MAN AND NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS BY THE SAME AUTHOR NOTES OF AN EAST COAST NATURALIST NATURE IN EASTERN NORFOLK WILD LIFE ON A NORFOLK ESTUARY *c f , ' ' c l MAN AND NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS BY ARTHUR H. PATTERSON * & ASSOCIATE MEMBER OF THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM WITH THIRTY-ONE ILLUSTRATIONS METHUEN & CO. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON First Published in 1909 TO MY WIFE AND MY NATIVE TOWN I DEDICATE THIS BOOK 258465 " I love all waste And solitary places ; where we taste The pleasure of believing what we see Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be : And such was this wide ocean, and this shore More barren than its billows : and yet more Than all, with a remembered friend I love To ' row and then be rowed ' : for the winds drove The living spray along the sunny air Into our faces ; the blue heavens were bare, Stripped to their depths by the awakening north ; And, from the waves, sound like delight broke forth, Harmonising with solitude, and sent Into our hearts aerial merriment." SHELLEY AUTHOR'S NOTE THE kind reception given to my three previous East Coast books has emboldened me to add another volume to the series. I make no apology for its appearance. My chief reasons for publishing it are that I may interest others in the wild life and unique characters of a delightful corner of East Anglia, and record traits and features that ere long must be greatly altered or wholly lost. I have added many new incidents and impres- sions of birds and other creatures, and as far as possible I have dispensed with dates. Many of the characters introduced will be new to my readers, and those whom they may have met with before are accredited with entirely new facts. Alas ! since the publication of my other volumes, some of the poor old fellows, whose sayings and doings I have recorded, have been gathered to their fathers or have drifted into obscurity. ARTHUR H. PATTERSON IBIS HOUSE, GREAT YARMOUTH CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. IN WINTRY DAYS I Punt-gunning Decoying Wherries and Wherrymen II. ON GUNS AND GUNNERS 44 Gunners in General The Snipe-shooters Marshland Hares The Gull-slayer On * Gun-dogs ' III. ' PUBLIC ' AFFAIRS 105 'An Afternoon Sitting' A Night Sitting The Breydon Parliament IV. SHALLOW WATERS 145 A Houseboat ' Confab ' Among the Smelts V. SHRIMPERS AND SHRIMPING . . . .164 Among the Shrimps A Shrimper's Yarn Catching and Sorting Shrimp and Crab Gossip The Wolder at Home VI. WITH THE EEL FISHERS 195 An Afternoon's ( Lamb-netting' A Professional Lamb-netter Eels and Eel-catchers VII. ON QUIET WATERS 219 An August River Trip My Chum Dye Thirty Years After xii MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS VIII. SOME LOST INDUSTRIES 236 Mussel-dredging A Word about Wooden Ships The Whale Fishery The Trawl Fishery Swiping for Anchors IX. DEAD LOW WATER 256 An Obsolete Mackerel Fishery Mackerel Fishing Reminiscences Haddocking X. A HARVEST OF THE SEA 2/2 On the Herring Landing the Fish Herring Catching : Then Herring Catching : Now The Curing of the Herrings XI. FLOTSAM 300 A Famous Lifeboatman The Last of the Ebb Tide INDEX 311 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT PAGE THE KEEL (AN OBSOLETE CRAFT) xv i ENTRANCE TO DECOY PIPE jc RUFFS 43 LAPWINGS POOR "PUSS'S" LAST DOUBLE 8l RETRIEVING DUCK IQ . PINK-FOOTED GEESE IQ ^ SNIPE. HARD TIMES. . . . . . .125 ANXIOUS MOMENTS I44 WHIMBREL . . 145 RATS AND RINGED PLOVER jcc THE SMELTERS : LETTING OUT THE NET . . j6i TURNSTONES ^. HERON AND BLACK-HEADED GULLS . . . .195 OTTER AND EEL 2I g ON THE BURE 2I9 KENTISH PLOVER, KNOT, AND TURNSTONE . . .231 MUSSEL-DREDGING 2 , 6 OYSTER CATCHER : A LOVER OF SHELLFISH . . .239 xiv MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS PAGE OLD ANCHORS 255 MACKEREL 256 BEACHMEN'S LOOK-OUT . ' 271 ANCIENT FISHING LUGGER 2/2 THREE-MAST SAILING LUGGER 299 LAPWINGS 3 FLOTSAM 3 10 LIST OF PLATES THE AUTHOR ON AN OBSOLETE TROLL-CART Frontispiece FACING PAGE PUNT-GUNNER LYING AT FOWL 6 PUNT-GUNNER PICKING UP FOWL 6 GOING EEL-PICKING 2l6 SCOTCH GIRLS "GUTTING" HERRINGS . . . . 2Q2 THE KEEL (AN OBSOLETE CRAFT) MAN AND NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS CHAPTER I IN WINTRY DAYS " Where, from their frozen wins, mute springs Pour out their river's gradual tide Shrilly the skater's iron rings And voices fill the woodland side And gathered winds, in hoarse accord Amid the vocal reeds pipe loud," LONGFELLOW PUNT-GUNNING JANUARY, 1909, went out on the wings of the north wind. The thick rime frosts of several successive days had disappeared, when the westerly wind veered round to the nor'ard, from whence snow-clouds came up and whitened the marshlands, speckled the red-tiled town with blotches of fine dry snow, and then freckled all with a parting sprinkle of hail that stung the face like storm-driven shingle on a stony beach. B 2 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS The boom of punt-guns in the morning announced the arrival of troubled wild-fowl, and the sharper crack of the fowling-pieces told of the harassed cripples and restless shore birds. These sounds were heard at intervals in the afternoon, when I strolled along Breydon Walls. It was no pleasant ramble ; the walls were gluey and slippery after the slight thaw; the grasses, shaggy and ragged, were bent and soaked with melting snow, and the wind, rushing in with each snow-squall, took the breath away if one attempted to scramble along on the top of the walls. There is always born in one a vigorous feeling when, wrapped to the ears and fitly clad, one looks out into the wild, with a past squall blackening the southern sky, and another sweeping, streaky, whitey- blue blizzard bearing down from the far north, shutting out the distant, and then the nearer landscape. Like steam it looms up, and then thick, like a fog. Then the blast strikes one with the first thin sprinkling of snow ; the wind roars across the water, creasing the dark, drab, up-rushing flood-tide with white, vicious waves, that break on the walls with a noise as of the sea. During one of these squalls two amateur punt- gunners were blown on to the lee-walls, coming in broadside, but by great good luck striking against some fish baskets that the gale had blown over the flats. The big grey-painted gun, which I recognised as having been through the hands of several old wild-fowlers of my acquaintance, swung in a reckless fashion as the waves broke on the port side, flinging IN WINTRY DAYS 3 spray in drenching showers over the luckless gunners. When the squall had spent itself, they wisely made for home, as all fine-weather sportsmen should do when Breydon is troubled and angry. All nature seemed unhappy. As I came on to the walls from the town, chaffinches flitted about the marshes in that fitful way they have in stormy days. A few redwings and fieldfares disconsolately hunted around and among some fresh-cast mole heaps, vainly hoping for some grub the moles had over- looked. Dunlins and a few knots flitted in an unsettled sort of fashion above the half-submerged vegetation on the " rond." Finding no footing there they dashed across Breydon, making for the beach. A few bunches of mallard and wigeon, whose ranks had been thinned in the morning, still kept trying to settle on the flood ; but were repeatedly " put up" by some gun-punt whose strange behaviour before noon might have taught them caution. Along the walls, close wrapped and vigilant, four or five shore-gunners were spread, eager for snow- squalls which sometimes bring duck, mallard and coots, within range of their guns. One man obtained two ducks this morning and was out again in search of more. When chatting with aged gunners I have been impressed by their dogged adherence to the belief that the winters of their earlier days were "harder " and more protracted than those experienced now- adays : no amount of arguing will persuade them that long severe spells of snow and frost were the exception and not the rule. Then, too, they forget 4 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS to take into consideration the absence of a close season at that time gave them opportunities to shoot without restraint into large flocks of wigeon that came, as now, from March to early May. Large bags might be made almost every year, if it were not for a watcher. Let a sharp spell of wintry weather set in for a few days in December or January, and it is astonishing what numbers of fowl duck, mallard, wigeon, and "hard-fowl," i.e. scaups, pochards, tufted ducks, golden eyes will rush in from the northern seas or from the broads, where even now in open winters great numbers of duck resort. That distinguished winter visitor, the goosander and his kindred " sawbills " are almost sure to turn up in lesser or greater numbers, but never numerously, in snow-time. This species is very rare here in full adult plumage, more especially the male. Hardly a winter goes by but one or more is seen suspended with other aquatic birds in our market-place ; and in what are known as "goosander-years," several are killed and in most instances thrown away as unfit to eat, one or two immature birds in a collection being considered more than sufficient. In these "goosander-years" small parties fish in company, as many as twelve and fourteen have been observed together ; half that number, however, is more frequent, consisting probably of family parties. A few years ago two punt-gunners, " Pintail " Thomas, and Beckett, went up Breydon, in the former's punt, in search of prey, their especial quest IN WINTRY DAYS 5 being a party of goosanders, consisting of seven birds. With characteristic obstinacy Thomas's aged weapon refused to explode the cap, misfiring no less than three times, to the huge indignation of Beckett, who had a good supply of adjectives ready for such occasions. The birds were so remarkably tame that they drew together into a more compact bunch, merely turning their heads as if to inquire what was amiss, and then slightly scattered again to fish. At the fourth trial the gun went off, killing two, and wounding three. My informant Quinton, who was in a punt hard by, gave me a lively description of the exciting chase that followed the picking-up of the dead birds! The wounded ones dived and swam under water with the speed and ease of grebes ; like fish, they darted here and there, baffled now and again by the shallow- ness as they neared a flat. One bird Quinton detected swimming under water in his direction. It went under his boat, and then a chance shot from his gun stopped its career, and the poor hunted thing came to the surface where it floated dead. I confess that to-day I never can hear these stories of slaughter without feeling strong repugnance, interested as I am in hearing of the endurance, cunning, and prowess of the old gunners. In my " unregenerate " days, however," I would inflict the same torture on defenceless creatures as these men did ; gloat over a parcel of little bodies lying with feet drawn up and heads and plumage wet and bloody ; and knock a wounded bird on the head in order to place it alongside them. I suppose the love of sport is a legacy left to many of us by our 6 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS stone-age ancestors, who slew to keep themselves alive. The best of us, who still delight in the flesh of once- living animals, excuse ourselves because we do not see the pain and torture inflicted by civilised butchery. Perhaps we try not to think of it. " Old Stork," the father of three other " Breydon Storks," was a calculating gunner. Once when Breydon was frozen over, he broke and kept open a " wake," which became crowded with coots, golden- eyes, tufted ducks, and others. He fired his punt- gun at a hungry, half-tame parcel of two or three hundred, killing and wounding a considerable number. He proceeded to gather up the dead and all the sorely wounded he could get at, and then set off over the ice, pushing his punt ahead of him, after those that fluttered broken-winged and otherwise partially dis- abled. The ingenious old rascal had fitted some small wheels under his punt, and would run her about with the ease and grace of a costermonger's barrow (!) Many of the less-wounded cripples dived under the ice, a few going some hundreds of yards and coming up in the main channel. Some failed to get clear of it and were drowned, while others became attached to it. When the thaw caused a break-up, and the tides carried down the floes, dead birds were found floating among them or fastened by their feathers to the ice. Only one or two of the old punt-gunners who knew " Squire " Booth survive ; " Short'un " Page, Gibbs, and Jimmy Hurr are still living, but are aged and decayed. " Pero " Pestell used to delight in relating his reminiscences of the great collector. * * *,*,> J , 1 '>*, t * . , PUNT-GUNNER LYING AT FOWL PUNT-GUNNEK PICKING UP FOW . IN WINTRY DAYS 7 "He used to hire me or Gibbs, or well, he gave us all a turn, and paid us well : but he allers insisted on being put on to birds, and for any birds what he got as he wanted badly, he'd think nothin' of chuckin' down a good English sovereign as a sort of what- you-call-it ? thank offerin'. " ' Pestell/ says he, one day, ' I'm wanting a good grey plover.' And we was all on the look-out for one. We never made much more 'an a shilling of a really good black-breasted one to the stuffers, and hardly that off the game-dealer. " ' There's one/ I says to him one morning, ' a splendid black 'un over there/ I says, pointing him where it was running on a flat. And off he goes. I see him kill the bird through my glasses. I see him no more for several days, and had all but forgotten it ; but one day he comes rowin' by. " ' Hallo ! Pestell/ says he, ' I got that plover ; but I haven't seen you since to pay you for it. Hev a drink ! ' and he actually hulls a sovereign into my punt. He was a good 'un ; and though he wouldn't give a thank for the rarest bird you might take him, he'd pay up like a banker if you put him on to it if it was ever so common." Personally, I am not enraptured with the ponderous death-dealing punt-gun. There may be excitement attendant on it, and there may be profit, but there is little sport, unless butchery be the essence of it. I have never been in a punt to see one fired ; but I have seen big guns fired many a time ; and to see a " lane " cut through a flock of birds has produced in me feelings quite the reverse of those which must 8 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS possess the user of so atrocious a weapon. As recently as the last day in January, 1909, I watched through my binoculars a big-gun approaching a parcel of five duck and mallard, on the other side of Breydon, a full mile away. Foot by foot the punt, sculled by a gunner lying almost prone on the bottom-boards, drew up to within striking distance ; the fowl, alert and restless, bunched and swam ahead. Moment by moment death seemed creeping nearer to them, when, fairly alarmed, up and away flew all five of them, the gun immediately after belching forth fire and a coil of white powder-smoke. What that man and his companion (for another man had been crouching in the punt) said, I can only conjecture. Had they read my thoughts, and known how my pity for the birds was greater than my hopes for their success, I fear they would have exhausted their vocabulary of East Norfolk expletives. I remember how, one bright September afternoon, a flock of thirty odd curlews, some of them fine old females with long mandibles, alighted on a flat a few score yards above me as I lay moored against the decaying timber of the old Agnes in the ship channel. I was watching their playing antics as they turned the zostera over with the tips of their mandibles, seeking hiding shorecrabs. Now and again one straightened a wing, and stuck out a leg in stretching ; now and then one yawned. They piped in a low comfortable key to each other, and gossiped as they trotted to and fro. It was altogether a bonnie sight these seven and thirty quaint, grey- feathered, blue-legged birds of the moor and mudflat. IN WINTRY DAYS 9 The thought of danger never entered the heads of the happy things. A gun-punt glided past me, its occupant lying low, with his right hand mechanically working the scull thrust out astern and his eye glancing along the barrel of his gun. Presently he drew in his hand, placed his forefinger upon the trigger, and elevated the muzzle to the deadly level. " Boom ! " roared the fowling piece, and a " lane " was cut through that flock of curlews, shot cutting through neck and wing, body and leg, while stray ones flung up mud beside them. Away went about two-thirds of the birds, screaming and terrified, one or two dropping as they crossed the flat. Nearer lay some nine of them killed outright ; three or four, with smashed wings and broken legs, looking mere bunches of mud-bedaubed rags, struggled on their sides, or ran, with wings hanging, across the flat. The gunner might have thought me a madman had I commented adversely upon his " great good luck " ; but who gave him the right to slay those beautiful birds ? And had I not as much right to lie there watching their happiness as he had to spoil theirs and mine ? Quite recently I watched a punt-gunner from an opposite point of view. I had been to my old house- boat, to fetch home the blankets and cushions before the winter frosts made the cabin ceiling trickle with moisture. I had had half an hour's mushrooming, and had crept up the walls to get into my punt. Peering over the walls I saw a parcel of grey plovers, about a dozen in all, feeding on the edge of a mud-flat io MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS some hundred yards away. Two were washing their already clean plumage in the shallow water bathing for the very fun of it. Beyond them, three hundred yards or more away, a gun-punt was being slowly sculled up to within gun-shot. I squatted in the grass, my forehead and glasses only being above the level. Now, I had never been in front of a big gun before at firing time, and for once I decided to risk it. It was foolish, no doubt Presently I saw that the gun was within range, and the gunner preparing to fire, the muzzle pointing, I thought, a little bit to the left of me. " Boom ! " rang out the gun, as it vomited forth nearly a pound of double-B shot, smiting six of the little migrants, which fell dead without a struggle. One shot hit my punt, and fell into the well. Two or three swished through the grass beside me, and one or two whisked overhead. I felt sorry for those poor little things ! A few minutes later forty others flew in from sea, and I fear they also fared badly, for they were, I have no doubt, mostly young birds of the year, the earliest flocks of their species travelling southwards on the easterly winds that begin blowing in September. IN WINTRY DAYS 11 DECOYING Since the advent of close seasons, sportsmen of the humbler sort, who are now debarred from harassing wigeon that drop in upon local waters in March, and who are not allowed to prowl around in search of flappers in July, have felt much aggrieved with those wild-fowlers whose longer purses give them facilities for shooting on the protected broads. " It's like this," remarked one man, with emphasis and anger, "there's one law for the rich and another for the poor. These 'ere gentlemen hire a bit of shootin' on the edge of a broad, and are unmuzzled by your blessed Protection Acts. The fowl what breed there are knocked over afore they've got their full flights, and nobody outside have half a chance. " Even the fowl what come over from abroad at the beginning of winter drop in there, and there they pops at 'em unless a very sharp frost shuts up the broads ; then perhaps a few flocks come to Breydon, and give us a chance. Even then them gentlemen's keepers row about the broads and keep the wakes open, and there we are again. "Then them decoys, I wish they'd freeze up to the bloomin' sky ! There the fowl drop in in hundreds, and there they meet with bloomin' butchers. We ain't got half a chance." These are the feelings and the attitude of shore and punt-gunners ; and when I have dared to hint that, in the days when decoys were more generally worked, and fowl were harboured more abundantly through being fed there, there were greater numbers 12 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS of fowl for other sportsmen, they pooh-poohed the idea. Nevertheless such was the case however remarkable it may seem. Mr. Christopher Davies l states that, when the Ranworth decoy was worked, fowl were much more plentiful in that neighbourhood. Since then it appears to have been commonly accepted by the local flight-shooters that the giving up of the decoy " was a bad job " for them. So silently and skilfully were the decoys worked, that while a few score birds were being inveigled into the nets, and others were having their necks wrung, hundreds would be sitting on the water within a stone's throw, entirely ignorant of what was going on. This was exactly the condition of affairs when, early in January, 1909, I accepted an invitation from the owner of Fritton decoy, to run over and see the decoyman exercising his unique calling. There had been a sharp frost for days, and the lake had become frozen over, save here and there where a " wake " or clear space in front of the pipes had been kept open by the keeper. " I fear you've come too late for this frost," said the sturdy young decoyman as I walked up to the lodge door. " If you'd been here a day or so ago, before the thaw came, you'd have seen me capturing two or three hundred in a day ! However, we'll have a walk round now you've come if you feel disposed ; but I'm about sure the fowl won't work." The decoyman loosened from its kennel the brown retriever that acted as a decoy. He then l Norfolk Broads and Rivers, pp. 160-161. See also Davies, Experiences of Decoying, pp. 160-173. IN WINTRY DAYS 13 picked up a piece of dry peat from a heap in a shed, and went into the house to light it, for it was deemed essential that the human scent, so quickly detected by the wary fowl, should be overcome by fumes that did not appeal to their imagination and instincts. In a rat-proof shed into which I peered, I saw a live drake tufted fowl which was destined to adorn a northern park, in company with any other " tufts " and wigeon or rarer waterfowl that might be taken. The dog slunk in our tracks like a shadow. He had visions of chunks of bread, with which he always associated this trot round to the nets. Only the cry of a spotted woodpecker, the jarring notes of a jay, and the distant squabbling of rooks broke the silence, save the far-away crow of some startled pheasant and the softer pipings of the fowl on the lake. Coming to the labyrinth of wide trenches cut deeply into the soil, we walked in a stooping position, careful not to stamp on any twig. The ducks quacked in gossipy tones to each other, and occasionally we heard the whistling of wigeon. " Look you through there ! " whispered the keeper, pushing a thin wedge into a screen of reeds, turning it, and making a convenient hole. Through this crevice a goodly company of duck, mallard, and wigeon, could be seen, many paddling in the black water of the " wake " that wound away between the ice from the decoy-pipe into the broad. Pairs and small bunches sat preening themselves on the ice- edges ; while processions of coots beyond strolled across the ice in Indian file, searching for likelier feeding places. 