginning of the fascination which the broad district had for me and i indulged in it to the uttermost in all sorts of craft from yarwelps upwards until they grew too big from motives of comfort and had to be taken to sea and to dutch waterways but in those old days the wildness and silence of the broads were complete the sight of another sail was an event in the day now the rivers are in the summer gay with craft it is only in that most beautiful period of the year late autumn that the old charm revives no wonder some old stages complain one day i sat at lunch in a restaurant next a stranger who was talking of the broads to some friends he said that fellow christopher davies has spoiled the broads completely if ever i meet him i will punch his head for him i remarked here he sits punch away he looked at me gravely for a few seconds and then said what will you take to drink i went one evening last summer in nineteen nineteen to my cottage by brony fen broad horning on purpose to hear the booming of the bitterns which my marshman assured me was a beastly nuisance keeping him awake but it was past eleven before the sounds of the motor-horns on the road the sirens of motor-boats on the river and the cries of revellers subsided sufficiently and then while sitting in the porch watching both a brown owl and a white owl flitting about the garden and a night-jar circling the tops of the apple-trees i heard at intervals the fivefold note of the bittern a weird sound which no word can accurately describe my keeper when he first heard it within a hundred yards of the cottage thought it was a cow struggling in the bog now while you and i are equally sympathetic with the wild life of the waterside my surplus energies were directed to sport and yours to the accurate chronicling of your observations in the field of natural history so that your life's work will be of more use to those who come after us than mine your other books have an honoured place in my special library but your present venture is a reversion to the personal type which is common to us both and will i think appeal strongly to the ever-increasing number of readers who feel the rebound from ultra civilisation to the call of the wild such wild at all events as is still possible in this well-regulated land of ours i hope that the cruise of the yarwelp will result in a good cargo being brought into port yours sincerely george christopher davies front matter chapter i the voyage begins as i had a boat my next design was to make a tour fitted up a little mast and made a sail to it then i built lockers or boxes to put provisions necessaries etc into to be kept dry either from rain or spray at last i resolved on my tour from robinson crusoe For months, at odd moments, the Yarwelp punt, my Braden ship of these twenty-six years, had been under review, guessing, calculating, measuring her capacities for a lengthy broadland tour, and then fitted with shears, awning and sundry, in order to make the voyage at least a comfortable one.