PREFACE. SOME of our readers and critics have complained that the localities amongst which A Son of the Marshes was brought up, and where his observations in natural history were first made, are too vaguely indicated in the books already published. To meet this objection I have, in editing the present volume, added a few topo- graphical details which will, I trust, serve to give more definiteness to the scenes therein described. JEAN A. OWEN. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. RANGING THE DYKES . . . . . . . i II. OLD GUNS AND THEIR OWNERS .... 23 III. OLD REEKS AND HIS LUGGER 45 IV. UNDER STRESS OF CIRCUMSTANCE .... 54 V. SOME WATER STUDIES 72 VI. NATURES RAIDERS 83 VII. A WATER RAIDER 105 VIII. IN SUSSEX 116 IX. UPLAND FIELDS 150 X. SOME TRAITS OF WILD LIFE 166 XI. THE PAGEANTRY OF AUTUMN 180 XII. COMMON LAND . 200 XIII. AT DAWN OF DAY 218 XIV. VOICES OF THE NIGHT 232 XV. As THE SEASONS CHANGE 245 DRIFT FROM LONGSHORE. CHAPTER I. RANGING THE DYKES. MiLTON-NEXT-SlTTiNGBOURNE, the centre about which these Marshland incidents are grouped, has played no mean part in the history of our country. It lies, says an old writer, as it were, hid among the creeks, for it is almost out of sight, as well by water as by land, and yet it is a large town, as it is a considerable port for barges, and a capital fishery for those oysters called Milton or Melton oysters, which are so valuable. It is at the mouth of the Swale opposite the Island of Sheppey, near where the waters of the Thames and the Medway meet. At the beginning of this century Milton was little more than a long straggling fishing village on the edge of the salt marshes, although it still contained some buildings which spoke of former prosperityand business activity. The hundred of Milton held its Court leet which was said to have 1