14 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS Peering through another screen we saw half a dozen fowl feeding beneath the great arches at the front of the pipe. Then we passed through more trenches, walking softly on the pine-needle carpet covering the sandy soil. The third pipe showed odd birds feeding on the Indian corn strewn within upon the bottom, under water ; others had settled comfort- ably on the ice or in the wake for a short afternoon nap. " Look you ! " said the decoyman, " they've winded us." And slowly, but with more than one suspicious turn of the head, a duck and a mallard paddled out into open water. I noticed that the turf was no longer smouldering. " They won't work, I'm afraid," he added ; " but I'll see if we can't get those that are in the pipes." I noticed that the decoy-pipe was very much like the half of a funnel cut longitudinally. A series of hoops ran in from the mouth of an artificial creek cut slightly on the curve. The mouth of the pipe was about sixteen or eighteen feet wide, succeeding hoops running smaller until the last one was only just big enough for a man to creep through. The hoops were covered with large-meshed wire-netting. At the small end a " tunnel net " was fixed ; this was made of hoops covered with cord-netting very much like an angler's keep-net laid on its side. The first hoop was fixed to the end of the decoy-pipe, the extreme end being tied to a stake. Screens of reeds, placed obliquely, ran from the " cod-end " of the net, halfway down the outer sides of the decoy pipe. These screens were high enough to render unpleasant 16 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS stooping unnecessary, and they were connected with lower screens over which the dog jumped. All the openings between the screens looked up the pipe. In a small wire enclosure a lively decoy duck was kept. From behind my peep-hole in the reeds I could see without being seen. I saw that the dog was exceedingly eager for a bit of bread ; and no sooner had he jumped one barrier, and come back over the next, than he opened his jaws ready for the thrown morsel. He scampered over one barrier after another ; but the ducks, although turning their heads, refused to be decoyed. Ducks usually betray much curiosity over the decoy dogs' manoeuvres, and with outstretched necks they follow him eagerly; but to-day they were obdurate. We did little on this occasion ; the dog and decoyman did badly I did worse ! for being overcome by curiosity, I peered behind the screen looking up the pipe, forgetting that there were scores of fowl outside it. With a roar of wings and many a frightened quack ! up flew fifty or sixty fowl alarmed at such an apparition. " Did you show yourself ? " asked the decoyman, who was wringing the necks of three or four mallard, which had been feeding well up the pipe, and which had been driven into the tunnel net. " I think I must have done so ! " I replied, smiling. At the next pipe we did a little better, but even then the fowl would not work. The dog was tried, but without avail ; and nothing remained but for the IN WINTRY DAYS 17 decoyman to show himself to a few duck and mallard that were feeding well into the pipe, and frighten them into the fatal cod-end. I managed better this time, and let only one scared mallard pass me at a rare rate of speed. Once he struck the net above, and fell nearly into the water, but he saw his oppor- tunity, and dashed out. The decoyman had by this time lifted the first sections of the tunnel net and turned it over, shutting in the wild struggling birds. The hoops he pressed inwardly, as one shuts up a con- certina, and bird after bird, as fast as he could lay hold of them, came out in his hand, to be quickly slain and thrown in a heap on the turf. I tried my hand at a "kill," placing my thumb against the vertebra, and my fingers above the bill as he did ; but my first attempt was a failure, and must have been painful to the poor doomed bird. " No," I said, " you do the rest, for I shall only bungle." And he " did " the rest neatly and quickly, as only a trained hand can. Directly each one's neck was wrung it was thrown on the turf, to struggle, without pain or feeling, while the blood was centreing itself in the fracture ; and then it stiffened out and died. It was a weird sight to see the broken fowl jump and squirm for a while with the head hanging like a broken reed-tuft. We tried the succeeding pipes, until all four had been cleared of the ducks caught feeding in them, for not a solitary bird " worked " in from the broad. Our total capture was thirty-one duck and mallard, rather more males than females, and one male tufted c i8 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS duck, which I carried away alive, to become a com- panion to the little prisoner in the cage behind the keeper's house. The keeper tied all the ducks into one large bunch and slung them over his back a fairly good weight by the time we reached home. When we arrived at the well-ventilated "dead-house," he smoothed each poor dead thing, tucking its head under the right wing, and laid them side by side, duck and mallard alternately rows upon rows, unruffled, beautiful as in life, not a drop of blood upon their perfect plumage. The excitement that must attend a "good" day's working, when hundreds of fowl are captured, I can only imagine. It was my first acquaintance with decoying, and a novel experience. It was superlatively interesting. WHERRIES AND WHERRYMEN Without a Norfolk wherry upon the canvas, no picture of peaceful Broadland would be complete. It is at once the most picturesque sailing craft in use for trade purposes, the most graceful in lines and general contour, not to say the swiftest and most manageable vessel to be seen on inland waters. The white-winged sailing yacht the butterfly of the waterways does not look half so much in keeping with the green marshlands as the gaily- painted wherry, with its huge, high-peaked, tanned sail. It thrills one when skimming along upstream in a little punt to see her bowling ahead on IN WINTRY DAYS 19 the shimmering river, the cloven waters bubbling and hissing on either side of her clean-cut bows, her huge brown wing bellying before the wind, and having such a spread and a "way" on her that she seems to sweep everything before her. Even in baffling winds she makes headway slowly but surely, as she creeps along by the weather shore, her sheet close hauled, slipping ahead through "scanty reaches" to save an awkward tack; or, may be, tack she must, and then how petulantly that great wing flutters and flaps until she feels the wind again. Should the wind prove altogether contrary or fail her, the skipper plunges the toe of his long pliant quant into the bank or the mud, and clapping his shoulder to the head of it, presses her forward, walking the length of the plank-way with bent back and straining muscle until he nears the end. Then with a quick pluck the quant comes to the surface, and trailing it behind him, he repeats the vicious dig, and once more pushes the wherry on her way. It is slow, toilsome work, sometimes continued for hours together, the wherryman at every stride watching his vane to see if he may throw the quant along the hatches to rush to his sheet and tiller. Old B , a characteristic son of the marshes, towy-headed and bushy bearded, stood in the well or stern sheets of his dingy old wherry, toying with his stumpy clay pipe. His craft was empty, and he awaited the return of the flood tide. " What are you after now ? " I asked him. " Bricks," he replied. 20 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS " You haven't used the paint-pot lately," I ventured to say. " No," said the old man, shaking his head. " She's like me, she's seen her best days. Time was when I was a triflin' bit sprucer and more kedgy, 1 but it's like us as with hosses, we gets old and foky, 2 and wore-out. So's the old Stokesby Trader ; but I dare say she'll last my time out. And things is that harnsey-gutted, 3 in the wherryin' line, they 'ont stand tu't. Lor' when I was a younger feller she wor the smartest craft on the three rivers ; I was allers paintin' and warnishin', and fussickin, 4 and fiddlin' around her. 11 You might as well come into the cabin as keep jifflin 5 about on that moorin' stump. The missus is knockin' up a cup o' tea. " Give him a cup, old woman/' he added, as I followed him into the cabin. " Now then, what is it you want to know about this old wherry ? How old is she ? Well, she wasn't a young 'un when I bowt her : she may be sixty years, she may be more or less, though that ain't likely. She's done me a sight of work, and some hundreds of times hev I bin up and down river in her. I used to be a good deal in the corn-shiftin' line, and done a lot of other freightage flour, coals, jineral cargoin' and all that ; but you see the railways hev cut us up so, and now them steam barges : look at 'em ! You see N 's steam wherry, loaden herself, and towing four and sometimes five great iron hulkin' 1 Active. - Unsound. 3 Lean and poor. 1 Pottering. '' Fidgetting. IN WINTRY DAYS 21 barges, reg'lar ugly, biler-like tubs, too, they are ither shape nor make, but holdin' twice as much as a ornery wherry. Then they can go aginst wind and tide. Drat 'em ! They're spiling wherryin' ! - wor tellin' you," he went on, "the Stokesby Trader wor once the smartest craft for miles around I wor mam proud on her. I've had no ind of painters' these ere likeness takers, paintin' her or snappin 1 her in my time, and I allers fared to raise myself inches taller when I see her beautiful lines and arves drored in to the very life, as it might be, h me in the stern sheets with my old red tammy- shanter on. Lor, sir, what can lick a Norfolk wherry tther for lines or the way she lays afore the wind strommg 1 along. Nothin' can touch her. They do say theer ain't her likes on any waters barrin' ours. She's the bird o' the broadlands, sure-/j ! ' They do say our wherry is built on the very same lines as wor the old Danish ships what in waded this country years afore Oliver Grumble's time let's see, it was afore King Alfred, wasn't it ? They called the sea-kings, but perhaps you've read more 'an I lev ; though I'veheerd our parson trot out suffin about em. But I heerd as they hed lug-sails, or suffin like that 'My old craft is fifty fut long, with a beam of twelve. She draws under three fut o' water and lore she ha'n't need, for the rivers well up-the Bure, anyway-are no pertickler credit to them as has the management of 'em. But still, we know tty well in the dark where the shoals are. She's capable of carryin' about thirty tons. I once know'd 1 Striding or pacing it. 22 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS a huge old tub, leastwise she was then a new 'un, as was built for eighty tons. They called her the Wonder ; and so she was. We all used ter wonder how they managed her, and it worn't long afore we wondered what hed become of her ! "You know, of course, the hull of a wherry is one long hold ; and this here cabin is a kind of junk of it partitioned off. It's cosy, anyway, specially when the doors is shet, and a bit o' steam coal is glowerin' in the grate. And you see the settles are comfortable enough for sleepin' purposes ; you don't need fear rollin' out. The covering of the hold the hatches are very handy, and neat fittin' ; you can lay the whole of the hold open by stackin' one hatch on top the tother. " The hull is tremenjussly strong-built ; all English oak, the ribs bein' solid and closely put together. She'd need be, too, seein' the whoppin' great tough pine mast, stepped well forrid, and the huge sail she's got to carry, while on the heel of the mast more 'an a ton of lead is bolted. And ain't it wonderful how easy that big hulkin' lump of timber is balanced on the tabernacle ; why, with one fut I can rock it up and down, and one chap can easily raise it or lower it. We sometimes sail up close to a bridge afore we let go the sail, what has to be raised by the windlass swung in front of the tabernacle. I'd like to bust up some of them dratted little stone bridges through which you go scrapin' sometimes when the tide's up, till you gets a puff of brick-dust in your eye and use langwidge ! We ain't hardly wherry's length out of the archway, afore up goes the mast again, the jaws IN WINTRY DAYS 23 of the gaff go slidin' up of it, the forestay is made fast, and things is all taut again. " On a strong tide with a fair wind, seven or eight miles an hour the old Trader thinks nothin' of, and then don't make half the fuss a four-tonner yacht, or one of them pesky little motor launches do. And I suppose you know a loaden wherry sails better 'an an empty craft. " Get upsets ? not often, bless yer, and more we hadn't need. I've heerd of one goin' over and drownin' a score frolickers (which no doubt they was /), but that was afore my time. I've bin sunk once through bein' stove in on a stump on Breydon, and the Commissioners, who oughtn't to hev allowed it, had to haul me out agin, and make up for lost time and cargo. Of course, we carry a big sail, but we reef it accordin'-ly ; and though we haint any partic'lar keel we go stiff enough, and there ain't no fear with ornery care. We don't hev but one sail, though we clap a bonnet on the old gal now and agin' that's a strip we lace on below, to biggen it and the sail goin' a bit higher makes it as good as addin' a tops'l. " The life hard ? Well, not more 'an you'd expect. We have a decent time in the finer months, though it's rafty at times, and uncomfortable in bad weather, and not over cheerful in snow-time. Anglers call us hard names at times, but the fules orter know moorin' in awkward places ain't to their own cumfit no more 'an ours. And when the rivers is laid, ice is a nuisance, because it can't be turned into money like it used ter be. 24 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS " 1 remember in days gone by what good old times we well, I speak for myself used ter have with the gun, for it was nothin' oncommon in autumn and winter for ducks to 'light in the river ; and a nice plump mallard worn't to be sneezed at when dinner was on the way. I've shot a goose or two in my time, and goosanders. Once I copt an avocet ; and 'tworn't many year ago when old G - shot that glossy ibis, up there by Acle, as it stalked about on the mud at the riverside." " Netting ? " I ventured. " O yes," he frankly admitted, " I've done a bit of it ; for, like the birds, I could allers get rid of half a ton of fresh-water beauties, and more if I could get 'em. They wasn't so particular them days ; but you mustn't tow a boat astern nowadays or the bailiffs is wantin' to know what it was built for and that ; and now nettin* is a missdemeaner, a feller can't afford to risk his credit for a risky quid. Old Colby can tell more about that little game than I can. Wherryin's enough for me nowadays, without spicin' it with a bit o' sport, though wherryin,' as I said afore, ain't what it won Still, I suppose it'll be a long time afore we're altogether run off the road, so to speak ; and a fleet of wherries waitin' against the quayside on the west of the river, nor'ard of the haven bridge, is a sight that still delights yer eye ; and there is sights nowadays, with all your fancy shows, as 'oant come up to a fleet of 'em startin' on the early flood. Aye ! and ain't it a stirrin' one to see 'em careening afore the wind cuttin' acrost old Breydon ? " Well, if you must go, you must, and I think as IN WINTRY DAYS 25 how I might be under weigh myself, for I see the tide's a-makinV When the trawling industry flourished in Yar- mouth, and hundreds of smacks went in and out the harbour, to and from the North Sea, much ice was a necessary part of their paraphernalia, both for accompanying the freshly-taken catches into the ice- room, and for the better preservation of it when taken out of the cutter and hurried into trucks at the quayside for the inland markets. Ice-houses were then an institution, but they are now obsolete. Quite a brisk competition existed amongst local wherry- men, whose eager crews, with ice-picks and pole- nets (dydles), toiled up the rivers by night and day, filling their holds with the clattering cargo, or quanting energetically down stream to the ice-merchants ; for from ten to fifteen shillings a ton as remuneration was not to be trifled with. The busy scene at the quayside as sturdy lumpers ran up the steep ladders to the ice- house door, laden with baskets of ice, or as nimbly ran down, sliding their empties on the railing, was a sight to be remembered. " I remember some years ago," said " Short 'un " Page, " gettin' into a nice scrape up at South Walsham. There was ' Lucky Bob/ old John Edmonds, ' Spunyarn ' Thomas, and a couple of others. We went up with two wherries arter ice, and as a stall-off, 1 a few fathom o' reeds. When it got duskish, t'others got out a net, and we all went ashore. i Excuse or blind. 26 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS I was innocent enough, thinkin' they'd got leave, and of course, jined 'em. We didn't get much, but, how- somever, somebody was a spyin' on us, though we didn't know it. Well, we'd hed a smoke and a yarn round, made up the fires, and turned in, bein' nice and warm, and as cosy as you wanted to be. " Presently there was a knockin' on the hatches, and a scrapin' of feet along the plankways. " ' Hallo ! there ! ' somebody shouted. "'Hallo! what's up? 1 hollered 'Lucky Bob,' rubbin' his eyes and hullin' the door back. A bull's-eye was turned on us. We all pretended, of course, to be asleep and snorin'. " ' Come out on it,' says the superintendent of police. ' Come ashore here,' he says, ' we've come to arrest you for night-poachin',' he says. " He'd got ten or eleven keepers and chaps with him to help him, and we see the game was up, and hadn't a chance, not half a chance even. Then they slips the snips (handcuffs) on us ; but we declared we wasn't going to walk, they might carry us if they liked. So they gets a carrier's cart, and up we clomb, I handin' back my snips, sayin' as how they worn't no use to me, my wrists and hands bein' so small. They laughed, in course, knowin' /couldn't do much without help, let alone with it. We laid in Acle lock-up all night, passin' the time on larfin' and yarnin' and that. " In the mornin' they got a magistrate in Blofield, and took us afore him, givin' us another ride for our trouble. " ' Well,' he axes, pretendin' to be sympathetic, IN WINTRY DAYS 27 ' what have you got to say for yourselves ? ' after all the rest had swore this, that, and the other. " c I'm innocent/ I says, ' so far, thinkin' my pals had got leave. That's all, yer honner.' " Then one and another told their tales ; one had had no work for weeks ; another had jist come off a sick bed ; and one had got fourteen little children. " ' What have you to say in extenny washon ? ' he axes ' Lucky Bob.' " ' Well, your honner,' he says, * I'm very sorry. I thought a few common fish mightn't be such a great loss to the rivers and broads, seein' how many a angler catches more 'an we got with his one line alone, hullin' 'em on the banks to rot and be a nuisance. A few fish would have fed my little 'uns.' And he gets out his handkerchief, and begins to blubber that natural well, bor, I a'most felt like cryin' alongside him. The magistrate blowed his nose, and hardened his heart. " ' What fam'ly have you ? ' he axes, eyein' Bob up and down. "'The missus is jist laid up with the twenty- fourth ! ' says he, moppin' his eyes again. I'm werry sorry, sir ; for their sakes it shorn't occur again. We hopes as you'll overlook it.' " " Of course he did ? " I jibed in. " Not he," said Short'un. " No such good luck. He must ha' thought Bob was lyin'. So he claps on a 5 fine each ! mind you, but gave us time to pay it in." In the " good times " of the wherryman, not so very long ago, there were various ways of earning 28 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS " little extras " in addition to the freightage on stuff brought down or taken up the local rivers. Cargoes of ice, in the sixties and seventies, proved remunera- tive, and made up for losses of freights when the rivers were hard frozen. Those wherries which got ice-bound up the river, had nothing to do but wait for a thaw that might or might not be weeks in coming. Old Colby, my cripple shrimper friend, in his younger days, besides going trawling and drifting, had his spells a-wherrying. " Oh yes," said the old chap, when I introduced the subject, "ice worn't to be sneezed at when there worn't nothin' else to be had. " I once went icing 'long with Hicks (he's bin dade this ten year). Ice was rather scarce on the river, but the broads was laid. We got up as far as Ranworth Decoy. " ' Look here,' I says, ' here's our chance.' So he shoves the wherry jist into the broad, and starts scoopin' it in. Presently up comes the keeper and axes what we was adoin' of. " ' Tryin' to earn a honest shillin', 1 I says. ' Things is mighty slow the missus and kids a'most starvin' for a bit of brade, the poor missus bein' very onwell.' " * You must get leave from the house,' he says, bein' half persuaded. So to the house we went, where two old maids was living. Knowin' Hicks had got an oilier tongue than I had, I says to him, 'You'll do the talkinV But afore we went, we jist slipt into the nearest pub and axed the landlord to IN WINTRY DAYS 29 set us up with a small bit of blue ribbon. He gave us a bit without much axing, being good costumers, and I pinned it on his coat, to look as if we was at least decent chaps. The only thing I feared that he'd be like enough to do was to let out a blaggard sort of word onawares, or onbeknown, becos it came so natural to him. He wor a pretty promiscuss talker. " They has us in, and we makes our bow, bein' as solemn as if we was goin' to a execution. "'Beg pardon, ladies,' he says, 'but we're two respectable men, summat hard up, b bloom blessed hard up, too.' (I thought he was goin' to make a thunderin' hash on it, and I 'h'ms,' and nudges him.) ' You know, ladies,' he says, ' God sent the ice,' says he, rollin' his eyes, but not too much, ' for our good. They couldn't use it, didn't want, perhaps, an' all the better for them. Sure-ly they wouldn't stand in the way of two poor strugglin' men, anxious to do right, with fam'lies dependin' on 'em.' " That told on 'em like soap. They gave us per- mission prompt as anything, tellin' us that we might come agin perwidin' we allers axed leave. You may be sure we kept up our dignity-like, and thanked 'em tremenjuss. And we pritty sune had a wherry- load of ice on the way for Yarmouth. We jinerally made from five to ten shillin's a ton at the ice-house. Of course, that depended on supply and quality and that. " Once we runned a wherry-load to Oulton Broad, and got through with it to the smacks lyin* in Lowestoft harbour. We sold two or three tons at 30 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS fifteen shillin's a ton, when up comes the ice com- pany's bloke, havin' found us out. He went to the smacks and told the skippers that if they persisted in takin' it off us, they'd have no ice in summer, not from them, when they most wanted it. So we had to back out with more than half a load still in the wherry. Them beggarin* ice companies with their new-fangled ammonia-carbine-made stuff what have they done? Why, simply messed up poor men, though I suppose if I was one of the company I should sing a different tune. Lor, bor, we used ter reg'lar look to earn, in them old hard winters, suffin like twenty-five pounds and up'ards. But we don't fare to get the winters now as we used ter, even if ice-loadin' was a payin' game. " Times ! ah ! we had some rollickin' old times up the river in them days. I remember when I was a boy 'long with my father on the old Enterprise wherry, trading to Wroxham, and up that way, in 1855, we had the master-piece of a frost you ever know'd in your life leastwise, I suppose you wasn't born jist then. Winter set in in the second week of January, what you call properly. It snew, and blew, as it do sometimes after a great flood, for we had a rum 'un in the first week in January. Why, the tide broke through Breydon walls and carried away hundreds of yards of railway metals reg'lar scoured 'em out of their bed. Well, we got froze in this side of South Walsham, and the ice got that thick, people come skatin' up from Yarmouth and Norwich. A thaw didn't set in till the last day in February, and it was the fifth of March afore we got down and IN WINTRY DAYS 31 moored at the quay-side, agin what's now Colman's wharf. They got froze in up at Reedham jist the same. " I remember bein' froze up also in January I think it was in 1871. I remember, too, seem' a orter (otter) killed on a rond by a feller shootin', jist previous to which another chap what was a skatin' copt hold of it by the tail, the duzzy fule, and, of course, the brute turned on him, and tore all his wrist with its teeth. The thing was over four foot long, and I made a guess as it weighed over two stone. You see, it got hard up for wittles, and had to turn its hand, so to speak, for suffin' else for a livin', and got to duck stealin'. " I had some rare times with old Barber l he's a rum pup, ain't he ? a deep 'un. Folks has got to get up early in the mornin' to get the right side of him. One night, up the Norwich river, he got pounced on by a river watcher, who seized his nets aboard his wherry. His nets were drippin wet, and looked snydey, of course, though he'd washed the scales all off. The keeper demanded to see the inside of the wherry, so Barber shifts two or three of the hatches. He'd been artful enough to fill her up with half a cargo of ice, which he'd covered all over a heap of fishes at the bottom of the hold. " ' Theer you are ! ' says Barber, 'why couldn't you believe what I told you ? ' "Anyway, the keeper collared the nets, and took 'em with him, keepin' 'em a fortnight ; but he'd still got his master to deal with. He couldn't bring a 1 Barber died in April, 1909. 