Johnstone of the Border by Harold Bindloss

Soon after their arrival Whitney and Andrew drove back to the boat, which was moored in the mouth of a stream at some distance from Appleyard. It was a bright morning and they sat smoking in the cockpit when they had shaken some of the canvas and laid their sea clothes and blankets out to dry.

Behind the white beach, a strip of marish heath led back to the broad belt of cultivated land, with neat farmsteads scattered about; in front, the narrow channel, in which the shallow-bodied boat lay nearly upright, wound seaward through a great stretch of sand. The open sea was not visible, but three or four miles away a glistening streak that seemed to be in motion caught the light. In the middle distance a green lagoon and two ribands of water were rapidly widening. Flocks of black and white oyster-catchers fluttered about the banks of the channels, and long rows of salmon nets ran back along the shore.