32 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS conviction aginst Barber, so he'd no right to collar his nets. Barber, cunning as a mouse-hunter, put in a claim for damaged nets, for they'd sweated and rotted ! The artful old bounder ! "One rainy and blowy night I went with old Hicks (we was both younger then), got ahead of Barber's wherry, and fished all the best reaches, takin' the bulk of the fishes, to his awful annoyance, when he finds it out, you may be sure. " One night me and old Bugles had made such a haul that we couldn't get the net out for fear of breakin' it ; so we ladled as much as we could of 'em in with a hamper. We filled between twenty and thirty peds, 1 gettin' several fine carp and pike amongst the roach and bream. We sold the roach at eightpence a ped, and got a shillin' a ped for 'prime,' that is to say, the perch, carp, and pike. We got good prices in Lent, and as sure as you're alive, and can believe me, we've earnt as much as 3 and 4 a night." "Where did they go to ? " I inquired. " Ah ! now you want to know," said Colby. " Old 'Dilly' Smith 2 bought 'em, but where they went to, I don't know. We used ter watch the river bailiff into his house, see him go upstairs to bed with his candle, and then we'd actually net round the house. Another watchman who succeeded him wouldn't 1 A ped is a hamper ; a round basket with a lid to it. - " Dilly " Smith was a noted waterside publican, who aided and abetted everything that savoured of poaching either by land or water. See Wild Life on a Norfolk Estuary pp. 329-330. The Jews in inland cities were the chief buyers of these fresh- water fishes which they ate on fast days. IN WINTRY DAYS 33 peach on us. Why ? Why because he worn't above sharin' in the bunce ! "Once when we was loadin* ice near Langley dyke we'd got fifty or sixty peds of fish in the wherry. We got a sound that the watcher was comin', and hurriedly filled her up with ice. When he boarded us there was too much ice stored for him even to suspect anything below it. But there they wor fish, and nets, both under the ice, if he'd got eyes enough to see 'em or wits enough to suspect 'em. But he hadn't, and all the better for us." Any one coming in contact with wherrymen for the first time would imagine them dull, obtuse, and positively boorish ; but a closer acquaintance soon dispels this impression, and whilst a few may be uncouth and doltish, the majority will be found to be men possessing keen powers of observation, genial, if they think they can trust you, capable of looking after themselves either in a scrimmage or in matters of business, and ever ready to " do a hand's turn " for the yachtsman, or for each other, "if dacently civil " in return. So recently as a quarter of a century ago quite two hundred wherries navigated these east coast tidal waters, and freights were plentiful enough. Then, as now, the towzle-headed, solemn-visaged wherryman delighted to decorate with bright blues, vermilions, yellows, and other striking colours, his hatches, mast-head, cabin-ends, and fore-peak. Gilt even added to the brightness of "Jenny Morgan," who held the narrow flag upon the vane. It was D 34 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS only when grown old himself, like his wherry, that garishness faded, and when general cargoes, corn, billet, timber, and other clean loads gave way to coal and dirtier burdens. In the more leisurely days the voyage up or down stream was not so rushed as in these days of steam and struggle. Towards evening quite a fleet would moor beside some riverside staithe, near a public-house, where a boisterous night was often spent ; and far too often a knavish landlord made it temporarily worth while for a wherryman to leave a ton of coal, or some deals behind him. The boards would be reported as fallen overboard en route, and other subterfuges invented to account for other losses. Other "lapses from grace" were not unknown; but I have known honourable wherrymen who scorned to do a shady action. I was chatting recently with such an one who, after fifty years of faithful service, at seventy was thrown adrift penniless, although still hale and a better man than many in the prime of life. " The steam done me, sir ! " said he, with bitter- ness. " Them 'ere steam barges, with their lighters, some of 'em carryin' 120 tons, are doing the work of several wherries. Look go there (pointing to a steam wherry towing four heavily-laden iron lighters), them's as good as sixteen ordinary wherries knocked clean out ! " Noah Nicholls is one of the drollest wherrymen I ever met a quiet enough fellow but full of dry humour and yarns of other days. His present avoca- tion is that of a peripatetic book-seller ; his books IN WINTRY DAYS 35 and magazines, of every conceivable order and condi- tion, are purchased at auction sales and by private barter. Rarely a really good volume gets mixed in with the mass of refuse literature spread upon his barrow-board. The mispronounced names and the subject matter described are often extremely funny, for Noah is illiterate, goes much upon covers, and often tells a would-be purchaser to feel "just the weight on it ! " However, he picks up an honest, if often a very slow, penny ; book-buyers laugh at his queer descriptions, and charitably overhaul his wares. For many years Noah pursued the wherryman's calling ; and he knows to this day every hole and corner, every reach, every set of the tide of the whole of the Norfolk and Suffolk waterways. He knows each wherry by name and by its peculiarities ; he has reeled off to me many of their quaint names. There was in his younger time a Pill-box, a Snipe, Rifle, Hit or Miss, Beer-tub, Ginger, and Rat-cage. The smallest he ever knew was the Cabbage wherry, a tiny craft built to carry four tons, whose owner always " worked on the cross," and seldom carried an honestly bought load. Griffin was the skipper ; a donkey supplied the motive power when the winds were foul, and often towed her along miles beside sedgy ronds. Noah tells me that the earlier wherries were short and broad, and drifted somewhat to leeward in awkward reaches : they had not, as some have now, a false keel that could be shifted or fixed. Wherries to-day stand a lot of bad weather, and his favourite old craft, a huge wherry (in those days) of eighty tons, could be handled with great ease through her 36 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS improved build. He once took in a lot of water that broke over her bows at the Narrows, near Berney Arms, and unfortunately his cargo consisted of bricks, which " sucked up " the water so that the pump was of no use. To save her he had to throw a number of bricks overboard. I tried to get out of Noah a few incidents relative to the morals of the vvherrymen, but like most of the Norfolk watermen he was careful of committing himself. He had incidentally told me of some most abominable frauds perpetrated on him by one of his owners the then proprietor of the Wonder who kept a public house, with the wherry as a supple- mental venture. It would seem that while he could trust Noah, he was ever on the look-out to cheat the skipper. On one occasion, when Noah had taken in a cargo of some sixty tons of ice, while lying frozen-in at Oulton Broad, S - (the owner) wheedled him ashore, and put his son aboard to navigate the wherry home, which he did ; and then clandestinely disposed of the cargo. Now, as ice then fetched about twelve shillings a ton, and Noah was entitled to a third, it came hard on him to lose some ten or twelve pounds, and to take the four pounds offered him. But Nicholls knew his man, as he did another man who sat drinking on a settle. " What would have happened ? " I asked Nicholls. " That chap was a bully," replied Noah, " and I know'd S had knuckle-dusters ; in fact, I see 'em on the chap's fingers he'd lent them to him. And he'd ha' used 'em if I'd turned up nasty ; I IN WINTRY DAYS 37 wasn't takin' any, so I took the four pounds and chucked him." It can hardly be wondered at that men who served under hard taskmasters should occasionally " get a little of their own back." But Noah, accord- ing to his own showing, was always a model of propriety. " I remember one night," he went on, " I was layin' moored at Reedham, waitin' for tide and the mornin'. I had just turned in. My mate was asleep on the opposite settle, when I hears a gentle tap against the side of the cabin. Then some one rapped again. " Openin' the cabin door, I makes out some one slippin' down into the stern sheets. " f Any one 'long with yer ? ' he axes, in a low voice ; then I know'd the voice. It was a chap pritty middlin' well off, who'd got a wherry of his own, but done a lot on the cross (dishonest dealing). " ' Only my mate, Ted. Why ? ' " ' Is he all right ? ' he axes, slippin' in, and lookin' to see if Ted wor asleep. "' Go on,' I says. ' What? 9 " ' Look 'ere/ he says, ' I can do with three ton. I'll put you right over it. S owes me quite that.' " Now, I'd got a load of rattlin' good gas coal for Norwich what I took out of a barque lyin' at Yar- mouth, and was the last wherry loaded that day, and consequently the hindermost. " ' My wherry lie a mile or two higher up,' says he ; ' we can do it all right. I'll be there.' " I didn't say nothin' to Ted, but a little later on 38 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS I gets the sail up, and, though it was dark, made ready to go. Then I wakes him up, much to his dislike. " ' What 'cher mean ? ' he axes. < Why can't 'cher lay till mornin' ? ' " ' Help me round the next reach or two, till I get fair way on, and you may turn in,' I says. " I know'd every inch of the river by daylight or dark. Just as I got abreast of the Cockatrice Inn, and was close to the shore, some one jumps aboard out of the dark, and I know'd it wor that fellow. Ted had gone below, and lay grizzlin* about the flappin* of the sail keepin' him awake. Now, I'd hoped to give the blaggard the slip. I didn't want to get mixed up in no dark deeds. " ' When are you goin' to stop ? ' he axes. 11 ' Not at all,' says I. " ' O ain't you ? ' he says, blurtin' out an oath. " * Dare you touch the sail,' I says. ' If you do I'll hull you overboard,' I says, ' and go overboard with you, if I hev to,' for I could swim then like a duck ; and I puts the helm over, and just touches the bank. "'You're a - fool!' he snorts, as he jumps ashore. And I wor glad enough to get shot of him. You never know who's eyes are about, even in the dark. " I got to Norwich by the mornin', in front of some of the wherries what had started afore me. I'd got clear when one of the others comes up. "A chap on one of the other wherries says to me, 'It's a rummen about "Scratch" B ,' he says, f and that chap K .' IN WINTRY DAYS 39 " ' What's that ? ' I axes, kinder tumblin' to suffin'. "'Why/ says he, 'K lighted on the Royal Oak (wherry) with a smelt-boat, and was takin' in coals, when a country policeman catches 'em both. He could hear the rattlin' of the coals into the boat.' " I said nothin', but I thinks the more. Suppose it had been me instead of ' Scratch ' B ? " " What did he get ? " I asked. " K got six months, ' Scratch ' got nine ! " Noah Nicholls, according to his own account, had no taste for river-poachers, although he, like others, probably, had come into close contact with them. I suggested this to him. " Well, you see," said he, " I never cared for theer company because they're generally so fly ; you may get copt, if you're a wherryman, and they get free. They'll lie through thick and thin that the fish in your hold was not their takin' ; and unless they were actually seen, how's the police goin' to prove it ? "When I worked L 's tar-wherry up and down from Norwich, he got kinder [rather] cross with me becos' I wouldn't give W 1 (a noted poacher) a tow down, now and again. My tar-wherry you know, wor a steamer ; and W used ter take my master a nice perch or tench now and again, or a basket of smelts. So he fared kinder friendly with him. I gave W the slip whenever I'd a chance, and he used ter tell L , who stopped 1 For reasons best known to myself I have suppressed the real name of this river poacher. 40 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS me earning a extry bob or two by pluckin' a yacht now and agin downstream, all through it. " I worn't afraid of W though most of the wherry chaps was. I once lost a nice new quant, and suspicioned W as havin' snook it. I went round to his back yard and found it there. So I took it. He arterwards wanted to fight me agin the White Swan. I took him on and gave him the poulticin' he wanted and more. " Well, he once done me. I'd got a cargo of chalk (this was in another wherry). While I wor ashore for an hour at night, he got aboard, slipped the middle hatches off, and dropped pretty nigh half a ton of bream and roach into the middle of the chalk where it was hollow, you know, amidships. He axed for a tow down next mornin' lower down- stream ; and seein' no fish in his boat, nor nets, I let him hang on. When we got down to the Bowlin' Green he ups and tells me what he'd done, and axes me to put in at the Green. Well, I was glad enough to do so to be shot of 'em, and as there was peds and boxes alriddy waitin' there, we soon got rid of 'em. " He once rowed up to me at Cantley with two other chaps, and I tried hard to get shot of them. Somebody told the bailiff at Buckenham W was on the job ; and he got on the scent. " The wind was easterly, and I sailed on to Coldham Hall. W followed me up, and told me he wanted to get on to Surlingham. He'd been fule enough to show hisself at a pub, and that's how the police got to hear of him. Well, I gave him IN WINTRY DAYS 41 the slip again at Surlingharn and got on to Norwich. I'd hardly got my moorin's fast afore a policeman and the bailiff comes aboard, and told me they intended searchin' for fish or nets. They ordered me to show them the hold, which I did ; they looked down the fore peak. " ' Oh,' I says, pretendin' to be very innocent, ' there's some nets,' showin' them some ice-dydles. "'Rubbidge,' says the policeman, 'you can't poach with them.' " ' Then I've got nothin' else to poach with,' I says. " ' Oh ! ' says they. " c Now,' says I, ' if you'd know'd your business, you'd have searched W 's craft and not mine !'"... Noah navigated a condemned fishing boat which had been converted into a tar-boat, the whole hold being used as a receptacle for tar-water, which was brought down from Norwich to some chemical works on the Bure. For some years he had a black man, named Sambo, to assist him. The tarry colour that clung to everything did not affect Sambo so much as it did Noah, who, when the summer's sun bore down with great heat upon him, suffered considerably. Nicholls used to grope up some mud from the ooze, and plaster his face with it to neutralise the burning effects of sun and tar : this answered until the heat cracked the mud. All the victuals as well as their clothes reeked of tar ; the bread turned yellow : every- thing they ate was seasoned by it. But it was a fairly well-paid job. One day Sambo lay down 42 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS on the hatches to sleep, and on waking found he was unable to rise, for his wool had become " glued " to the wood by the melted tar. Noah was in dire straits, for he had no means of freeing his mate from his unpleasant predicament. It was at length agreed that he (Noah) should put the craft to the shore, and then run to the nearest farmhouse for a pair of scissors. This farm was a mile away ; and until Nicholls' return poor Sambo had to lie there patiently. It was the matter of a ^ few minutes to clip Sambo from his awkward imprison- ment . . . As I have hinted, the wherryman's life is not all pleasure. There are adverse winds, tedious spells of towing or quanting, sharp frosts, gales, and drenching rains. Time and tide wait not for him, and he has to take advantage of both, no matter what the weather may be like. Rheumatics and asthma are not rare amongst our watermen ; and they grow old early from hard work and exposure. Nor is the life without its dangers. A quant may break when pushing in deep waters, and unless the wherryman be a good swimmer, he may have no easy task in getting out again, especially if he be working alone. Frosty weather may make the plank-ways slippery, and death may result from a fall into the cold, sullen stream. " Death by drowning " is by means a rare verdict in the coroner's court; and alas ! only too often it has come out in the evidence that the poor fellow had been indulging too freely in what does not tend to the well-being of man in any walk of life. IN WINTRY DAYS 43 But there is not a finer waterman then the wherry- man. Long may he remain an "institution" with us, for his gallant craft is an ornament to our sluggish inland tidal waters. RUFFS LAPWINGS CHAPTER II ON GUNS AND GUNNERS "He rises early, and he late takes rest, And sails intrepid o'er the wat'ry waste ; Waits the return of shot-seal (flight-time) on the lake, And listens to the wild-fowl's distant quack ; At dusk steers homeward with a plenteous freight." Life of a Penman 1771. GUNNERS IN GENERAL /CERTAINLY no person can be more fanciful in v.^ his choice of a plaything than a gunner ; no one, unless he be sufficiently well-to-do to have a really good fowling-piece built to his especial liking, 44 ON GUNS AND GUNNERS 45 fit, and weight, ever appears really satisfied ; and the chopping and changing which are known amongst gunners of my acquaintance to-day, seem to me really ridiculous. And then the awful weapons I have known ! the very recollection of them makes my heart beat faster. 1 I cannot say that I inherited a love of slaughter, for my father could never pluck up heart to kill a chicken ; and those we kept usually died of old age, unless I undertook to be executioner unknown to him. My great-grandfather, a Highlander, carried his flint musket, under Wolfe, all through a long campaign, doing some killing, but getting not a solitary scratch in return. And my grandfather, in Napoleonic times, had been drafted into the militia. My father has related to me with gusto some of the adventures of his father, who loved not soldiering. At an inspection one day his flint lock refused to fire a blank charge, and before he could explode it command was given to load again. A second time it obstinately disobeyed the trigger, and yet a third time he added a full charge, on top of the two still in the barrel. On pulling the trigger at his triple loading, the flint ignited the powder. My grand- father was the only man who fell that day, but he was speedily helped upon his feet by sympathetic comrades, with a very sore shoulder and a bad headache. My first weapon was a cross-bow, made at my urgent request by my ailing brother, a few months 1 See Wild Life on a Norfolk Estuary, pp. 57-62 ; and Nature in Eastern Norfolk, p. 36. 46 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS before he died. In imagination I slew more game and wildfowl with its weak projectiles than I ever did afterwards with deadlier weapons. I have a distinct recollection of one day getting afloat in a Breydoner's punt which lay moored to the quay side. The Breydoner's small son accompanied me. The owner of the punt had foolishly pushed his loaded gun under the fore peak not an unusual thing in those days in readiness for use when he next visited the mudflats. As we drifted upstream we were surrounded by large gulls ; and by a stroke of bad luck I discovered the gun. It was a huge and ancient 8-bore, heavily charged ; and without a thought of the consequences I lifted it to my shoulder. It exploded the charge with scarcely a touch of the finger, the gun knocking me all but senseless on the floor of the punt, from which I arose bruised and sore enough, glad to find my limbs and collar-bone unbroken. We pushed the gun back to its hiding- place, and said nothing about it. But next day I got into hot water with the Breydoner, who had at- tempted to fire at two wigeon he had sculled on to after long manoeuvring to get within shot of them. My first gun, purchased after months of secret saving, was a noted weapon which had belonged to one Manthorpe, a great killer of woodcocks. I kept it until I could afford a breech-loader, but added to my stock other old and more dangerous weapons. A great bright-barrelled lo-bore, purchased for a few shillings, and the muzzle of which was worn so thin that I could trim my nails with it, I dared not venture to use, until, having trebly loaded it, and tied it to ON GUNS AND GUNNERS 47 a post, I marched to the rear some hundred and fifty yards, and exploded it by pulling a cord attached to the trigger. The report, magnified by surrounding walls, must have almost wakened the dead, for it was near the cemetery. It echoed and reverberated like the going-off of a howitzer. The only damage my great charge did to the gun was to wrench off the guard, which I replaced. " Talkin' about guns," said old Billy Sampson, on Christmas Day, 1907, when I visited him as he lay almost helpless in his comfortless bed. "Talkin' about guns, I've seen a many of 'em used as wasn't only good enough for the scrap-heap. I can remember flint-guns, plug-breeches, and patent- breeches and I'd done with guns soon after pin- fires come up. You remember old Jimmy Crowther ; he was an overlooker in the factory, and as a sort of hobby dabbled in guns. He reg'lar tinkered 'em up, and spoilt even bad 'uns. I had a big old Dutch piece, a plug-breech a reg'lar hard hitter. All the gunners of my time knew it as ' old Closh,' for many of the old guns had names they was known by. The plug once blew out, and I took it to Crowther to make a new 'un. He made one, but split the barrel a-screwin' of it in : the screw was too big. He cut a piece off, and tried ag'in ; and split it with another ! The third attempt was successful, but he'd reduced the barrel by that time from thirty-six to thirty inches. And he'd spiled it ; for you couldn't shoot yourself with it it wouldn't kill at all. " Ah ! the guns I've know'd ! Well, you see, guns was dear in them old days afore breech-loaders comes 48 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS up and knocks 'em out. And there was feelin's of pride as there is now: gentlemen almost hulled muzzle-loaders away as bein' out of date. It's just with poor men now as it was then, they'll get things as good as they can afford ; and guns that cost thirty or forty pounds to build got into their hands for a mere song. But till then they'd swear by old ' Brown Besses ' and Spanish muskets ; and rant about flints, and Joe Mantons, and rifled barrels, and pistol-stocks, and all that. Now, of course, they want conwerted rifles and cheap Brummagem breech-loaders, as ain't a bit better than the old cast-iron gas-pipes of my young time. Some of 'em had rare characters though, and got quite a reputation for their killin' powers. It may be they wasn't so good after all, and possibly fowl was tamer ; they certainly was plentifuller in them days, and you could get right in among 'em. Maybe fowl have grow'd artful. One chap now comes to mind who was a crack goose- shooter. He had a long old gun with a shank that weak and rickety he had to hold barrel and stock together with his left hand, while he pulled the trigger with his right. He used ter work the Langley meshes (marshes) where geese used ter come, walkin' an old dickey and cart for a stalkin' horse. " But there ain't anybody hardly nowadays around here as is anything more than hedge-poppin' amateurs ; nothin' only boys, what don't orter be trusted with guns any more than you could trust 'em with a next-door neighbour's cradle with twins in it. " Some of them gunsmiths, as they called their- selves, wasn't worth a tinker's cuss ; they spoiled ON GUNS AND GUNNERS 49 guns, and nothin' more. The only man worth callin' hisself a gunsmith was Hickling, on Fuller's Hill. He could make an old gun almost into a new 'un. Short'un Page's father (Page hisself is gettin' an old man now) had a flint-lock what shot three-quarters a pound of shot, what he (Hicklin 3 ) converted into a 'crack-patch.' She was a clinkin' little punt-gun. I remember one day old Thomas (Pintail's father) ' No. 2 ' we used ter call him got his gun so wet that it wouldn't go off; so he comes back and borrows Page's, tellin' him there was a bird or two on the Lumps the last place, you know, to get covered. It was, in fact, crowded with birds, and Thomas went back and shot three maunds-ful (bushel-size) of godwits, knots, grey plovers, and sitera, all in proper colours bein' May. She was a clinkin' little gun. Old Serjent Barnes ' patent-breech Barnes 1 they used to call him, was a proper gun-spoiler, and a tricky old villain into the bargain. He used ter doctor and do up plug-breech guns, filing a circle at the proper distance from the breech-end to imitate the juncture where the screw should be, then he'd sell 'em to muggs as patent-breeches, the old rascal ! "Accidents? Oh yes! I've know'd a many, such a rough lot of guns was sure to play hanky- panky now and again. < Locket' Nudd him as shot the first Pallas's sand-grouseonce loaded his cart with shingle on the beach, and then laid his gun on the top, for he generally took it on the beach with him. He'd got a brand new coat on. Just as he was going off, a fowl came by, and he snatched up the gun, which was down ori 50 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS the hammer, and jarred it. The consequence was it went off, blowin' a piece clean out of his collar, the charge goin' within an inch of his neck. As it was he'd a stiff neck from the powder-burns for a whole blessed week ! "Tom Smith was out rowing one day on the North river, with his gun under the thwarts, when a hare comes up of the bank and sits lookin' at him. He reached over for it, jarrin' the silly thing, when off it goes, blowin' out the bows of the boat. He'd a narrow squeak, too, of gettin' ashore. "You knew 'Deaf Hunt ?" he asked. I assured him that I did. "Well, old 'Deaf Hunt had a rattlin' good breech-loader, and whenever he was hard up he pawned it at M 's. He must have been hard up pretty often, for the gun was mostly at uncle's, who, for a number of times, pulled it out of its case, looked over it, and planked down the money asked for it. He got so used to it, in fact, that at length he'd take it, and hand over the money, without examining it. One day it occurred to him that the gun had been unusually long without bein' redeemed ; and the ticket had all but run out. So he takes it down, and looks at it. Greatly to his surprise he finds only a wore-out old muzzle-loader, what was worth only as many shillin's as the other was worth pounds ! " "Billy" himself was, in his younger days, no mean sportsman, his favourite beat being the allot- ments, or Bure-side marshes, whither he repaired night after night for ducks at flighting time. His ON GUNS AND GUNNERS 51 practice was to take a bundle of straw with him for a " carpet," upon which he knelt or stood all through the bitterest nights, often coming home in the morning wet through and weary, but happy beneath a bunch of mallard, teal, and occasionally pintails or other ducks. His dogs, skilled in all the arts of fowling and chicanery he trained dog after dog as the years went by were of rare assistance to him, 1 retrieving the birds dropped on the marsh (for flighters often killed by firing at fowl whose positions they judged by sound alone) ; now and again adding to their master's gains the victims of others' guns. The intelligent animals would hear the thump of a stricken fowl as it struck the earth, and quietly slip round and retrieve it. How much training, and how much inherent love of wrong-doing had to do with this perfection of impropriety, I cannot venture to say. This aged fellow has much interested me. There seemed something so superior in him, and so altogether different from the uncouth illiteracy of the class of men he had to mix with. He has had the respect of all, yet he has to an extent held himself aloof from them save in " business " hours. His nights, since he relinquished babbing and picking for eel- buying, have been spent in reading a lone man ashore and afloat. His father seems to have been a farmer in a big way, a gentleman-farmer in fact, who was reduced by an unfortunate law suit ; indeed he lost everything. The family removed to Yarmouth when 1 Vide Notes of an East Coast Naturalist, pp. 254-58. 52 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS Billy was five years of age, his father becoming a cattle herdsman. At that age " Billy " began to work, helping his father, and educating himself because he had no chance of going to school. He laughed and said he was a second David, who kept his father's flocks from straying off the common. He had his first gun when he was twelve ; he had learned to shoot with his father's before he could comfortably hold it straight. One day a man, who was much interested in the youthful " sport," saw a woodcock alight near a " low " (marshy swamp). " Billy," said he, " go take your nets (bird-nets) home, and bring your father's gun. I'll show you where it is." Off went the boy to his home, presently returning with the gun. The bird was flushed, but the boy missed it. Again he put it up, this time killing it. " Good on you, boy ! " said his admirer, " I'll take that cock ; and I'll make you a pair of shoes in exchange for it." He thereupon measured Billy, and was as good as his word. " They were," said Billy to me, " the first pair of shoes I ever earned, leastwise, with a gun ! " Where all the decayed guns come from, when a rush of snipe enlivens our marshes, or an unusual number of ducks are driven hither by heavy snowfalls and continuous frosts, it is difficult to surmise. I saw some remarkable weapons brought into use only as recently as September, 1908. The following " notes " which I sent to the Zoologist will bear me out in this respect : ON GUNS AND GUNNERS 53 Incursion of Godwits. Not for at least eighteen years have so many bar-tailed Godwits (Limosa lapponica) put in an appearance on our Breydon mudflats as were observed during the earlier days of September. It was generally on the spring migration that this species was commonly looked for in the earlier half of the last century, when the " 1 2th of May Godwit day," was hailed by local gunners with considerable excitement. I have recorded (Nature in Eastern Norfolk, p. 237), where Gibbs, an aged punt-gunner, still living, saw in the early seventies, during an easterly gale, "hundreds of thousands" constantly coming from the south-west (inland direction). I have known many a May pass without any number, and sometimes without an individual being seen. The past May was remarkable for their scarcity. The prevalent winds were, I believe, southerly or thereabouts, and of no abnormal velocity, and what accounted for the incursion I am at a loss to suggest. I saw a large flock on September /th, amounting to three hundred birds, feeding leisurely on a mud- flat, in spite of the incessant firing in various other directions, where smaller flocks were on the move knots, redshanks, and whimbrel to which at dusk an immense flight of terns were to be added, making Breydon exceptionally lively. Every lout who knew one end of a gun from the other ob- tained his quota of chicken-tame birds, which were mostly young and exceptionally fat. On the morning of the ?th, I accosted a shoeblack, who owns one of those "murderous" weaponsa converted 54 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS rifle whose face was bandaged with hospital wrap- pings- " What have you done ? " I asked. " Oh ! " said he, " the cartridge bust, and went off at the wrong ind of the gun; but Fd got eight god- icicks afore I done it" There was no sale for the victims, the taste for shore-birds having become practically extinct in Yarmouth, where not even a game stall other than for bond fide game birds now remains since the death of Durrant, of some reputation as a wildfowler himself. Gunners mostly cooked their own birds. In a certain small public-house, the Horse and Groom, much frequented by gunners, there met one night thirteen or fourteen of the fraternity to chat over past exploits. A bagatelle match was decided upon, and they retired to the warm little parlour at the back ; some to play, others to criticise and to make merry. Presently in came a poacher-like ne'er-do-well, one Jessop, surnamed " Chair-bottom," from his more civilised calling as a mender of cane- seated chairs. We also knew him as " Jibro." He had been out on the marshes with his gun, but with no success, and had dropped in for a drink and a warm-up, carrying his short-barrelled muzzle-load- ing gun in halves in the recesses of his pockets, a practice beloved of those who gun piratically. Suddenly the barrel slipped through the worn lining of his coat, striking the floor, and a terrific explosion occurred, the cap having been struck in the fall. One end of the barrel hit the fender and ON GUNS AND GUNNERS 55 rebounded to the other side of the place, to the consternation of the crowd in the room. When they began to collect their senses, to count heads and compare notes, they were immensely relieved to find that the charge of shot had gone clear of all the fourteen pairs of legs under the table and around it, and buried itself in the wall opposite to the fire- place. " Dighton " Smith possessed a favourite fowling- piece that boasted no trigger ; the hammer was always more than willing to smite the nipple of the gun, and always returned to it immediately it was released. So " Dighton " fastened a piece of cord to the top of the hammer, with a loop in one end, into which he hitched his thumb. When a bird had been sighted the thumb was withdrawn from the loop with a jerk, and the gun went off. " Brusher " Broom had a big shoulder gun, for which he contrived a knee and swivel in his punt. He had taken great pains to design this combination. One day he laid at a brent goose in one of the drains, and fired. " Good night ! " he told me, " the gun went off, and I was pretty nigh blinded ; and what do you think with ? " "No?" " Well, with powder from the stock of the gun, which being so worm-eaten, had blown all to smither- eens ! only the barrel being left." " Get your goose ? " " Oh, yes ! as soon as I'd cleared my eyes of the dust, I see the goose lying dead on the water." 56 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS Broom, when working in a village a mile or so up the Bure, borrowed his employer's gun. "I see the old gun," said he, " on one of the rafters, and asked the loan of it." " Oh yes," said the owner, " but there's no hammer on it." "We'll manage," said Broom, who, with a com- panion, went to a likely spot for a brace of partridges. Lying behind a hedge, they agreed to work together. "We took a small hammer with us," narrated Broom, " and I says to my chum, ' When I say strike strike!' I was to aim, while he was to hold the hammer in readiness. We managed in that way to kill four, by his hammering on the cap I'd stuck on the nipple." The owner of the gun was puzzled as to how they managed, but as Broom said, " we'd got the partridges to show we did manage." There lived in the town one Phillips, a pawnbroker. The old gentleman, when first I knew him, was past the prime of life. He had been fond of a gun, and a small window utilized for a display of weapons of all sorts and conditions, was filled with them just before the end of the close season. Some really good guns were seen there side by side with some really bad ones. If a man found a fowling-piece in an un- healthy condition, he would touch it up to the best advantage, take it to Phillips, tell him some plausible tale, and allow him to examine it a proceeding which gave him unbounded pleasure, for he prided himself on his armourer's instincts. Tom Burton, a gunner, purchased a double-barrelled gun off him ON GUNS AND GUNNERS 57 one night, and went up Breydon walls next day and shot at a curlew. The barrels and stock blew into fragments, cutting the old man's face in a shocking manner. Very few accidents with large punt-guns have been recorded. I know of one instance, however, of a wildfowler discharging a punt-gun, when the recoil so jarred a shoulder-gun lying under the forepeak, that it flew backwards, struck the stock on a rib of the boat, and discharged its contents at the same time. Fortu- nately, the whole of the charge entered the rolled up sail, doing no damage whatever to the boat. In another case, a gun went off from a similar cause, the charge of shot on this occasion going through the side of the boat, an entirely new streak having to be put in. A certain shooter possessed a double gun of very uncertain temper; the sere and one or two other internal parts of the lock had become worn and very capricious in action. The gun was an extraordinary killer, but after going for several days in a straight- forward and becoming manner, it would suddenly refuse to do its duty, and on several occasions, even after its refusal had been accepted, it would, entirely on its own initiative, explode the charge in most unex- pected positions. The barrel and worn stock did not work in perfect harmony, and a long strip of cloth had to be placed between them to save jarring. On one occasion Q , the owner, fired at a large bunch of snow buntings, when off went both barrels together, knocking him upon his back in a dazed condition, with a great gash in his cheek. After that he sold the gun. "Jibro" Jessop was its next owner, and 58 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS for three or four days got on nicely enough with it. He praised its killing qualities in fact, "he'd never before had such a killer ! " " All right ! Go you on and you'll find out yet ! " said its late owner to himself. Next time he met Jessop he saw him with his arm in a sling ! So " Jibro " got rid of it, and it passed into the hands of a gunsmith, who provided it with some new fittings, and a zinc band round barrel and stock, which added to its safety if not to its appearance. Two instances, equally alarming, in connection with these ancient fowling-pieces, occurred in smithies. In both cases the blacksmith, before undertaking to unscrew the breech, had been assured that there was no charge in the gun. It was the custom, in order to avoid the risk of injuring such highly tempered metal, to make the breech-end hot, and then screw it into a vice and carefully turn the barrel. With a deafening roar both of these guns exploded charges of powder while still in the fire ; in one case the charge narrowly escaped going through an onlooker's body, the shots expending themselves on an adjacent public highway ; in the other a wall was struck, and a brick broken, to be pointed at in future as a solemn warning. Q had a curious knack of getting into close fellowship with bad guns and careless shooters. Once he went up Breydon with a " swell " gunner who was a remarkably clumsy person. He was continually "jiffling" l about in the boat, and persisted in sitting 1 Fidgetting. ON GUNS AND GUNNERS 59 with the gun between his knees, to the great alarm of the rower. Q at length became so apprehensive, that he rowed to the shore and peremptorily ordered the man out of the boat, telling him that " If he wor game for payin' him for a day's outin\ it didn't come into the contract to blow his innerds out ! " Another indifferent gunner, while in a market garden, took up a loaded gun, which had a very loose-fitting screw holding the trigger to the lock, the spring also being defective. Carelessly laying the gun on a radish-tying board, he essayed to screw the trigger tight by means of a flat-pointed clout nail. " Good Gord ! " said Q , " see where you're p'inting that barrel ! If that had gone off you'd have drilled a hole through me." He immediately sprang aside to a safe position, but not a moment too soon, for with a roar the gun went off, the shots going out at the door. Both men were greatly scared, and the offender would not handle a gun again for years. It was Colonel Hawker, I think, who went into raptures over the flint-lock weapon of his time, and made an elaborate appeal on its behalf when he found detonating guns coming into the field. The same thing applied to the percussion gun ; there were those who upheld its killing powers as being infinitely superior to the breech-loader's. Personally, I liked the old muzzle-loader better than the newer weapon, and a single gun at that : there seemed to me to be more sport in giving a bird the chance of a miss. When I rose to the dignity of ownership of a double-barrelled muzzle-loader, and then of a double-breech, I very seldom fired the second barrel 60 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS if I missed with the first, for I felt that the bird deserved to escape. Of course, it was a matter of mere sentiment, and I frankly admit that I enjoyed the excitement of loading a single-gun when there was a possibility of a fowl coming within range in the meantime. And although I exchanged the gun for a pair of binoculars years ago, I still have respect for the former, for did it not, in my younger days, lure me out to study bird-life when otherwise there might have been less enticement. I always went out eager to meet with a duck, and while engaged in the quest, I learned to watch the doings of many other birds. I soon learned to look upon killing even a duck as a regrettable if necessary incident. Like Richard Jefferies, " I liked the power to shoot, even though I did not use it." I confess to relishing the feel of the beautiful laminated barrels in my hand, and the consciousness of power a shapely, well-made weapon under my arm gave me ; it was not merely the killing that was alluring. But bird-watching without a gun may become in time as attractive, and it is a far less dangerous pursuit. But I should write an untruth if I did not own to possessing a liking for men with true sporting instincts, for many gunners are capable observers, often with a stock of interesting nature reminiscences. The old flint-guns must have been exceedingly trying, more particularly on stormy days, which are often the most suitable for wildfowling. There lived in the 'thirties a wildfowler who swore by his anti- quated flint-lock. On one snowy, boisterous day, he pushed his boat into deadly proximity to a vast ON GUNS AND GUNNERS 61 concourse of wild fowl golden eyes, pochards, wigeon, mallard, and what not, which had gathered in a wake in the ice, tame and hungry, and indifferent to their own safety, as they will become when long frozen out. He saw visions of at least a bushel of fowl as he pulled the trigger. But there came no explosion, the flint was bad or the powder damp. The birds drew together and wondered. He pulled again, but the gun did not fire ; a third time he levelled his piece, with the same result. The birds, however, had had enough of it, and with a great rattle of wings they left him to his own devices. Chagrined enough, he turned the boat round and began to row home. At that moment he espied two fowl making towards him ; and as if by instinct, he raised his gun and pulled the trigger. This time it went off with a roar, and when the smoke had cleared, he saw one bird floating dead in the water. There would seem to be no end to my reminis- cences of the local gunners of my youthful days. There was old Jex, father to " Saltfish " Jex, 1 who impressed me by his dirty, lazy, iron-constitutioned person, with his face all wrinkled, its lines being accentuated by the ingrained ooze that filled them. " Saltfish " pursued wildfowl while the nineteenth century was still in its teens. He possessed a flint punt-gun carrying a half-pound of shot ; it was so thin, worn, and frail from old age, that a rib had been brazed to the underside the whole length of 1 Refer to " local gunners," Wild Life on a Norfolk Estuary p. 48. 62 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS it, as a precaution against possible bending by an accidental blow. Jex always provided himself with a handful of dry cinders, which were carefully kept in a convenient and dry position in the punt. Should the pan or pan-cover get damp, he would chafe the metal with .a dry cinder, until all dampness had been removed by the friction. An acquaintance of mine, some years my senior, who was a noted habitut of Breydon, took his first lessons in wildfowling at the feet of this eccentric tutor. The gun was fixed to a knee that ran like an arch across the boat, which was like a Dutchman's scow, and more conducive to comfort than speed. The gun had no sights. " Pint her above the heads of the fowl," Jex would say to his pupil, " and lose sight of 'em ; she'll find 'em ! " My friend was by no means enamoured of this precocious weapon, which needed constant probing, to keep the powder inside the barrel in touch with the fresh supplies constantly dropped into the pan. He finally resigned his position as mate in this ven- ture, when, after a shot at a couple of shoveler ducks (which he missed), he observed smoke issuing through a flaw a " rust bite," near the end of the barrel. " Silky " Watson, 1 whose prowess as a wild fowler survives to this day he was an old man when I first knew him had no equal as a gunner, if only half be true that has been related of him. He had a i Vide Wild Life on a Norfolk Estuary, pp. 61 and 99. ON GUNS AND GUNNERS 63 favourite and aged " Brown Bess " on which he set great store, preferring it to an ordinary swivel-gun. It stood six feet in height, some inches taller than himself ; and he had perforce to stand tip-toe in the boat to load it. It was rammed with a steel rod, which announced its business by the bell-like clang- ing it made as it hit the barrel on either side. His contemporaries named it the " marsh rail." He was observed one July day by a rival gunner, who was watching him through a pair of binoculars, to leave the shelter of the wall and push off after five young "flappers" that were feeding on the "grass." He had shoved for some distance with a " set " pole when the boat got fast in the grass. With a spider-like movement out went one foot, and he pushed ahead ; but the water shallowed again, and out went his claw-like hands, on either side the punt, with which he once more sped her onwards, pulling at the zostera, and scooping at the mud. So squat had he laid, and so stealthy was his every movement, that he got within range and killed three out of the five fowl. " Sell her ! " the old fellow would say, " not me ! No, not for a 5 note ! " Such a killer she was, that he took no end of pains to preserve her. He had so anointed her with boiled linseed oil, that no rust could work from the outside through the numerous successive coatings. And far from despising her for her many frailties, he patiently unscrewed the lock with a small tool he always carried with him, after each time of firing, in order to replace the main- spring which tumbled out of place at each discharge 64 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS Watson's punt, like several at that time, was painted buff-colour in order to resemble, as much as possible, the Breydon mud-flats. She was narrow and exceedingly low-built, and she laid to the water like a frightened pintail-duck. To-day the favourite hue is lead-colour ; and instead of the cum- bersome " beam "-knee, fastened with chocks, an iron structure, of a neat and improved pattern, is fitted to the few shaplier punts. A long departed hero of the mud-flats was one " Granny " Reed, the progenitor of a race of wild- fowlers, represented at present by a great-grand son- who, by the way, turns out the handsomest and most seaworthy gun-punts ever built. " Granny " followed Breydon until long past " the allotted span," in a buff- coloured punt with a bell-mouthed punt-gun, that had been converted into a plug-breech from a flint pattern. In his old age he sallied forth only on fine days, when young flappers had not yet learnt to be cautious, and of course long ere close seasons had been instituted. He always carried a whalebone gamp, probably as ancient as himself. This he opened to favourable winds, and moved leisurely to and fro, and shot from under it. Crowther had one day taken up his position 1 near a rond, when "Granny" came sailing up, and staked his boat out in the open, to the disadvantage of the other. An exchange of courtesies began : " Come ashore, please, Mr. Reed, if you have no objection," said Crowther. The old man grunted. 1 Vide Wild Life on a Norfolk Estuary, p. 49- ON GUNS AND. GUNNERS 65 " If you do not," went on Crowther, " I shall be under the painful necessity of towing you in." Still no acquiescence. "As you persist in your obstinacy," said the now ruffled man, "I shall most decidedly undertake to teach you manners." Whereupon Crowther pushed out, tied the old man's punt to his own, and rowed him back to the rond, the patriarch wildly gesticu- lating, like a Red Indian, his vocabulary having failed him. "Were you a younger gentleman," Crowther assured Reed, " I should feel myself justified in taking the law into my own hands." He thereupon pushed the boat hard into the rond and staked it there, daring Reed to shift it. One other departed worthy was Squire Berney, whose name survives in the tiny hamlet and the public house at the far end of Breydon, known as Berney Arms, a wild, desolate place in the heart of marshland. Squire Berney sailed about Breydon in a strange flat-bottom craft, with a foremast and mizen, adding to her spread two jibsails. It was a sort of hybrid canoe-yacht. He had built for him an enormous swivel-gun, that belched forth two pounds of shot at a time. I cannot gather that he did much execution with this ponderous weapon, except that wood- pigeons found it " a holy terror." To use the gun on the land, he had a carriage built for it, so that it much resembled one of the long-range quick-firers one sees on board a man-of-war. He had a screen put up to resemble a hedge ; an aperture was made in it, and the gun planted behind it For days at 66 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS a time the ground in front would be baited for wood- pigeons ; and at favourable intervals, this "Long Tom" would send forth its message of destruction through their ranks. THE SNIPE-SHOOTERS Several of the old school of gunners of my acquaintance, who were men above the average hedge-popping order, pursued with ardour some pet kind of shooting, or exhibited a keenness for some particular species of bird. For instance, " Pintail " Thomas, 1 the punt-gunner, was ever on the alert to distinguish Kentish plovers, and eagerly scanned each scattered flock of small waders for these hand- some little fellows, which, he declared, "ran like mice on their little black feet." Police-sergeant Barnes, after his discovery of Richard's pipit on the North Denes, in i866, 2 haunted ^that locality for years in hopes of procuring another. He was never tired of telling of its points, behaviour, and the manner in which he slew it. He was equally bent on the slaughter of the shorelark, which used the shingle patches above high-water mark, occasionally in company with snow-buntings. Quinton 3 one day had killed three or four shorelarks, when Barnes, who had been breathlessly endeavouring to forestall him, came up with him, and demanded to know what he had shot. Quinton refused to tell him what he 1 See Nature in Eastern Norfolk, p. 41. 2 Ibid., p. 126. 3 See Nature in Eastern Norfolk, plate, and p. 77. ON GUNS AND GUNNERS 67 had in his pocket, and Barnes flew into an uncontroll- able passion. "Good heavens! " said Quinton, in narrating this incident to me, " I thought he'd gone off his dot (head); and when he shot hisself within a week after that, I congratulated myself on his not havin' shot me ! " Durrant, the game-dealer, during the latter years of his life, went to the seashore with a heavy fowling- piece, when strong easterly gales were blowing, anxious to secure his favourite prey, the brent goose. Then there was big Milligan, in his blue slop, who had spent years at sea, catching fish, and years ashore in selling the same useful commodity. He also ranged the foreshore on rough days, watching the passing flocks of gulls, desirous of finding among them stray skuas, or " molberrys " as he called them, which were, in the old days of ferrying fish ashore,' much more in evidence than they are now. One Bostock, a local tradesman, was devotedly attached to ringed plovers ; he pursued them at all seasons of the year, slaying without mercy every bird that came within range of his gun. He would boast of the numbers he had slain, and of the care with which he "hung " them until fit for the pot. " Never let a ring-dotterel go by ! " he would say to me. " / don't if I can help it." I knew three or four men whose ambition lay in the direction of woodcocks ; they put themselves to no end of labour, tramping over sand-dunes, upon the furzy common-land, and in and around the market gardens in search of them. They prided 68 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS themselves on the number of axilliary feathers one from each bird slaughtered bedecking the bands of their hats. I will not vouch for the truthfulness of their tallies, for vanity is not unknown among sportsmen. Others, again, desired snipe above all else. Captain Eurch was a mighty hunter of this species, and spent days patrolling the Burgh marshes, a large bed of reeds, half-way to Burgh Castle, being one of his favourite haunts. Barnes, also, went eagerly after the snipe, and tramped the New Road marshes for hours in search of them. He once secured some twenty-two brace of common snipe there, and was seen gloating over them at his shop, in a back street, where he displayed for sale a few second-hand pieces of furniture and sundry guns, the cleaning and oiling of which were a positive delight to him. We always looked on him as more than half insane ; and he proved to be wholly so one day, when, in a fit of despondency, he placed the muzzle of one of them to his mouth and blew out his own brains. John Leach, mariner, fisherman, gamekeeper (when he could settle down for a while to a country life), recluse, and prowling gunner by turns, when I first knew him, in the prime of life, was a square-built, shaggy-bearded fellow, whose brown corduroy jacket, big woollen Tarn o' Shanter, rolling gait, and in- variable habit of walking with his left hand in his coat pocket, made him easily distinguishable a long way off. He was a man of few words, even when in his cups, which were not many ; and when in a public house he heard everything and made few comments. ON GUNS AND GUNNERS 69 After a good day's snipe-shooting, he would tell you he had bagged only " a few old sparrows." He was the keenest snipe-man of my acquaintance ; and when others saw few birds, he often had some in his left pocket. His greatest pride was in dropping a snipe before it had fairly topped the reeds ; and he seldom missed. I had lost traces of him for three or four years, and had all but forgotten him, when it occurred to me to make inquiries about him, and with the assistance of one or two friends I succeeded in tracing him to the workhouse. On a cold afternoon in February (1908) I saw him in the Union boiler- house, where he acted as a sort of handy man, and very soon we were discussing old times over a blazing fire in the office. He was still a fine fellow, with flowing white beard ; his left hand instinctively disappeared in the pocket of his white "jumper," and when he "called me to mind " a tear came into the corner of his eye. " It's come to this ! " said he, with the musical voice I so well remembered. " You're not the only one of the old school who is finishing up here," I remarked, slipping a packet of tobacco into his hand. He poked the fire, and for a while said nothing. " Those were good old times," I went on, " when you and I used to meet on Breydon Walls near the reed-bed." " They were ! " he emphasised ; " and there were snipe in them days ! " " I remember my first snipe," he continued, " I ;o MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS was out with my father, when up jumped one within a few feet of us. I up gun and killed it. " ' All right, sonny/ said my father, ' you've about deafened me (the gun going off against his ear) ; if you'd a- missed it, I'd have given you the biggest hiding you ever had in your life.' " John lit his pipe, and pulled slowly at it, enjoying the unexpected treat, and " putting on his considering cap," as he expressed it. " Snipe ! ah ! there's nothin' to beat 'em, not to my way of thinkin'. The worst shot I ever made was one day when near that old reed-patch, where Burch and I used to shoot a lot. I put up two snipes from a puddle of water right agin my feet, and missed 'em both with a right and left, when up jumps a duck from the very same spot ; and my gun was empty. Its colours were so like the broken sedges and rough stuff around, that hadn't it moved, I should have the next step walked on it. " I once see a snipe it was snowin' heavily at the time agin a small puddle. My gun-cap had got wet by the snow melting round it. Six times I snapped that cap, but the bird kept a-feedin' it must have been pretty hungry and on the seventh time of pullin' the trigger, the charge exploded and ' Longbill ' fell. Get many ? Ah ! in those days snipes was as common as stints, but everywhere is so drained nowadays. It's only for a day or two at most, when a cold snap sets in, that you see any numbers. I never let a snipe get above the reeds, except I missed it, which wasn't often. " I've been pretty lucky, you know, Mr. Pattson ON GUNS AND GUNNERS 71 One year, old Sergeant Barnes and me got two dark- coloured snipe Sabine's we heard afterwards they was. He got five shillin's for his ; I made four of mine. 1 Where they went to after they got into Watson's hands, 2 goodness only knows, for I don't, or what he made of 'em. Anyway, I was satisfied. " I once," he went on, " put up a wisp of snipe, and noticing one much larger than the others, fired at and killed it : it was what they call a solitary snipe (great snipe, Gallinago major) \ you don't often see that snipe in company with others, nor yet in wet places, anyway around here. " Ah ! them were good old days ! I'm seventy- two now, and like the shootin', good for nothin' ; but I often sit in the biler-house and think of 'em over and over again. How I enjoyed 'em ! Oh, of course, I got a few other birds now and again ; my landlady used to make nice pies for me of starlings, peewits, knots, and such-like. I used to follow the herring voyage, and if I'd done well, eked out the rest of the year on my savings with what I picked up with the gun ; for you could shoot all the year round in my younger time. Now and again I'd ship as sailor in a ketch what took malt from Gorleston to London, and I never went without my gun. Now and then we shot ducks in fine weather, and lowered the boat and retrieved 'em ; and sometimes the mate and me slipped ashore on the Essex marshes, and toppled 1 Sabine's snipe is now generally admitted to be only a dark- coloured variety of Gallinago calestis. What became of the two birds Leach refers to I have not been able to trace. 2 See Nature in Eastern Norfolk, pp. 73~75- 72 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS over an old hare or two. We once got set on by two horsemen, and had a breakneck race over ditches and stiles, and only just shoved the boat off the beach as they reached the shore." Old John's yarn was not so consecutive as the printing of it may suggest. He seemed lost now and again, and between sentences pulled slowly at his pipe. As I have said, he was no great talker ; and this gossip by the workhouse fire was longer in duration than all the conversations that had ever passed between us before. And it is possible that years of workhouse life had prematurely aged him and made him dull. He was not very reminiscent. He expressed more surprise at the protective colora- tion of birds than at any other phase of bird-life. He referred to the " stillness " of birds helping to protect them and make them escape observation. Snipes, in colour, were very like the broken reeds they haunted. A mallard's bright eye once caught his attention as the bird lay perfectly motionless beside a grassy tussock, until he actually touched it with the muzzle-end of the gun he was endeavouring to plant upon its back in order to hold it down until he could seize it by the hand. The moment he touched it, up it flew. He also remembered seeing a hawk and a pigeon together on the bough of a tree, the former banging the woodpigeon with its wing, endeavouring to get it to fly. At last the pigeon suddenly darted forward, plunging into a thick hazel clump and so escaping its disappointed pursuer. Leach assured rne that he once shot a woodcock ON GUNS AND GUNNERS 73 as it stood probing at a soft spot in the snow in full daylight, a most unusual procedure for this night- feeding species. " My recollection ain't good," he said, " you see you get kinder dormant here; you fare to have gone out of your life ; things is mechanical, and you seem to live on because you must. But I just now called to mind a funny little bit what occurred off the Essex coast when I was sailin' in the old ketch. Me and the mate had got out the small boat, and was dodging a black duck a scoter, you call it and I was just about to pull at it when a gun went off on shore and killed it. We hadn't noticed the gunner, who jumped up and ordered his dog to fetch it. But the beast wouldn't, either by fair request or foul persuasion : so we put in after it. Law ! how the fellow took on ! He levelled his gun and threatened to let fly if we didn't bring it ashore. If he'd axed civilly we shouldn't have minded obliging him ; but as he didn't I levelled my gun at him, and showed him I was as prepared as he was to fight it out. Meantime, the mate pulled quickly out of range, and we got safe aboard duck an' all. The skipper's wife cooked it, with two other birds pokers (pochards) and we had 'em for dinner. Some folks say they don't like scoter, but sailor-men ain't so nice as all that." The greatest snipe winter in my recollection was that of 1899-1900. To my knowledge, Durrant had nearly six hundred brought to him in the course of a 74 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS few days. 1 A heavy fall of snow had thoroughly demoralised these birds, which flew about day and night in search of likely feeding places. Flocks of from ten to twenty birds were met with by a gunner going up Breydon walls ; he mistook them for dunlins. Coming home empty handed he fired at a bunch, and to his surprise picked up four snipes in very fair condition. This induced him to go back for a mile or two, when in the course of his wander- ings he secured twenty in all. Coming to Banham's farm, he saw that Banham and a friend had killed enough to fill a bushel " skep " (hamper). MARSHLAND HARES Since " poor puss " has lost caste and is no longer dignified by the title of "game," her lot has not been in any way ameliorated ; for wherever she may stray from strictly preserved lands the prowling gunner feels perfectly justified in attempting her life, and only too proudly does he spread broadcast the news of his " great good luck " should he be fortunate enough to stop her career with a charge of shot. It is not long since the hare was strictly preserved, and he was accounted a rascally poacher who dared, outside certain privileged circles, point gun at a vagrant animal. Preservers were not slow nor loth to give him all that the law would allow them to, and probably, at times, they ventured to give him even a trifle more. It was during the last few years of the hare's 1 See Notes of an East Coast Naturalist, pp. 144-49. ON GUNS AND GUNNERS 75 legal importance that some of my old " companions in arms," more daring than I, who was still but a youth, would go out night after night in the late autumn and early spring months, to return in the morning, having had more or less success in the wide-spreading " levels " of marshland bordering on the River Bure. Some of them, knowing the habits of the keepers, and working in couples, after the manner of grey- hounds, would either walk the " walls " or make use of their punts ; and I never knew them to be captured red-handed. Others were unfortunate. One rash fellow, known as " Trotter " Lodge, was constantly in trouble, due more to an excess of bravado and bad temper, than to any want of cunning. Old Blake and " Scarboro Jack," to whom I shall make further reference, were daring, but were never " nabbed," although occasionally they came very near to it. They revelled in the risk ; it spiced their sport ; and only in the presence of trusted and appreciative listeners, would they launch out into a narration of their exciting adventures. The zest with which, in terse quaint sentences, they told them, was an earnest of the enjoyment they had experienced. All the low-lying levels north and west of the Caister marshes extending to Mautby, Runham, Stokesby, and far beyond, dotted here and there by alder- and osier-carrs, and bordered by scrub and wooded uplands swarmed with hares right up to the 'eighties. I have seen " puss " leisurely trotting along the " walls " within a mile of the town ; and in winter snows I have traced her footprints on the sand-dunes near the sea. Even to this day she is 76 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS common enough on the marshes ; but gunners are strictly debarred from making use of either the river or the walls ; guns are only used by privileged persons who have " rights " of shooting. A casual observer might go miles without seeing one, for " puss " lies low when not pursued, trusting to her protective colouring for concealment and safety. Some men seem to possess a faculty for finding a hare. Old Blake would spot them as if by instinct, when an ex- perienced gunner out with him would see nothing. Ke protested that he could smell them ! In my younger days, coursing with greyhounds was an exceedingly fashionable sport with a certain section of the sporting element, and indulged in with peculiar zest ; indeed, it was the premier diversion of this foxless corner of the country. Kennels of greyhounds were kept in town and country ; and it was quite the fashion for young sports to be followed about by a leash of hounds. Of later years, however, coursing has gone out of favour, although an occasional meet takes place. In my youthful days, people rode out on horseback from town or the neighbouring villages, whilst carts of every kind were requisitioned : the home-coming reminding one of a miniature return from the Derby. The poor hares, maddened by pursuit and terror, scattered in all directions. I remember how one came across country to the seashore, plunged into the sea, swam some considerable distance, only to return and be knocked on the head by one of the crowd that had collected to see the " fun." Another came along the beach, turned into the town and ON GUNS AND GUNNERS 77 raced through the principal streets, a pack of mongrel hounds of every known and unknown description wolfing at its heels, with a surging throng in their wake bearing sticks and cudgels. It was at length cornered in a slaughter-house, and dispatched by a butcher. It was a common occurrence for hardly- pressed hares to make for the " walls," boldly plunge into the river, and swim to the opposite side, much to the chagrin of their whining pursuers. Not in- frequently a hunted hare would put to flight another that had been cowering in her form, when the already heated hounds would turn aside to pursue the fresher animal whose scent would be stronger. In the end they would be worsted and both hares would escape. In doubling on her tracks "puss" would do her hardest to reach the river, or maybe, a convenient willow-carr, where, once she was within it, pursuit by the dogs would be impossible. It goes without saying that owners of fowling- pieces were on the alert at safe distances in the hope of securing pot-shots. One of my acquaintances knocked over a hare when its capture was esteemed certain by its pursuers. Fortunately for him a wherry was tacking at a convenient reach : he hailed the wherryman in the nick of time, and the craft came a few feet closer before paying off on the next tack. H - jumped on board, and before the indignant coursers had reached the " walls," he had hidden him- self and his quarry in the wherry's cabin. Those who loafed in boats, hopeful of securing any hare that might.take to the water, went greatly in fear of any watcher, who, provided with field-glasses, 78 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS might be stationed in the top of the nearest drainage mill. One coursing day " Short'un " Page 1 was eel-pick- ing in the river when he espied a hare breaking from the hounds. " Well, bor," said he, " she plumped right into the river, and started swimmin* athort. I measured her up, and got ashore on the rond afore she did. She was makin', I could see, for a broken sort of gap in the rond, and I got there fust, and jist as she was climbin' up, as wet as a boat-mop, I planted my fut on her neck, keepin' her down. Of course, she worn't long a drown'din', you may be sure. Jist then two fellers cum up an' axed if I'd seen the hare. I told 'em ' Yes ! she's gone along under the wall,' and off they goes. All the time I was muddlin' about, pretendin' to wash the mud off my water-butes. Thinks I, ' I'm in luck's way for once.' " Not long arter, another old hare makes for the river ; and I wasn't long in pullin' up to her ; I stuns her with the oar, and nabs her quick enuf. Bein' afraid there might be people comin' up to see, I whipped out a bit o' trawl-twine, tied it round her neck, and drawed her under the boat, tyin' each end of the cord to a thole-pin ; then I rowed away with her ondernean the middle of it. Me and old 'Bugles' lived on hares for the rest of the week, and right nice they wor." I suppose we may designate hare-coursing a classical sport, for it was followed by the ancient Vide Wild Life on a Norfolk Estuary ', p. 96. ON GUNS AND GUNNERS 79 Greeks and Romans. It is said by those who become enamoured of it, to be a glorious recreation on a fine sharp frosty morning. It is a sport that can be entered into by horsemen and pedestrians alike : the turnings are to be seen in the open country, where " puss " has little chance of escape. But I should say the elements of sport are more manifest in a wild heathy country, studded with furze, fern, and brambles, for there she would have at least a chance or two in her doublings. Elaine * would have us believe that "there is even a philanthropic character about coursing almost unknown to other huntings. It may be said (he writes) to offer a kind of refuge for the sporting destitute, for it holds out innocent recreation to those whose means or whose prudence will not allow them to risk either their neck after a fox, or their wealth after a racer. The dog lover certainly can look with pleasure on a brace of handsome greyhounds ; speed is suggested in every limb and muscle; no antelope could be lighter of foot or more graceful ; no racer so beauti- fully built for running. With forelegs straight as arrows, with loins bent like a bow, with neck elastic as that of a swan, with ears long, soft, and silken, chests broad and deep, and eyes lustrous and bold, what is more graceful than a greyhound's swift race over the turf? " Remember'st them, my greyhounds true ? O'er holt or hill there never flew, From leash or slip there never sprang, More fleet of foot or sure of fang." 1 Rural Sports, p 552. So MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS A hare has been put up from her form ; the finder shouts " So ho /" Easily the animal steals away as if by no means greatly alarmed. The judge has an eye upon her : " Steady there, my beauties ! " how the dogs strain at the leash, quivering with excitement, and yearning to be off. " Steady ! " let the hare have her four score yards of grace. " Go ! " Away they go, nose to nose, shoulder to shoulder. Puss pricks up her ears, and awakes to the fact that mischief is brewing ; she shows uneasi- ness. See ! how the hounds are gaining upon her : now one has overshot himself, and she doubles. That was a near one ! Had the other dog been nearer he must have driven the hare into its mouth. Now the hare is making back to the covert from whence she started the hinder dog notices this and turns quickly, gaining a point on its rival, and now taking the lead in the chase. Again the hare turns, and the other dog, which is the stouter and stronger of the two, once more has the advantage. Over a ditch springs the hunted animal, the dogs going over neck and neck not far behind it. " Puss " doubles yet again^the dogs missing her by a yard, and again overshooting them- selves ; she still shows game, and bounding across the marsh, reaches a ligger, and scurries over at a bound. The dogs are just behind her and spring simultaneously ; one misses its footing and falls short, but scarce stopping, scrambles out of the water, dripping and chilled, and evidently discomfitted. The hare in her turnings has not pursued that circular course characteristic of the species. Ah ! the dog all but had her then. See ! she is trying her 82 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS hardest to reach the river " walls " ; if she only manages to reach the tops the greyhound will stand but little chance, for running along the grassy slopes is by no means so easy a matter to the dog as for " puss " to bound along the top. Too late, however, has she rounded that way : for when within a stone's throw of the ditch that borders the walls, the grey- hound has her by the neck. . . . There she lies, poor thing ! how the red stream trickles from her furry nostrils, staining the turf where the blown hound has dropped her. A marsh hare, I should imagine, would be a far more vigorous and fleet animal than one found in the cultivated uplands. " Scarboro Jack " would have me believe so, and that hares, foreseeing a change of weather, change their forms accordingly for purposes of shelter. They are not very fond of a stiff breeze. Poor old " Scarboro ! " Bent like an aged man ten years his senior, " Jack," at seventy years of age, still fairly robust, acts as night watchman for the water- works company when they are road-breaking. At other times he lives "from hand to mouth," content if he can only pay for his room and satisfy his appetite. When I was a lad he carted for a dealer in flour, and the heavy burdens bent his broad back. Cheery and full of dry humour, he treats life as more or less of a joke, and the twinkle of a merry eye bespeaks the spirit behind it. " Hares I " said the old man, stirring his coke fire. " Hares ! " he chuckled, " ah, bor, many and many an old ' Sally ' have come to my share. There was ON GUNS AND GUNNERS 83 nothing I liked better than getting on an old bally s track; and mind ye, when I did get on it t was a bad night's work for her. I studied 'em, yer know, and meant having of 'em when I gave up a night s rest to study 'em. Oh yes, I could do my bit wer in the day, and add a little fun and an extra sh,llm to it when the likes of you wor asleep The meshes (marshes) was my night-school; and I attended pretty reg'lar-at times, of course." He chuckled again. "Life's pretty hum-drum at this sort of game- seeing to lamps, and tryin' to keep awake all the long cold night Not as I need to be cold," he added throwing some fresh fuel on to the watch-fire ; "but en I ha had my day, and think myself lucky in gettin a night job. You get plenty of time for thmkin ; and I often sit here , O r wherever I may be, hmk o them nights among the old hares." " What of the pheasants ? " '' *?**#* f tm said the quaint fellow, smiling. An : bor, I know something about them-too much in fact. But that was when I was livin' at Norwich t once hved pretty nigh a week burrowed inside a traw stack what stood near our house. The missus anded me my grub through a back window, and I head the police sniffin' about inside the house chmg for me, with a warrant for-well, poachin',' if you will have it so." "Come, now," I said, " tell me the story complete " had long known that "Scarboro" had at one time, made Norwich too hot to hold him "Well," he went on, "as long as I've paid for it 84 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS I suppose confession 'ont make things any the wuss. I was livin' in St. Faith's, in Norwich, at the time. I used to slip out for a country ramble I allers was fond of the country, and, of course, I was pretty well known, and watched, too, for a matter of that. I made it a bit too hot this pertickler time, and the police got on my track : I smelt a rat and hooked it. I tramped to Yarmouth and got a job, they were biggenin the Drive ; but I got the ' down ' and didn't stop for my last week's wages. I tramped to Wells, and after a time to Scarborough, sometimes fishin' out of there, and brickmakin' at others ; I dug clay for the bricks of the biggest hotel there. But I hankered after Norwich, and, lettin' my beard grow, I turned up agin at St. Faith's, and even treated the policeman to a drink what was on the look out for me. He wasn't sure I was myself, but I suspected him. I shaved myself and soon after met him agin in the very same pub, and then he didn't know me, for he even got discussin' about ' Scarboro Jack ' his- self; and I done him once more. It was then that I hit on the straw stack for a lodgin* ; there was only a tall hedge between it and my back window. I used to slip out at night, tellin' the old woman I was hankerin' for an old hare, or a ' long-tail/ and not to expect me back afore early in the mornin'. Then I got a job of navvyin' on the line ; and if I seed a gentleman with a top-hat on, and suspicioned him, I used to be took suddenly ill, and leave my pick, and go and hide in a sort of cave I'd dug in a bank. But it got tiresome, and when I'd got a pound or two in my pocket, I went back to the old ' Crown/ and ON GUNS AND GUNNERS 85 handed myself up to the first policeman I see. I got fined 2 and costs, or a month, and paid it ; it was easy worth it, to get that fear of the slops off my mind. "But I allers liked the river-meshes best; for with a little care you might bag an old ' sally ' or two, and the sport was worth the risk more or less I used to hide my hares in one side of a stack, and my gun in the other, if I suspicione^ any thing, puttin' 'em high out of the reach of vermin. I'd call for 'em when the coast was clear. "One night I hid three in a stack near Acle, and gettm' up early next mornin' I killed three more 'Now then/ thinks I, 'I've got to get 'em home '' So I washes out my eel-trunk, locks it up with them safe inside, winds the chain round it, and plants it on the stern of the punt you know that's a bit on the round. 'Now,' thinks I, 'if any fule comes athort me as is too inquisitive, a joggle of the boat shoots that trunk of hares into the river, and they'll know nothin' unless I see fit to tell 'em. When I got to Stokesby I did a little bit of babbin' I'd got an old bab (bunch of threaded worms) in the boat but I caught only a few little eels. So I cums home. Not a soul interferes with me downstream, but, by gums ! when I reaches the Suspension Quay who should be there but Police Constable Gill." "The Runham Vauxhall policeman, who was down on such as you ! " I remarked. " The very man ! " said Scarboro," poking at the fire, as if to brighten his memory in the brighter glow "the very man." 86 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS "'Hallo! old man,' said P.-c. Gill, 'how many eels have you got ? ' "' About three or four stone/ says I. " ' Where did you get 'em ? ' he axes. " ' South Walsham Broad,' I says. And all the time I was moppin' the boat, and slushin' the eel- trunk to freshen it. " ' You ain't got 'em all out/ he says. " ' No/ says ^ ' they'll do for the cat or you, if you like/ I adds. " I hitches up the trunk and plants it on the quay, layin* the gun alongside it, grumblin' about fowl bein' scarce, and done it natural enough ; but said as how I was glad as eels wasn't pertickler so. "'You might just give us a lift up on to my back ! ' I says. And he, innocent-like, helps me to shoulder my hares. I hurries off to my shanty in Laughing Image Corner, not a stone's hull (throw) from the river, and goin' through to the back, I hangs the six old 'sallys' up on the loves (rafters) of my little bit of a fish-house. My missus and me, between us, made two and sixpence a-piece of the lot ; we generally know'd where to plant 'em. " ' If I'd known there was hares in that eel-trunk/ swore Gill, when he heard afterwards as there was, 1 I'd have about killed you afore you got clear off like that.' " "Did Watson, the game-dealer, take hares off you ? " I queried. "No!" said Jack, "he was too well in with the game preservers; and it didn't do him no harm to ON GUNS AND GUNNERS 87 split on small sportsmen like myself. 1 I once took him a fresh-killed hare. " ' Where did you get it ? ' he axes, eyeing me suspicious-like. "'Picked it up right warm, near the Denes (I says), and brought it straight to you.' " Watson simply remarked he would be out jist for a minute or so would I wait ? "It was my turn to suspicion him he'd likely enough gone out to fetch a policeman. So I whips up ' Sally ' and bolted, and crossin' Fuller's Hill was soon home. " ' Look 'ere, missus,' I says, puttin' the hare into some clean hay in a frail basket, 'spin Watson a yarn about your bein' the daughter of a gamekeeper, and didn't want two one's enough for yar small family, and the money'd be more use.' "'Where did you get that?' thundered Watson. " ' It wor sent me by my father, a gamekeeper at Horsey,' says she, lying as neat as truth, and forcibler. " Watson axed no more questions, but slung the hare on a peg, hulled down harf a dollar, and out she comes." " Scarboro " lit his short bit of pipe, and began to pull at it vigorously. He mechanically stuck the piece of iron he used as a poker into the glowing fire. It was a clear, frosty night, and the full moon looked down on whitening house-roofs. " It's a bit chilly," he remarked, planting his 1 For similar behaviour over a snipe transaction, see Notes of an East Coast Naturalist, pp. 147-48. 88 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS tea-can on the burning coke. Then he pulled hard again at his beloved pipe. " I once went to do a bit of mesh-mowin' at Stracy Arms, and noticin' one marsh overgrown with thistles, thought it a likely place for a hare to hide in. It grew more thistles than it ever could corn. I advised the farmer to plant it with osiers, and told him he'd never want for an old hare to make use of. He done as I told him, and the hares, finding it out, came there ; they'd swim the river on their own accord to enjoy its snuggery. He didn't get all the hares wJiat was killed there ! "Dogs? Ah, bor, my old Snap was a famous dog in his day, and he know'd as much about hares as I did. Mongrel ? Well, he wor that, but his breedin' was as carefully selected as if he had the best of pedigrees. He'd got a cross or two in him ; and his sort allers took me three years to get properly focussed. ' Long Jimmy ' George had a well-bred Smithfield sheep-dog a bitch. ' Dilly ' Smith had a male lurcher half a retriever, half a greyhound. I got a bitch pup from this pair, and crossed her with a thorough-bred greyhound belonging to Sufflin'. I know'd the keeper, and for a shillin' and a pint he allowed me the use of him. That's old Snap's pedigree, and for wind, speed, nose, and stayin'-power he'd beat all the greyhounds in the country. I used to take my net now and agin to the meshes with Snap at my heels as close and silent as my shadow ; in fact, he lived in it. When I'd stretched my net athort a likely gate, I'd only got to pint my finger, and over the gate he'd go, and ON GUNS AND GUNNERS 89 round up a hare like winkin'. He'd find 'em if there was any to be found, but he never pretended to put a tooth into 'em, though it must have been a temptation to him at times. They might try to double or dodge, but he know'd his work, and to the gate old 'sally' had to come. I've know'd him to round up a hare so that it was in the net, its neck broke, and in my pocket in seventeen seconds ! " If things looked suspicious, I'd but to whisper ' home ! ' and Snap would slip away through the mist like a spirit, though I never see one ; and even if he had to cross the river to do it, he'd give folks a wide berth, and would be glad enough to welcome me home, waggin' his tail in a quiet sort of way, as much as if to say, 'we'll get copt one of these times ; but then it's fine fun, ain't it ? ' " I caught old " Scarboro Jack " a night or two after, still by his watch fire. He was warming his can of coffee, having just hung out his lamps, which were scarcely needed owing to the bright moonlight. " You kinder catched me on the hop the 'tother night," he remarked, " or I might ha' told you a lot more of my short-comin's, and long-comin's, too, for a matter o' that. I never told you, did I, how I once saw a funny bit of conversation between a hornpie (lapwing) and a old ' sally ' ? Oh yes, they can tell one another what's o'clock as well as you can tell me. I was up the North River one spring mornin' in the seventies, afore there was sich things as close seasons, and I see an old hare sittin' crouched on a rond. I pulled ashore to get a shot at her, but go MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS that there old hornpie (perhaps she'd got some eggs close by, but never mind that), she must act as a kind of watcher for the hare, and keeps on goin' around her and me too, squakin' for all she was worth. She reglar brushed agin the hare, and roused her up, and so put the scare into ' pussy,' that she gathered herself togither and off she bolted, runnin' over the bank, and disappeared. " ' All right,' says I, ' as long as you've gone and spiled my shot, I'll do what I worn't intending to do I'll have you ! ' And I shot Mrs. Hornpie there and then." " And you didn't feel conscience-smitten ? " I queried. " I don't know exactly what that is, but I didn't feel pertickler pleased. No, Mr. Pattson, I ain't bilt that way. I allers like to get my own back, come what may. . . ." " Cadger " Brown was one of the most successful hare poachers I ever knew, and he was equally fortunate in evading pursuit and capture, although he bore a very bad name for being an audacious pilferer of tame ducks, geese, and even rabbits. It was a curious error he made that turned the anger of a marsh-farmer friend of mine, who came down early one morning to find a rabbit missing from its hutch, and the door buttoned behind it. He knew the rabbit neither turned nor refastened its button. He knew equally well that "Cadger" was the delinquent ; but the stupidity or absence of mind that was exhibited so tickled him that he forgave him. ON GUNS AND GUNNERS 91 Old Blake was a magnificently-built man when in his prime, and at times followed the sea as a smack's master. The moment he could get clear of his vessel he would bolt home, slip on a long white jumper, shoulder his gun, and set out for a neigh- bouring warren. By dusk he would be ensconced in a snug hiding-place, where he would stay for hours. There was a deep sandhole, now part of the golf-links, much resorted to by hares at certain seasons. " I allers let two old hares, even if I had to wait hours for 'em to do it, cross like so (passing one hand before the other), and then topple 'em over together. My old eight-bore never played me false." Blake was a good hand at spinning a yarn ; but, unfortunately, I was seldom in his company. He would relate with zest how, on one occasion, when he was at sea, a glaucous gull persistently kept company with the vessel, tempting him to load his gun to shoot it. " I'd loaded," said he, " and felt around for a patch (cap), but no patch was to be found. Not a solitary one hid in my waistcoat pockets ; in fact, though I'd got plenty of powder and shot, I'd forgot to bring any patches. So I ups and tells the mate to go and heat the poker. He brought it up red-hot. " ' Now, when I get a sight,' says I, ' and say " now" touch the nipple.' But the fule was that nervous he couldn't focus the poker, till it was pretty nigh cold. I orders him to heat it again, and the second time he cums up with it. " I gets a sight on the bird and shouts, ' Now ! ' 92 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS and as luck would have it, he touched the spot, and I kills my bird ! " In the latter part of his life he took part in the autumnal herring fishing, and spent the re- mainder of the year out with his gun, living on his " share " of the boat's " dole," and on what his gun brought in. He was known to mark down a hare in her form, and deliberately seize her, ere she had made up her mind to bolt. He was never caught red-handed, and few keepers would have dared to handle so lusty an old fellow. He died full of years : he was braiding a poaching net at his death, which hung half-finished at his bedside. Dulcior est fructtis post multa pericula ductus. THE GULL-SLAYER Thumping and stitching, making or mending boots, new and old, in a tiny workshop in one of the back streets, sits all day long, and often far into the night, a shoemaker named Whiley, who is one of the most original and interesting characters with whom I am acquainted. A keen observer of nature and man, there drop in at his cabin men of various orders politicians, bird-fanciers, gunners, and others to all of whom he is a sort of oracle, and in terse, broad Norfolk, he airs his opinions on many things, while he has a goodly store of reminiscences with which to illustrate his arguments. Whiley has just passed the meridian of life ; and from long years of close sitting, he now needs a larger waistcoat than many more active men would care to ON GUNS AND GUNNERS 93 wear. He is, however, an early riser, and with the big, old, hard-hitting, double muzzle-loader (that usually stands loaded up one corner) on his arm, patrols the south beach foreshore from before daylight until breakfast-time. He is known as " a holy terror " to the gulls, which, in considerable flocks, haunt that part of the beach during the fishing season, where they feast on the dead herrings thrown about in the breakers, or cast up at the tide mark. Gulls of every species and of all ages are his particular prey. His usual procedure is to collect some baskets and " swills " (herring-baskets), and pile them into a sort of fortress, over which sea-tangle and weeds are thrown, lay in hiding behind them, and fire at the gulls as they pass to and fro. He carries in his bag a ball of twine to which is attached a long piece of cork, trimmed cigar- shape. Having picked up a herring, he opens it by running a knife along the back, and having emptied the abdomen, inserts the cork, and roughly fastens the divided back together again. Attaching a second piece of string to this so-called "hake," with a small piece of lead to moor it, he throws the bait as far into the sea as possible, his desire being that passing gulls shall stop to pick it up, and in so doing give him a good chance to slay them. " Don't you think it a rather unfair advantage to take of the wretched birds ? " I asked. "All's fair in love and war and gull-shootin 1 ," he replied. " What's the differs in a pheasant-shoot, where the birds are driven right on to you ? " It was no use arguing that pheasants were bred to kill, and gulls were wild creatures, and 94 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS "And what?" he snapped. "I want the gulls, and mean havin' 'em ! " The numbers of gulls, mostly the immature of the herring and greater black-backed species, with common and black-heads, that I have seen hanging on the rows of nails in his workshop have astonished me. On October I3th, 1906, I counted ten ; on the 5th of November no less than twenty-four ; and he has been seen coming home from one of his expedi- tions with as many gulls strung in two bunches across his shoulder as he could well carry. After the day's snobbing, he takes his scissors and industriously clips off all their feathers close to the skin, and shreds off the webs from the larger feathers : these are packed in paper bags for drying, and when sufficient are prepared, the neighbours around purchase them for making into pillows, and even beds. Whiley's annual toll of the gulls he reckons at " a gross all told." In the winter of 1907, he secured 143 victims. " There would have been over the gross," he told me, " hadn't some of the wounded got away, what Rose (the dog) couldn't lay hold of." It goes without saying, that various wild fowl, including mallard, wigeon, pochards, and different shorebirds, fall to his gun ; and he is keen on diving birds, seldom missing any stray red-throated diver that may wander inshore. One afternoon I turned into Whiley's workshop to escape a heavy downpour of rain. He was oiling his favourite seven-bore. "As good a gun as ever any man carried," he remarked, enthusiastically. "You remember Mr. ON GUNS AND GUNNERS 95 Adams, the grosher ; well, she belonged to him that's nigh forty year ago. Adams was a clinker for the hares, and many an old ' sally ' did he get up on the Breydon marshes in the old days, when there was suffiri about ! He'd crouch in the end of a deck (ditch) up to his knees pritty nigh that's what brought on his rheumatics and as 'sally' comes trotting along the bank, over she'd go. He know'd her ways as well as she did herself. He used to wear a sort of drab fustian coat. One day he'd killed an old hare blowed her head to pieces with this very old gun and popped her into his pocket. Though hares was game then, nobody ever thought of stopping him, or dreamt of his poaching. " ' You've got her this morning ! ' says a policeman he met as he was coming home. " ' I have,' says he, winking, all unconscious that the blood had soaked right through his coat, and a big patch of it showed as plain as a pike-staff that there was suffin' pretty suspicious close at hand. Somebody else told him of it afore he got home, when he kinder congratulated himself on the density of that policeman's intellect ! " Whiley went on to relate how " he once frightened a bullock pretty nearly into fits by using it as a ' stalking horse,' from behind which he fired into a flock of lapwings on a marsh." Whiley had stowed his gun up a corner, and began to work upon a big piece of cork for a cork- soled boot. " I took up the gun again, as you know," he con- tinued, " a year or so back, because of my health. I 96 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS fare (feel) as if I must get out more into the open, and I've felt altogether different since I started again. When did I first go shooting? Why, over forty year ago, aye, and afore that. I always was fond of birds, and keepin' live things. My father and mother were country people, and was always used to being among game and live stock, and that. My father settled in Row 93 ; he did the shoemakin', and mother did the closin' of the uppers. I lived 'long with them till I got a big chap, and used to carry a gun. I remember one day shooting at a big blue hawk a peregrine they called it and wing-tipping it. I off with my coat and hulled over it, as it lay back strikin' out with its long clawed feet ; and after a bit of manipulating got it into my handkerchief and took it home. I got it on a perch very like a parrot- stand, after mother had thrown a cloth over it, and father had put a leather ring round its leg, which he eyeleted on, with a chain and a split ring attached to it. It became a great pet with my mother, who could do any mortal thing with it. Once when she was sadly, Dr. Moxon comes to attend her, and finds her by the fireside with the bird at her elbow. " ' How I'd like to stroke it as you do ! ' he said to her. " * If you do, you do it to your own peril,' said mother, beggin' him not to attempt it. " Howsoever, he did try it on, and in a moment the bird turned on him, striking him with its left foot, tearing his finger from hand to end right down to the bone. He put the best face he could on the matter, bathed his finger and bound it up, leaving ON GONS AND GUNNERS 97 the house a wiser if a sadder man. We kept that peregrine a couple of years, feeding it on lights, mice, and birds ; it used to throw up pellets of fur, feathers and bones. " Then we had a jackdaw the masterpiece devil of a mischief; and we used to let it potter in and out of the house. 'Jack' was a terrible prig. Every bright button, pins, nails, and even scissors, that he could pinch on the sly, he snapped up and bolted out with into the backyard. There was a hole in the lid )f the rainwater cistern, through which he'd put these things ; whether he tried to fill it up, or what, I don't know. Anyway, when we had the cistern cleaned out we got quite a pailful of articles what had once been bright, amongst them scissors, and fifteen tea- spoons. "Jack died, like most pets, by accident. Father had been hammering leather on his lapstone, which he goes to drop on the floor as usual, beside him ; but it so happened that at that moment Jack was snatching at a hobnail he had spied on the floor. The stone landed on his head, splitting it. Every- thing was done to patch him up, but to no purpose. Jack pegged out." Whiley firmly believes in the immigration of French partridges in spring, 1 a possibility I at one time sincerely believed in. I am assured that the woodcock, when tired, does occasionally rest on the water ; and I once saw a crow, lifting on the crest of a wave, get upon the wing again. I told Whiley so. " Crows swimming ! " he broke in, " why, I've seen 1 Notes of an East Coast Naturalist, pp. 55-56. 98 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS 'em do it, and what's more, French partridges, what come over in the latter part of April and early in May, can swim too, buoyantly enough ; but their short wings are incapable of raising 'em agin, and in time they're sure to drown. " Forty year ago, when the denes was denes (sand- dunes), and covered with furze, partridges came there more 'an they do now. I've several times seen 'em drop in the sea, and sent my old dog in after J em." Then he laughed. Something funny had occurred to him. " One day," he went on, " I'd wounded a French partridge, which fell into the sea, and old Cooper, the birdcatcher, who was ' at work ' against the marams, left his nets, ran down to the beach, throwin' off his clothes as he went ; then out he swam and retrieved it. I didn't happen to have the dog with me just then. " 'You can drop that bird,' I said to him. " ' No, thanks,' he says, 'you should have swum arter it. I'm keepin' it for my trouble.' " Now, I didn't see no particular fun in comin' to blows about a paltry partridge, so Mason (who was with me) and me stationed ourselves not far off his nets, and every time a bunch of linnets or red- polls came near we fired at 'em, and played that game with him so he never got no more that morning." As a marksman, my old gull-shooter excelled, and in the sixties and seventies was a crack-shot in the volunteer corps. One morning, when at the butts, he espied a cormorant sitting on a stump of ON GUNS AND GUNNERS 99 the old Hannah Pattersen?- which was showing un at low water. This happened to be one of two birds kept by the landlord of the Standard hotel on the Marine Parade. "I got within about two hundred yards range of |t, and fired, my rifle being loaded with ball, toppling t over as dead as a herrin'. Up comes Captain Cubitt. Don t you know,' says he, ' that that there bird was a tame one belonging to so-and-so ? '-makin' use of his name. I've a good mind to inform of you for there s a 2 reward offered for any one informing of another shootm' either of these birds.' "However, it blowed over, for our Captain Cubitt dearly loved a good shot. But a few days after, when we was again at the butts, we see a porpoise tumblin' about around the old wreck, for there was sea anemones and fish around her broken timbers. Cubitt it, and coming up to me, he says '"Now then, Whiley, I'll a l low you ^ a marksman if you shoot him ! ' ' 'All right, sir,' I says ; and I went athort to the same sandhill from behind which I'd pulled at the cormorant, and watched for the porpoise's snout coming up I fired at the right moment, and put a ball clean through the back of its eye. It sank! and didn t come up again . Nexf ^ ^ d ^ and there was m she beca.e a tota, ist, ,869 TWS ha PP ened ioo MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS ON 'GUN-DOGS 3 Of sporting dogs, 1 so far as they have come under my notice, I cannot say much that is noteworthy. The retriever is not nearly so common to-day as when I was a lad, the brown variety in particular being rarely seen. Those who " fancy " a dog divide their affections between the useless and, to my mind, offensive collie (which is more or less a mongrel in this locality) and the grossest of mongrels, which are turned out into the streets at all hours of the day, to become nuisances which disgrace an otherwise pleasant seaside resort. The sporting dog here has practically had its day ; there is, as the saying goes, " no work " for it to do. Since the denes have become the haunt of many golfers, rabbits have become extinct. Men of sporting tendencies no longer prowl around there with greyhounds and lurchers ; and the only useless beast at present in favour, is the diminutive, semi- skeleton whippet, for whose delectation tame wild rabbits are turned adrift on the outskirts of the town, to end their already half-frightened-out lives. Of mongrels, every known variety and sub-variety under the sun is to be found ; and they breed promiscuously with the freedom of pariahs. Gun- dogs are less common than formerly ; here and there a gunner devoted to snipe and woodcock shooting trains a spaniel to rouse about in ditch and cover ; and a chance sportsman utilises the services of a dog 1 See " On dogs " in Notes of an East Coast Naturalist,^. 254-58. ON GUNS for retrieving a wounded fowl or a slaughtered parcel of dunlins. At times the shouting of orders to such a dog may be heard all over Breydon. I know one sportsman who boasted a fine retriever that could never resist running to every gunner who fired his gun ; it was no uncommon thing to see it tearing a mile up the beach, deaf to the threats and whistling of its master. This particular gunner at length resorted to the practice of tying one end of a rope around the dog's neck, and the other round his own waist. The experiment was not a success, for the dog would spring forward at unfortunate moments, as when its master was pointing his fowling-piece at a passing curlew. An eccentric man named B for many years " followed " Breydon as a hobby in spare time, and duringholidays, eel-babbing, shooting, and occasionally bird-catching, on the adjoining marshes. He tried many pursuits, enjoying them all in turn, but never making much ; indeed, generally losing money. Once when a shooting fit was on him he speculated in a dog which was, perhaps, seven-tenths of a retriever, and guaranteed to be an extraordinary gun-dog. B boasted a great deal about this animal, representing it as unrivalled in this country or any other. When out shooting with Harwood, another sportsman, on the marshes, he shot a lapwing, and sent the dog after it. " Now you'll see," said B , " what he can do ! " To the dog " Hie on ! " Away rushed the dog, jumping the ditch, and securing the bird. 102 ivIAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS " Good dog ! " said B ; " come along." But the brute, disregarding orders, squatted down with the lapwing between his fore paws, and deliberately ate it, head, legs, and most of the feathers. " He brought the bird back," said Harwood to me, " but inside him ! " "Billy" Sampson's rough mongrel, well-named "Rough," 1 has ever had a warm corner in the old gunner's heart : he has seldom talked to me of the "old days" without having something new to say about it. " The rummest bit of reasoning," said Billy, " I ever know'd in a dog, was one day up the North River when I'd shot a golden eye, which dropt on to a bit of floating ice. The little beggar sprung on the main body of the ice, and then on to a big floe, what broke off and was driftin' downstream. There he hung, or rather balanced himself, till the twisting of the tide drew the odd pieces together, when, jumping on to the bit what the fowl was on, he seized the bird, and made over piece after piece till he got safe ashore with nothin' wetter than his feet. " Once," went on Billy, " there was a sort of half- bred Italian greyhound what suddenly sorter ran wild, and bolted on to the denes, where it lived on what it could catch rabbits, or anything There was a reward out for it, but nobody could lay hold of it. At last several of us surrounded it and drove it into the sea. 1 Vide Notes of an East Coast Naturalist, pp. 254-58 ; also Nature in Eastern Norfolk, pp. 19-20. ON GUNS AND GUNNERS 103 " ' Go on, Rough ; after him,' I says ; and off he went, nabbed it by the ear, and swam back to the shore with it. "Nobody know'd," added Sampson, "what that dog could do ; he was the masterpiece I ever had." Overend, the collector, 1 possessed a fine example of a black retriever, which exhibited extreme intelli- gence. It was trained to do many interesting tricks. It regularly fetched its master's Times from the stationer, and carried it to a small circle of readers in proper rotation ; it purchased its own biscuits, and did other little errands. A local sportsman of shady character owned a mongrel that waited on his every sign with a devotion and willingness worthy of a better master. It was this man's practice on a Saturday to do the week's marketing, and in going for the beef for his Sunday dinner the dog accompanied him. He seldom went to the same stall twice. His procedure was to glance over the stall with his roving eye, ask the prices, and after placing his finger tips on a certain piece of beef or mutton, walk off, making some excuse for not purchasing it. All this time the dog would be watching by the side of its master, with whom it would depart when he took leave of the butcher. When at a convenient distance the dog was told to " go on ! " and the man made himself scarce ; whereupon the animal would skulk back to the stall, and at an opportune moment, when he saw the butcher was busy, it would snatch up the joint and hurry off by devious ways to its master's home. 1 Nature in Eastern Norfolk, p. 78. 104 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS " Rose " was a fat and aged retriever. Her first master was an ardent sportsman, as also was her second, his son, at the period I knew her. She waddled out on to the mudflats with all the eagerness of her youth until her eye dimmed, and she became as deaf as a stone. I have seen her tackle a wounded heron with adroitness, seizing it by the neck, not, however, without receiving a nasty pick in the back from the dagger-like bill of the terrified bird. She would gather up three or four dead shorebirds at a time, to save herself extra runs across the ooze. I mention this animal as one instance of a deaf retriever working well. I have known several dogs lose their sense of hearing, a fact probably due to water getting into their ears when they plunged into it or when waves broke over them. "GOOD DOG :: PINK-FOOTED GEESE CHAPTER III 'PUBLIC' AFFAIRS " Kind was his heart, his passions quick and strong, Hearty his laugh, and jovial was his song ; And if he loved a gun, his father swore, 'Twas but a trick of youth, would soon be o'er, Himself had done the same some thirty years before." SCOTT. 'AN AFTERNOON SITTING' BREYDON is noted for its hosts of gulls and the peculiar tenacity of its mud ; Norwich for the number of its churches ; Yarmouth for its public- houses, which are legion. The most popular man is the brewer, who rules Bench and bar-parlour alike ; while all sorts and conditions of men do him 105 io6 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS homage. I suppose it is so nearly everywhere, more especially beside tidal waters. On the quays fishermen and waterside labourers may be seen crossing and recrossing at intervals : some to quench their thirst, others to rinse away the dust of loading and the emptying of ships. After the day's labour men draw together, often from un- comfortable homes, to spend the night, until closing time, in emptying tankard after tankard of beer, or in dallying over a pewter mug ; some making up for short imbibings by long spells of yarning and argu- ment. Sometimes snatches of song are indulged in, and maybe boisterous horseplay, which occasionally ends in a bout of fisticuffs. The bar-parlour is a rough school, but it affords studies of the queerer side of human nature. It is a recognised thing that certain public tap- rooms are frequented by particular classes of indi- viduals ; one will be the resort of butchers or cabmen ; in another wherrymen or fishermen will foregather ; while the gunning fraternity have their favourite quarters, where they discuss passing events in bird- land, compare notes on past achievements, " argufy " and over-reach each other, and often outwit one another in downright lying. There stood, until the nineties, on the North Quay, a small ale-house with high windows. A decayed and blistered signboard hung above the door, an- nouncing its distinctive title, the Lord , and on its blistered sides the remnants of a cocked hat, and a red nose, with a patch or two of yellow that probably signified braid, could be distinguished. ' PUBLIC' AFFAIRS 107 The small parlour had a brick floor, which was kept well sanded ; an empty barrel or two did duty for tables, whereon three or four pewter pots or earthenware mugs could be stored, still leaving room for using between them a packet of greasy cards. On one of the rough and pew-like benches sat a ouple of Breydoners, arguing a knotty question that called for strong words now and again to clinch points supposed to have been gained. Two or three others, leaning against the counter, loomed up indistinctly through a haze of smoke, like luggers coming up through a sea fog. " I say he shot nine ! " "You're a liar!" protested "Pintail" Thomas banging his three-fingered fist, with emphasis, on the barrel-head, and upsetting ' Cadger Brown's beer- pot,J< theer wor only tree (three) knocked over." Hold 'ard!" roared Brown, "you've knocked over my mug. Are you near-sighted ? " To lose a drop of the precious liquid went sorely the grain with -Cadger"; so to recoup himself, he snatched up " Pintail's " half-filled tankard and before the irate and fiery little gunner could stop him he had emptied its contents down his throat. "We're quits, Master Johnny!" he said, amid a roar of laughter from the company. Thomas had not yet sat long enough to become very irascible, which usually happened after his third tankard. "I was a-saying," continued "Cadger," "old George Blake shot nine hares that night on Mautby meshes. I see 'em myself." "Shornt believe it, not if I was kilt," shouted io8 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS " Pintail," stalking up to the counter for another pint. " Nine hairs, ^rhaps, grey 'uns at that, p'raps ; but you 'ont stick it inter me as they wor four-leggec ones. I 'ont believe it ! " "What differs '11 it make if you don t "Fiddler" Goodens. "You swore I never took a stone of eels with four strokes of the pick." "I never belfeve nothin' I don't see myself declared the cantankerous Thomas. Then he turned to "Snicker" Larn, and referred to the company as a lot of idgetts as didn't know a Tom Taylor from a Moll Berry ! " x " Talk about molberries," jibed in " Snicker,' see one on 'em up Breydon this arternune, chasin' a parcel of gulls around suffin' terrific. Gord bliss my sowl and body ! he wor up arter 'em like a narrow from a gun. They hollered and screeked like so many stuck pigs, but theer wor no gettin' away from him he wor down on 'em, round 'em, and all ways at onct ; and he gleed along that smuthe-jist as ii his wings wor iled. Presently up gulps one of 'em, and reg'lar spewed smelts; and great beauties, tx>, they wor the greatest shame you ever know'd, robbin' our nets." "You worn't nettin', you wor a eel-pick snorted Thomas. " Well, who said I wor a nettin' ? " You said as how they wor a robbin' your net ! snapped Thomas, appealing to the company. "He mean all on us!" ventured "Cadger i Tom Taylors, local for stormy petrels : Moll Berrys skuas. 'PUBLIC' AFFAIRS 109 Brown. " That obstreperous little devil '11 argue you blind. How many smelts; Snicker, did that old mol- berry whip up afore they reached the water ? " " Lemme see," replied Snicker, winking wickedly at " Cadger." " Seven I think, out J er six." "You ! " but here Thomas choked. "You talk about rats!" remarked "Short'un" Page. " Who said rats ? " snapped Thomas. " No one," said Short'un, " only I was going to say suffin', and you wouldn't let me. I hate 'em, the warmin. While I wor a sleepin' 'tother night in my houseboat up in Acle deek, I feels suffin' squeezin 5 under my neck, what woke me up. " ' Lor lumme ! ' I says, ' what the dowst wor that ? ' I put out my hand, and felt suffin' hairy ; and bein' half asleep I nabs hold on it. I didn't want to axe a second time, for my nibbs fangs me by the finger, and made his teeth meet. * You - ,' I says, ' I wonder what you're arter ? ' and I tumbles off the settle, and laid hold of a wrigglin' iron, what I use for wormin'. The rat jumps down and round, tryin' to get away, and presently, spyin' a hole in the bottom-boards, under he went. I ups with the boards, and sees the brute scroudgin* up a corner a- trying to smallen hisself " " I wonder he didn't eat you up, Short'un," grinned " Pintail," referring to Short'un's diminutive person. " You ain't much to brag on, Johnny Thomas," retorted Short'un. " Give it him, Short'un ! " from three or four of them. i io MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS " Shove you in a sack, Master Johnny, and they'd hev to shovel in more rubbidge to help to fill it. But I was a-saying, mates, as theer wor the rat, and theer was I. And I makes a jab at him, runnin' the sharp crowbar clean though him ; but as bad luck would hev it, I started the butt-end of a plank, and drove him clean through the boat. In course, she begins to take in water like a sieve, and afore I could dam the hole with a blanket I'd got four or five inches of water in. A bloomin' nice thing with the water freezin' cold, and snowin' and blowin 1 like blazes." " What had he bin nibblin' at ? " queried Watson. "I'd fresh iled my hair," said Short'un, "with some pork lard I had in a cup, and I suppose he liked the taste on it. He'd gnawed a lump out of my wig, anyway." " Rough mornin', boys," said old " Fates " Bowles, opening the door and walking up to the counter. Reed, the publican, with a nod of recognition, pulled a pint of ale and set it upon the counter. " Fates " gripped the pot, and crossed the parlour to his favourite corner, just vacated by " Cadger" who, without a word of adieu, edged out into the street. " Rum pup, him ! " remarked " Fates " to " Pero " Pestell, who had just finished a game of cards and was calling for another half-pint. " He'd rob his own gran'mother's coffin of the lid if he wor hard up for a bit o' firewood." " He's a - - monkey ! " snapped " Pintail," who was getting a bit flushed and quarrelsome. "You're another!" retorted Pestell, who didn't care a button for the pugnacious little punt-gunner. 'PUBLIC' AFFAIRS in " And you looked like one," he went on, "that time what I see you hangin' on a stake, with your punt 'tother side the channel. You must ha' been drunk, and not for the first time. Didn't you drink a swell gunner's whisky one day, and he hed to be rowed home in old Jack Gibbs's punt? " " What if I did ? " asked Johnny. " And if I wor as big as you, and wor a milishey-man, I'd kill you that I would" "You'd better try it, Johnny," suggested "Fates." " What a awful smell round about here ! " roared Pero. " Why, as I'm a livin' man, your old top-hat's afire ! " he shouted, knocking " Fates' " silk top-hat off the bench, and jumping on it with both water-boot encased feet. Now " Fates " Bowles, who combined the profes- sions of costermongering and eel-picking, had one great weakness, which brought down upon him the anathemas of a number of his friends : he gloried in wearing a top-hat a battered, and ugly chimney-pot of the tallest order. It had been pelted with mud by men who swore that it frightened all the birds off the flats ; and who also maintained that it brought bad luck to the eel-fishermen whenever he showed him- self. As for himself, he was a strange fellow, more than fortunate at eel-picking, for he seemed to know, by a sort of instinct, where eels were to be found ; but he greatly disliked being overlooked when at work. No matter how good the " ground " he was working, he would snatch up the oars and row away directly any other Breydoner rowed up to him. " I'd like to know who did that," roared " Fates," U2 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS snatching up the hat, which Pestell had crushed into some resemblance to a concertina. But no one ventured to say who had quietly drilled a red-hot poker through that ugly example of the hatter's handiwork. " Fates " was so " done " that his vocabulary failed him. He quietly straightened out his miserable head-gear, pulled it over his ears, and stalked out, looking very much as if a fit of apoplexy was brewing. There was much uproarious laughter at his going. " Fates " Bowles's pride had been fatally injured that night. He never set foot in the Lord again. " Well, bor ! " said Pestell, who had laughed until he cried, " old ' Fates,' takes the cake. I believe he used that old tile for a eel-pot, and that's how he copt 'em." Looking over the window-sill at the retreating Bowles, " Pero" added : "Don't it make him look just like a monkey at the end of a chain towed by a barrel organ ! " " Did I ever tell you that yarn about a monkey we once had aboard the old steamship Nineveh?" queried an old fellow up in a corner, who all this time had been quietly playing a game of cribbage with two other sailormen. " No ! " replied more than one of the audience. " Tell us it now, matey," " Wai," he said, " we was bound for home ; this was in the airly days of the canal ; and theer wor a lot of them Arab pirates still knockin' about there. A ship as left Calcutta a week afore us had been cut out by 'em, and every blessed man aboard hed 'PUBLIC' AFFAIRS ,, 3 Went?? "I BU K that>S " either here - "-re. faced IH y - ab ard) ' Jl ' m ' We Called him > * red- cu a LT^ With Wnder W* of a sim'lar culler a lort tail> and ag ^^ "As Pintail! "jibed in "Pero" "Begger me!" spluttered Pintail, who was fast 3 ' except that he was too helpless to go straight at it' hlf ~ W .' " y u worn>t so big as me, I'd-wal half you with a eel-pick." "I wor a-sayin' as knowin' as old Harry" on Sharman. "Well, we'd also got a grea cockatoo; and both on 'em had the run of the monkey used ter climb the riggin', and play flo^k.V th f. C0ok - house . Perwidin' the cook wo'rn't ct-iuUKin . 1 he rnrlraf /-<"* 11 r. J j. n * m- cucKdtOO USed tfr n\r o*vMi.-,,4 f-im^c o^^j i y ar una some- Liiues and also oerk in ffi^ r;~: > /^v fit,-, e T1 SS ln ' One day Cockv Wnk-V n 1 " 6 ^^ 3 bfg bana " a ~P '"to the rigg.V nkm, no doubt, to be all by himself But nn master Jim liked bananas, and when he sees the bW SupT ro;e Cr0 and tr afo "' ^ ^^2 ^K$SSS2 r , 0< qui ^ k for hlm > and siezin' the tail of the nkey made her teeth meet ! " trunk?" /fl hl * CCUped Th maS ' ^ ou n her No one heeded this interruption. deck, and sat jabberin' at Cocky In a toLnvTage" ii4 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS Then suffin' must ha' happened. Perhaps the monkey pounced onawares on the bird ; he must ha' copped her round the neck, or why didn't he get bitten ? Presently, howsomever, feathers comes droppin' on deck and flyin' past the ship like a snow-storm. " ' It's a rummon ! ' says the mate, ' I never know'd a snow-storm afore in the Red Sea ! ' " Then we sees as it wor feathers ! * Cocky's on the moult, I reckon,' I says to him, ' and if I ain't mistaken, Jim's helpin' her to moult ! ' " ' You'd better shin up and see,' says he. On which I goes up. I sees the monkey a-grinning, and he shoots off to the far end of a spar as if he wor guilty. "' Where are you, Cocky ? ' I axes, not seein' any cockatoo. "' In the cook-house ! ' says Cocky ; ' I'm cold ! ' " Then I catched sight of her ; and she wor as naked as she wor born ! " "I thought birds wor hatched!" snarled Pero. " It's all the same thing ! " said Sharman. ''I've yet to lern as steamships has cross-trees and spars an' that ! " remarked a knowing customer, who had taken no part so far in the discussions. " They did in them days ! " snapped Pestell, who, as a boatbuilder, prided himself on his knowledge of ships. Just then the door opened, and a shaggy head was thrust in " Who're you lookin' for ?" queried the landlord. " My sweet brother," answered " Stevey " Bowles. " Come in, and we'll tell you," said Pero Pestell, with a mischievous twinkle in his grey eye. " It's 'PUBLIC' AFFAIRS nj '" *'' WeVe ** an th - old 1 " 1 nthehob - And we,, peppered a whole box of Pero lit his pipe, and went over to the little aneroid barometer hanging near the door. chin Srtu raW and nast X outside, by gums " n ; y ; " ive just c me ff ys? ' dropped in ? asked Pestell. = antagonist, but the landneed"- 6 ' Vide Wild Life on a Norfolk Estuary, p. 3,. u6 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS " No fightin' in here, Johnny," he insisted ; while Snicker and Bessey forced the irate little man back into his seat, still growling and glaring. " Pintail," said Bowles, in a conciliatory tone, handing him his tobacco pouch, " try that 'bacca." Thomas looked rather dully at it, hesitated, and drew the pouch towards him. " You don't mean real swans ? " asked the little man, fumbling for his pipe in every pocket, and finding it inside his empty mug. It did not occur to him to inquire how it got there. " You're heard the yarn of my Uncle Parmenter," Bowles continued, without answering Thomas's query, " him as wor a noted wild-fowler on the Lincolnshire coast, 'tother side the Wash, at a willage close ter Wainfleet." " I hev," said Pero ; " I know'd him when I lived out that way ! I've seen him many a time when I've bin shore-nettin'. * I ha' bought knots, cur-lew, smee (wigeon), pewits, and all sorts, off him, when I ha' wanted to make up a hamper of 'em for Leadenhall Market. He wor a good shot, though he didn't foller the gun reglar. He wor a black- smith." " That's right," said Stevey. " Right ! " snapped Pero. " He ha' made me picks ; and he used ter do the iron-work for me when I built a boat. I know'd his old gun." " ' Pifflin Jenny ' was the name she was know'd 1 Shore-nets are placed vertically on stakes near the sea in Lincolnshire for snaring wild-fowl, e.g. plovers, curlews, knots, etc. PUBLIC' AFFAIRS thnd > alng s P''P e th and expectorating into the fire." She - ll? f Ws on? ' " *** k "" r ab Ut her - let the "Well, old Dave, that WO r my Unc i e Parmenter adored this ancient Spanfsh piece " or on the barrel. She wor a flint-lock, hed a lot Iess rivets and I woudn, h J g eavour - wouldn t hev fired her off for a pension She worn t no credit to a blacksm , h . ^ ^ She th. if he once touched or tinkered her up or " Superstitious ! " interjected Snicker TaSv' P Tc! ^ th Uh they ' nt Own it-" 1 am t, said Smcker ; " though I'll allow I never go under a ladder, 'cept I'm forct to, and then I SSI th U u konB dr - " * luck on Breydon ,f I met a cross-eyed man agoin' That am t superstition, that's a Gord's truth. seen it many a time, and I've come back a-in " ri,ht T r ! titi0 V r n0t> " Put {t Steve y. "you're right. Cock-eyed people are unlucky. Then there's Rfbh T, '^ kn W ' d P6 P le What h - it PolV R.bbons had ,t. Somehow, she thought I ough ter vm n r: d d her; **i aiiers feit m re a not and young chaps don't jinrally "Bewitched yer!" broke in Pestell. iiS MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS " Well," said Bowles, with a shrug of the shoulders, " she mock-mawed me ; and things was the very devil with me for years ; I done rotten with the eels, one day she meets me and says "'Bowles! you'll catch a stone of eels to- day ! ' "And so help me, mates, I got right in among 'em ; and when I weighed-in the eels at old Bessey s, as true as I'm a livin' man, they pulled the scale down to a lumpin' fourteen pounds. She took mock-mawrens off me that mornin', and ever arte wards my luck wor changed." \Vhy-a, superstitions," ventured Q , gunner, who drew up to the little crowd near the bar, "is all rot, and blamed on-convenient." "Yaiire superstitious," jibed in Pintail. " How's that ? " demanded Q You wear rubbidgely old eel-skins for garfc for rewmatix ! " sneered Thomas. " And they're the best things in the world for < too," snapped Q- - ; "lots of Norfolk people use ter wear 'em more 'an they do now." ' Fates Bowles's hat wor unlucky," said I ha' seen birds git up out of the water a mile away and wondered what wor a skeerin' of 'em, j turnin' round I ha' seen that tarnation old chimb pot loomin' up like a steamer's funnel, p'raps half mile astern " . My brother," went on Stevey, "ha' got a weak- ness for that hat ; he thinks it a kind of link between the harrystocracy and us poor devils, die and be buried in it. And why not ? 'PUBLIC' AFFAIRS 119 " It'll save a coffin ! " sneered Pintail, amid a burst of laughter. " Dave Parmenter," continued Stevey, " wouldn't hev no new-fangled notions about guns ; he swore that nipple-guns wasn't safe ; they didn't hit straight, and all that. ' Give me a flint-lock/ he'd say, ' and none of yer crack-patches.' He used ter load her with a handful of powder, and chance time with real duck-shot ; but more often with iron film's for small birds ; and for geese and swans, theer wor nothin' like hoss-shoe nails, and stuff like that. Gord bliss me ! he'd load it halfway up the barrel. He only once got me persuaded to go arter geese with him, but never no more. " You know that every October-end there's great flocks of geese come to the Holkham meshes, round there by Wells ; theer's white-fronts and pink-foots, mostly pink-foots, hundreds of 'em. They keep much to the land, and play the devil up with young growin' corn. If it's a bit stormy, they fare to break up into smaller lots and go foragin' further afield. South- easterly winds brought some of 'em to Wainfleet, least- wise, that wor old Dave's notion. Nothin' roused up his sanguinary instinx like geese. ' Theer's pickin' on 'em, my boy,' he'd say, ' and none o' yer pinglin', same as you hev on a teal or a skylark.' " So on this day it wor a Friday he got me to go to the sand-hills, where he know'd there wor a flock of pink-foots twenty of 'em in all." " I trembled to see him load. Fust he put a bit of paper on the touch-hole, and lowered the trigger. Then he shot a lot of powder into his hand, and 120 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS balanced it, to guess the proper weight: this he lowered down the spout, rammin' a big bit of brown paper down on tu it. Well, you'd think he wor hammerin' a hoss-shoe on a anvil, the way he punched into that wad, the swet reglar startin' on his forehid. Then he stood her by the vice, while he scraped up a lot of hoss-shoe nails, a big handful of 'em. " ' Uncle/ I says, ' air you goin' to sink a man-o'- war ship or shoot elephants ? ' " ' Stow that gab ! ' he says ; ' what J cher take me for a fule ? ' I made no answer. " Arter he'd primed her, off we goes goose-huntin'. When we got near the sand-hills, he pints to a lot of birds which I could see wor geese. They hadn't yet gone to breakfast. They worcleanin' theerselves, and one old feller fared to be on sentry go. "'Lay you agin that hump o' furze,' says Dave, ' I'll try what stalkin' 'em will do.' Theer wor an old dickey moachin' around, feedin' on furze, moss, marams, or anything he could find. No doubt he filled up with sand at a pinch. Dave Parmenter nabbed the moke, and clutchin' it by the short upright mane, nudged it with his elbows into a walk. The dickey fared nervous, and no doubt he'd ha' had a fit if he'd know'd what wor comin'. To cut matters short, Uncle Dave got within range of the geese ; but the old sentry he wor gettin' a bit skeart holds his hid up and then digs at the next goose with his bill, pluckin' out feathers tu get him tu compare notes on the subjeck. He gives a sort of ' honk ! ' when Dave, who wor waitin' for that minute when they all drawed a bit togither for a start, lets fly. ' PUBLIC' AFFAIRS 121 " Well, friends, I've seen a wreck blow'd up by dynamite, and I've seen a ingin bust up ; but I never saw anything like that dickey goin' up, and turnin' a complete somersault, and then clearin' out. And the way Uncle, who'd shot under the donkey's belly, shot out back'ards, and comes down flat on his back, wor a sight to last a lifetime. " I forgot all about the geese, and runs up to Uncle, expectin' he'd bin killed straight out. " ' Uncle/ I says, ' old feller, what's happinged ? Do open yer eyes! Air you dade ?' That's jist the manner of takin' on as cums first to my mind. I felt skearter 'an ever I'd done in my life. There lay Dave, his face black with powder smoke, for it came out of the gun like a fackterry chimbley. And a great bruise wor a-showin' up on his right cheek, evidently wheer the gun had punched him. I felt on him, but finds him sound in bone and limb, though if theer'd bin six ribs and two collar bones broke I shouldn't hev been surprised. " Then thinks I, if you're dade, I must get you out of this ; so I tried to lift him, but he wor plumb dade weight. * Theer's one thing,' I says to myself, if I go and fetch a hand-cart you 'ont run away, and nobody '11 come nigh nor bye, unless it be the old Kentish crows they might come and investigate, and a jab in the eyes of either, a dade or a live man ain't pleasant to think of. So I offs with my coat, and was jist hullin' it over Uncle's face, when I see his eyelids slowly open. " ' Good lord ! ' I says, ' Uncle, I thort you was kilt. Here's a nice pickle you put me in ! ' 122 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS "'Boy/ says he, slow and solemn, 'where am I?' " ' Well, Uncle,' I says, ' if your sins wor forgiven, you've bin about as near Hevvin as you ever wor ; but as things has turned out, you're on Wainfleet sand-hills ! ' " ' Help me up ! ' says he, kinder dazed. ' Reach me old Jenny.' I picks it up and I says, ' Uncle Dave, sure-ly you'll hull that beast on the scrap-heap afore you ever use it agin.' I looks at the gun as I gingerly gets hold of it ; it wor rusty as a hoss-shoe ; theer wor tarry twine carefully coiled round the barrel, holdin' it to the stock, with thin little wedges driv in to tighten it. And theer wor no trigger guard, the stock worm-eaten, and some holes in it wor puttied up. "'Boy,' he says, solemn-like, 'jist run and figger out the geese ; I'll wait till you come back.' " So I hops off and goes to where the geese had been, and picks up three, as dade as nits. 1 One had got the hid blow'd off, another wor ripped up, and the other had a hole through the breast, what I could run my middle finger in. " ' Dade ? ' hollers the old man. " * And pritty nigh resurrected,' I hollers back ; it worn't a fair shot noways ; I reckoned it was more like a 'sassination !' " I'd propped the old chap agin a sand-hill, and while I wor retrievin' the game, he'd bin rubbin' his cheek, feelin' all round his heart and limbs, and moppin' blood off his nose with a bit of cotton waste. 1 A Norfolk figure of speech. 'PUBLIC' AFFAIRS 123 " ' Nothin' amiss ? ' I says. " * Sound in wind and limb ! ' he says, smilin', and lookin' lovin'ly at the old weapon. " ' How long wor I onconscious ? ' he axes. " * Twenty minutes/ I says. * Why ? ' " * Why, becos, boy, she's a real pet of a gun, and hev behaved right magnificent to me this mornin'. Why, I've been nearly a hour a-comin' round afore now ; but it airit often she misses her goose, bliss her old sowl." " That all ? " inquired Bessey. " What more'd you hev ? " asked Bowles. "I'd ha' had Dave kilt," returned Bessey, " because that 'ud ha' been more tragic." " Tragic be blowed ! " retorted Bowles, " you can't allers kill people to order." . . . " Is my man Johnny there ? " queried the sharp voice of a red-faoed woman, who, at that moment, thrust her head in at the door. " Yes, missus," replied Pero Pestell ; " pritty nigh tidly, as usurel. He wants lookin' after. Now then, Pintail," he added, turning to Johnny, " here's the guvnor. You've got to go into the garden to pick guseberries." " Guseberries be - ! " choked Johnny. " Enough said," broke in Mrs. Thomas, as she strode across the parlour, and caught hold of her smaller half's collar. "You come home along wi' me, you lazy good-for-nothin'." And Johnny, in spite of the laughs of his companions, was obliged to follow his dominant partner ; but he seemed to be half-sobered and not a little chagrined by her 124 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS exposure of his complete subordination to "his old woman." " I'll make some of you sore for this, you grinning ning-cumpoops ! " he gasped, as he went out into the chilly air. It was well nigh tea-time, and there was then prospect of a fairly fine evening. More than one gunner hinted that there might be something come to Breydon since Bowles had come away, and that Mrs. Thomas, having got wind of it, had ordered her man to get afloat and go and see. In the old days fowl were often shot at night when they could not be approached by day. Old Bessey was reported to be the doyen of night-hunters. He had a marvellously keen ear, and a quick sure method of calculating distances. He fashioned a sort of hollow chock, screwed it on the fore deck of his punt, and in it he rested the smaller end of his gun-barrel. The chock, upon which he had experimented, was placed at such an elevation that, when the gun rested upon it, and was fired, it was most deadly at sixty yards range. At night, when it was pitch dark, he would paddle up to within the proper distance of a flock of feeding fowl judging by their cackle and the noise they made in snapping off the grass and fire into the dark without seeing the slightest sign of a bird. Then he would row round and gather up the spoils, and after calculating the strength and direction of the tides, he would hasten back by daybreak to hunt for the cripples along the walls. 126 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS A NIGHT SITTING That night, Thomas, Short'un, Pero Pestell and one or two others were missing from Reed's parlour. Two had gone after fowl : the others had something else to do, for the night proved fairly fine. Next night, however, it came on to blow great guns ; and sleet made the streets bleak and uncomfortable. The red window blinds of the Lord - - glowed like danger signals, but failed to warn away those who bent their steps thither at nightfall, as was their wont. There was a fairly good mustering of the old school, met, as usual, to continue their lessons, arguments, and amusements. Pero, 1 Short'un, and Thomas, 2 as I have said, were absent, but Bessey, 3 Stevey Bowles, 4 "Fiddler" Goodens, 5 "Snicker" Larn, 6 "Scarboro" Jack, O , and several others, including a well-known river-poacher, whom I will call F , 7 had dropped in, and were variously occupied. Some were quietly chatting in twos and threes on the seats around the bar-parlour ; others were leaning on the counter or lounging near the stove. 1 Pero died in Yarmouth Workhouse, in 1907. 2 Thomas pre-deceased him by six years. 3 Dead. 4 Dead. 5 To-day is very aged and feeble. 6 Still hale and robust. 7 This man, who is still living, has always been exceedingly wary of my attempts at chatting with him : for certain reasons do not think it expedient to name him. 'PUBLIC' AFFAIRS 127 " I wonder how Fates Bowles's hat's gettin' on ? " asked Larn. " I lay you a brass fardin its just about soft by his a-weepin' over it. It's stiffinin' it wants to get them kinks out what Pero put in. How's trade, Dinks ? " " Dinks " Cox significantly shook his head. " Eels well, there don't fare to be none," he replied. "I got about five pound of little totty things this mornin' ; and I got this," holding up a parcel something wrapped in an old sack. All faces were turned to Dinks, who shot out on to the counter a tall hat. " Sure-ly," exclaimed " Fiddler " Goodens " sure-ly old Fates ain't bin and committed suicide ! Let's look at it." It was handed over to Goodens for identification and then passed round. " It ain't Fates's," he remarked. "It's too respectable." They all concurred. " I never said 't wor, did I ? " asked Dinks. "You chaps fare to me to jump to conclusions. It's brains what cher want leastwise you've got 'em, most on you, but you don't fare to ile 'em nor make the most on 'em. Is theer a couple of poker-burnt holes in it ? Is theer a concertina's wind-bag down on it, what wor invented by Pero ? Is it half naked of nap kinder badly moulted ? No ! a nice lot of chaps to sware on for special constables you'd be." " Sure-ly you ain't givin' to wear toppers, Dinks ? " asked three of them in a breath. "Put it on and let's see how you look." Dinks put it on. It did 128 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS not suit him ; on that all were agreed. Larn thought it looked "like a nob on top of a pump." Others thought "it looked even wusser." " Well, mateys," he went on, " I bought it for tuppence off a look-'em-up ; 1 thinkin' perhaps it might du for poor old Fates. It 'ud du for everyday wear, and he might keep the t'other for Sundays." It was a trifling act, but it revealed Dinks's kindly nature. The door opened, and in walked a man whom I will call H . " Hallo, boys ! " said he, "anything on Breydon ?" " Very little," replied more than one. H called for something to drink. He was a dealer in birds birds suitable for stuffing purposes, several collectors being always ready to take rarities off him. He also dealt largely in British birds' eggs, and was reputed to have been the greatest incentive to ornithological vandalism in the Broadlands. Ruffs in their frills, bitterns, bearded tits, their eggs and nests in situ, ospreys, white wagtails, greater shear- waters, Lapland buntings, tawny pipits, Caspian terns all these he had had, and was always eager for more. He got them, of course, as cheaply as he could ; bargained like a Jew, but paid up honestly and promptly when a bargain had once been struck. He chatted for a while with most of the com- pany, and then vanished as suddenly as he had appeared. "He wor born on springs," ventured Snicker. " I can't make him out." 1 Marine store dealer- 'PUBLIC' AFFAIRS 12Q " You ain't no use to him," said Scarboro " Jack he wants bahds; eels ain't in his line" bad, he replied, laconically s " Yes," assented F _ carps and do.st know what all ;-and they hafto ' of let tte remainder go back agin to the river" "but and handed something in a bag to the and 130 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS head that was made to open and close in an ingenious manner. " Cadger's " face at once assumed a look of affable innocence ; and it was illumined directly after by a bland smile when he lifted a tankard of foaming ale to his lips. He looked slyly round at the door as if expecting some one. The door again opened, and in walked P.-c. Gill, who had strong suspicions at all times about the cunning water-cress man, and not without good reason, for he seldom did anything, beyond water- cress gathering, that was not " on the crook." Even his cress, gathered from ditches that bordered hare- frequented marshes, often covered ill-gotten gains. Gill beckoned to Brown and then went outside, " Cadger " presently following him. What happened there could only be conjectured by the company ; but presently Brown stalked in again, and ordered more liquor. " I done him again that time ! " was all he said ; and no amount of quizzing could get another remark from him. He was a strange self-contained fellow, and enjoyed his wild escapades. Risk and excite- ment were to him the spice and flavouring of his law-breaking life. The landlord handed him a silver coin and asked no questions about the sack or its contents. In another moment " Cadger " Brown had vanished. The next visitor to drop in was the diminutive " Short'un," on whose back was slung a bunch of coots tied by the necks : they were wet with salt water and sprinkled with sleet. From the mouths of 'PUBLIC' AFFAIRS , 3I two or three were suspended green ribbons of wigeon grass (Zostera marina.) The little man had slain some half-score of them. Driven from the broads by the previous week's sharp frosts, they had found their way to the more open waters of Breydon, led pro- bably by individuals who had been there on previous occasions. There they had tasted of the luscious grass, and had been loath to leave it Like a flock of sheep they had wandered to and fro, keeping well together, rarely to be caught napping, but occas,onally suffering severely when a big gun came within firing distance. " That all you've got ? " asked the landlord "Wai, that's all I've brung," replied Short'un. You may hev a pair of 'em; give us the rafflin'-box " 1 Now then, chaps," he went on, turning to the company, "any of you want a brace ? Come on a penny a time." Pennies were soon forthcoming, the coots quickly changed hands, and the men turned to their cards and yarning. It was the usual thing. Coots were poor men's geese in those days. Short'un assured me that in years gone by the sixties and seventies l he fre quently brought in forty on a Saturday night" the week's seftings," 2 he termed them. " My old woman " he said, "was a don hand at dressin' 'em. Lots of people used ter bring 'em to her to get 'em ready for cookin'. She seft the feathers. Then she'd powder em all over with resin, and rub 'em well : this brought off all the doom (down) ; and they come up as nice 1 Vide Nature in Eastern Norfolk, p. 211. 2 Savings. 132 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS as a duck. She got a penny a bird for dressin' of 'em." Then Short'un went over to the counter again ; he was thirsty. He remarked in going " I used ter allers look to coots in the winter to supply me with bacca and beer." The Lord no longer exists. It was de- molished in 1894, after standing a long time empty. Its site is now covered by a part of a huge beer-store. Most of the queer characters who frequented it have also disappeared ; the few who remain are aged and decrepit, though one or two of them still pursue their old callings. There are still a few small river-side taverns in which the rough and rugged frequenters of our waterways congregate, and where the incidents of their unromantic and toilsome lives are discussed in language that savours of the salt sea, the flowing tides, and the wild life amid which they spend their lives. THE BREYDON PARLIAMENT In recent years there stood on Fuller's Hill a conglomeration of stables and sheds, one of which, an upstair workshop, was occupied by a cabinet- maker named Beckett. He was, and is still, one of the most ingenious of men, and can turn a long solid cylinder of steel into a beautifully finished breech- loading punt-gun, or a litter of dilapidated oak fittings into a fine piece of antique furniture. His fame as a punt-builder was long ago established. 1 1 Vide Wild Life on a Norfolk Estuary, p. 82. 'PUBLIC' AFFAIRS 133 One of the strangest things about him was that he never worked so well as when a crowd of gossiping sportsmen rilled the greater part of his workshop, filling it with tobacco smoke and a babel of voices. To this day a younger generation of wild-fowlers gathers about him in another shop. In the days to which I refer, when I was an enthusiastic gunner, there assembled around him a host of similar characters this was in the eighties and nineties. I can remember Harvey 1 the bird-stuffer, Pintail Thomas, Crowther, Quinton the bird catcher, Smith the bird dealer, and a host of others who met together and argued, spun yarns, and debated the news in the world that bordered on tidal waters. "Go on," said Beckett, "you may all jaw at once, it won't hinder me ; the more the merrier ! " . . . It happened one day that a cock linnet, which had been kept in one of Beckett's cages for a decade, died. For some time it had ceased to sing, and having " cage-moulted," it had lost all those beautiful rosy tints which distinguish the bird in its wild state. " I'll lay you a bet," said one unbelieving individual, "that ain't a cock, it's an old hen." Some disagreed with him ; but no one present during the earlier part of the evening was capable of deciding its sex by dissection. Harvey, however, was due to arrive at an early moment ; and it was arranged he should be led into a trap and made to reveal his method of solving the question. And so they bided their time. Later on, up shambled Harvey, as was his wont, 1 See Nature in Eastern Norfolk, p. 79. i 3 4 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS in search of any rare or interesting birds , which he was eager to obtain, or even to hear of. "What luck, boys ? " he asked. "Bad luck!" said Beckett, "as far as I'm con- cerned." " What is it ? " asked Harvey. Beckett told him, and boasted what a gallant little cock bird it had been, at the same time telling him that half of the men present had declared it was not a male bird. " Now, then, you shall be judge, for we can rely on you \ " The bird-stuffer was very susceptible to flattery. "Any one got a pen-knife?" he asked. "/'// soon show you what it is ! " A knife was handed to him, and in a few moments the side of the little " subject " had been penetrated, the intestines pressed on one side, and the testes proudly exhibited to the now convinced audience. It was on this very occasion that Lowne, the taxidermist, and my chum Ben Dye, first learned to distinguish the sexes of birds by dissection. " I lighted lucky to-day ! " chuckled the wily Harvey. " Done old Durrant (the game dealer) nicely." " How ? " said Dye. " It's no great feat to boast of." " Well," said Harvey, " I was overhauling the ducks on the stall, and dropt on to a white-eyed pochard, got it for a bob ; and he didn't know it from a barn- door fowl." Harvey, it appeared, was running his eye over a number of hard-fowl tufted ducks, pochards, scaups, 'PUBLIC' AFFAIRS 135 etc. when his keen glance fell on the distinctive orbs of that locally rare water-fowl, only twenty of which had been obtained in the county. 1 Seeing Durrant busy with a customer, Harvey, in an off-hand manner, threw down upon the stall a tufted duck, a common pochard, and Nyroca, as if they were of no particular account. "How much for the lot, Durrant these hard fowl?" " Oh," said Durrant, still busily engaged, " three shillings." Harvey threw down the money, pretended to stow the birds away in his pocket, and walked away. Next day he was still so elated with his prize that he went back to the game-dealer and very unkindly asked him if he knew what he had let him have for a shilling ! Durrant was so annoyed that he never for- gave him. " You bird-stuffers are a lot of swindlers," remarked " Admiral " Gooch, a one-time gentleman-gunner who had fallen on evil times. " How do you make that out ? " demanded Harvey. " Well, I'll tell you," answered the Admiral. " I was on Breydon, in July, 1867, when I saw a small dark bird come gaily tripping along. I thought it was a black tern, for it dipped every few yards at what I took to be insects ; but I could not distinguish a fish in its beak. I soon shot it, and as I had not then started collecting birds, I took it to Carter, who was a good bird-man, but as big a rascal as yourself. I'm giving it you plainly, and you can put it in your pipe and smoke it ! " 1 See Wild Life on a Norfolk Estuary, p. 246. 136 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS " Hear ! Hear ! " from one or two, and " Draw it mild," from others. Harvey coloured up, and bit his side whiskers a habit he had when agitated. " ' H'm,' said Carter, when I took it to him ; ' a common stormy petrel : give you a shilling for it if you like 'taint worth more. Besides, it's too greasy for a specimen/ " I took the shilling, left the bird, and went with a friend into the Standard, where we had a port wine each. " A few weeks afterwards, Silky Watson told me I'd made a fool of myself. " ' Didn't you sell Carter a fork-tailed petrel ? ' 1 he asked. " ' I sold him a petrel/ I replied, ' for a shilling/ " ' Well,' said Silky, ' he's been and made three pound of it ! ' " So I hold," went on Gooch, " that bird-stuffers are all cast in one mould ; they'd cheat their own grandmothers." Harvey's patience was becoming sorely tried, but he made no attempt to defend himself. " Is your cat still alive ? " asked Dye, a smile going round at the question. "Which one?" said Harvey. "Why, the one that ate my turtle dove that I brought you ten years ago to stuff," answered Dye. " That cat ate more birds than mice," retorted the Admiral. " I know a purple sandpiper and a black- 1 This is undoubtedly the example referred to in Stevenson's Birds of Norfolk, vol. iii. p. 370. 'PUBLIC' AFFAIRS I37 tailed godwit, not to mention a little bittern, which that same cat ate. Pity you didn't use arsenic ! " nothing^ 10 ked inte " SeIy ann yed> but sti11 said "I'm very much mistaken if I haven't seen the s*s of all three in R__' s collection of ^ ^ them."" PUSSy dfd 6at thC bifdS after y u>d Binned , l 5 ^ "r e u ate a glaUC US gul1 ' didn>t she ? " ^ked I hope she didn't find it fishy !" At length, Harvey, finding things getting too hot him, slipped out of the workshop. Conversation now became general. "Whose swan have you been shooting, Johnny ? " asked one. "No one's," replied Thomas, with emphasis. locul ^ fT " e ~ a Cygnet! " feplied his inter - ocutar "And you orter know better, at your time of We, kdhng people's property. Why, you'll be shoot . ing cows on a mesh directly." '< Wh ? Ut a y U C Uld Wt '" retorted . Whos to know a tame swan from a wild 'un on the wing, specially in a snow-squall ? " "I reckon if the owner was to see that bird another ^ * ^ Sh P> y U>d gt ] Cked U P ! " said l"- a u" SWered J hnny Th mas ' alias Pin - that ,f it hev neither -nicks' nor other private ' Harvey was notorious for the excuse that rare birds left w,th h,m to preserve, had been eaten in his absence by he ca f and there ,s no doubt that numerous collections in and beyond the county profited, as he himself certainly did, by this tncry 138 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS marks on its bill or legs the owner might swear till he's blue to the back of his neck, and then not convince a judge it's his." " What is the law on swan-shooting ? " queried Crowther. "The law," replied the Admiral, "as defined forty years ago by one of our magistrates, when dealing with a fellow who shot three of Butterfield's tame ducks, is very complex. Dick Hammond, the magistrate, asked the defendant where he shot the ducks. " ' On the marsh, your worship, where folks from time immemorial have gone " flighting." ' " ' Were they flying ? ' asked the J.P. " ' No, your worship,' said he, honestly enough ; 4 they were bibbling in the reeds, half a mile away from anywhere/ " * Queer place to feed,' said Hammond. ' I must fine you just as if you'd shot a straying cow or hen. Had they been flying I should have taken a different view of the matter.' >! "The same thing might apply to swans," said Dye, "and I'd shoot a flying swan to-morrow if I had the chance, and for that matter, even if it were bibbling in the mud on Breydon." "What about parrots, Wigg? " asked a joker. " Parrots, ah ! " replied Wigg. " What's that about parrots ? " questioned the Admiral. "Oh," said the little shore-gunner, "I was up one day by the big rond, about two miles up Breydon walls, hidden behind a pile of swills (fish baskets). I 'PUBLIC' AFFAIRS 139 was laying in wait for some grey plover as were working towards me, when all on a sudden " ' Hallo ! ' says somebody. "'Hallo!' says I, peering round; 'how you startled me ! ' But I could see no one. " ' It's cold/ said the voice. " ' Good lord, so it is,' I says. ' But where are you ? ' " ' Go to blazes and be tarred ! ' replied something or somebody ; and then I begins to get my dander up. " ' I'll blaze you if you ain't a-going, whoever you are,' says I ; and then, 'strue as I'm alive ! up jumped a green parrot off the top swill behind me ! " ' Ha ! ha ! ha ! ' laughed the cheeky bird ; and before I could check myself I'd let fly, damaging its wing. " ' I'll teach you to cheek a man ! ' I remember saying, for I was sorter annoyed, though I felt a fool after I'd wounded the poor thing. I never found out who it belonged to, and as I wasn't very proud of being fooled, I never made many inquiries." " I suppose you sent a note about it to the scientific papers as a new species of British bird ! " remarked the Admiral. " No, I didn't," snapped Wigg. "Like Quinton did," suggested Beckett. "He's a don hand at adding new birds to the list." " Shaft-tailed Whydah birds," remarked Dye, on which the company laughed, for it was well known that Quinton had on one occasion shot a bird of this species as it flew along the north beach. Feeling sure that no such bird had ever before been obtained 140 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS on our coasts, he took train to Norwich, and waited upon a leading county naturalist, who very soon satisfied him that no value was attached to this undoubted " escape." " What's the rummest thing you ever saw on Breydon ? " asked the loquacious Admiral. " Me?" asked Wigg. " You, and no other," replied this suave individual. "Well," he answered, "I believe it was somewhere about thirty years ago, 1 when I was up Breydon walls, that I passed ' Brusher ' Broom and ' Putty ' Westgate (a well-known painter and gunner at that time) sound asleep on the grassy slope of the walls, when a couple of lasge, dark-coloured eagles came sailin' around. I passed on, but lookin' back I see one of them circling above them chaps. Thinks I, it's a rummon if they don't swoop down one on 'em anyway and I felt half scared, I can tell you, and hollered out. But all on a sudden, up jumps * Brusher/ and lets fly at the nearest bird, which wheeled round, flew to one of the stakes in the channel, and started pickin' itself as if scratching or biting at where, no doubt, some shot had stung it. They wouldn't be expectin' to meet with anything so large, and so hadn't big enough shot to cripple an eagle." " I heard of a pair of eagles when I lived at Horsey," volunteered a spare-built man, named 1 I myself saw an eagle pass over from sea towards Breydon one morning in the autumn of 1879 (see Nature in Eastern Norfolk, pp. 160-61). Broom himself confirmed the story above related. 'PUBLIC' AFFAIRS 141 Harwood, who had been an intent listener, "they played a rare game with our rabbits." His father had been gamekeeper and warrener there. " I'm now speakin' of when I was a boy in '57. My father had shot a stoat and laid it on a rail, and coming back after his rounds, went to pick it up, and it was gone. He swore one of them eagles had carried it away. They never gave him a chance to shoot them, but I believe they were shot afterwards at Winterton or Hemsby, on the warren there." " Stoats are queer things to tackle alive," remarked the Admiral, turning to Harwood. " They weren't any too scarce," replied Harwood, " on our warren ; and polecats hadn't all been mopped out. As to tackling them alive, I don't remember much about that. We left the warren before I was ten. I know my father used to trouble very little about either ; and sometimes I had to crawl into the deeper and bigger rabbit holes to nab rabbits by the leg, which I handed out to him. Then father would seize me by the legs and pull me out. " I remember once," he went on, " when I was nine, being asked by my mother to get her enough polecats, which were scarce then, to make her a tippet. 1 I dug a hole in the side of a sand-hill, then getting the insides (entrails) of a rabbit on a 1 When this warrener's family removed to Yarmouth, Harwood's father hired a market garden, and Mrs. Harwood " sat" the market with rabbits every Saturday. I distinctly remember the old lady wearing the identical " tippet " round her neck, but whether it was really stoat or polecat fur I do not remember. H2 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS stick, I trailed them all round for at least a hundred yards, focussing the "scent" right up to this hole. Then I stuck the giblets with a big skewer into the bank, burying a steel-fall below it, and left it. In a week I got six polecats. We dressed the skins, and mother wore the tippet for years. "Father wasn't altogether wise, I should say," went on Harwood, " over my rabbit catching : for I once put my arm down a hole to try and reach a wheatear's nest, and laid hold of a viper by mistake." " I hold," said Beckett, laying down his plane, and putting some pieces of coke upon the fire, "there's a lot too much of that adding of new species, without sufficient evidence." He was hark- ing back to the Whydah episode. " So say I," remarked Dye ; " I don't believe so much in this dividing and sub-dividing of species. No doubt a cole-tit or a starling may differ slightly in wide areas, say half across a continent ; but a cole-tit is a cole-tit, even if you call one species a Par us ater and another Par us britannicus" "You're right, Ben," broke in the Admiral, "I don't see that gradual variations, however wide a gap you may make between them, are really and justly entitled to so-called specific distinctions. I suppose every bird-man has an ambition to shine in some way or other, however feeble the twinkle of his star. A few men have greatness thrust upon them, but the majority break their necks, so to speak, in grabbing for the shadow of it, don't they Pintail ? " digging his thumb into the ribs of the little punt- 'PUBLIC' AFFAIRS 143 " So you say," replied Thomas. At that moment Whiley entered the workshop, and at once made himself at home. "You know something about swans," said the Admiral, and he repeated the opinions that had been expressed concerning the lawfulness of shooting swans. " I don't see," said Whiley, " how the law could touch any one, at any rate miles away from where tame swans breed. You know it's generally young ones as wander : the old ones know well enough where grub is always to be had, and they prefer to stop at home. The funny thing about it is that they hardly ever stray except in weather what's bad enough to drive whoopers and Bewicks hereabouts. You've heard the swan song, what they used ter sing ? " " No ! no ! " came from one and another of the assembly. "Let's hear it, if you know it." And so insistent became the demand, that Whiley yielded. After one or two false starts, he sang the quaint ballad-like verses in a droning voice that was neither a treble nor an alto. Come all you young sportsmen, Who carry a gun, I will have you get home, By the light of the sun ; Don't you be like young Jamie who was fowling alone When he shot his own true love in the room of a swan. Then home comes young Jamie With his dog and gun, Saying " Uncle, oh ! uncle, Do you know what I've done ? Consume that old gunsmith that made me this gun, I have shot my own true love in the place of a swan." 144 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS Then up starts his uncle, With his locks so grey, Saying " Jamie, oh ! Jamie, Do you not run away ; Don't you leave your own country till your trial come on, You ne'er shall be hanged for shooting a swan." When the trial came on Pretty Polly appeared, Saying " Uncle, oh ! uncle, Let my Jamie go clear ; For my apron was bound round me when he took me for a swan, And his heart now lay bleeding for Polly his own." " Bravo ! " ANXIOUS MOMENTS WHIMBREL CHAPTER IV SHALLOW WATERS " Oh, life is a river, and man is the boat That over its surface is destined to float ; While joy is a cargo so easily stored, That he is a fool who takes sorrow aboard." JEFFREYS A HOUSE-BOAT ' CONFAB ' A^ESTERDAY (March 29th, 1908) the wind blew stiffly from the nor'ard, and Breydon fretted itself, flinging spume and choppy waves, thick with silt, against the southern flint-lined wall. During 146 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS the afternoon black-headed gulls in some numbers had merrily fished the channel for floating food that had been thrown out of the shrimp-boats or carried out of the sewers. Towards sunset there was calm, and the waters became as placid as in midsummer. The temptation to spend a night with Jary in the watch-boat was not to be resisted, so, throwing into the punt a couple of blankets and a basket of eatables, I paddled upstream on the last of the flood-tide. By this time the blackheads had retired to the flats ; the majority of the some two thousand birds were there, preening their feathers and gossiping ; those few that seemed still to be hungry were worm- ing at the edge of the flats. How these birds so readily detect a red ragvvorm in the soft ooze passes my comprehension. Not the slightest movement as of a worm working is to be detected by human eye, although, by looking carefully, you see here and there small round holes, as if bored by a thick needle. It is a rare thing to find the occupant at the surface. At least, that is my experience. Yet with definite thrust the keen-eyed gull, which may possess micro- scopic powers of sight, grabs at something, and out comes a worm as sure as fate. You may observe the gulls stop suddenly in their flight, drop lightly on to the shallow water, seize a worm, and with a quick, gentle tug, haul it out, in some cases swallowing it inch by inch as it comes out Some of the ragworms appear to be drawn out to quite four inches in length. Why these gulls should have been absent from their nesting quarters, or whether they were males SHALLOW WATERS 147 off duty from the nest, I cannot say ; for the black- headed gull should be "at home" by the second week in March, and eggs are laid by the middle of the month. Their breeding haunts were within an hour's easy flight of Breydon ; but they remained with us all night, and had not gone home when I rowed back to Yarmouth in the morning. There was quite a mustering of redshanks, the male birds " clicking " as if it were already nesting- time, and uttering a variety of calls betokening pleasure, satisfaction, and caution. One large parcel of ringed plovers, among which were a couple of knots, flew around, probably for the pleasure of the exercise. A few scattered herons were faring badly ; and I have no doubt that they spent the night hungry ; eels as yet were not much in evidence, and flounders were very scarce. At intervals the muscial smee-ou of the wigeon mustering on the flats near the " Fleet " water was heard. Night came on cloudless, and the stars, big and brilliant, were reflected distinctly in the depths of the dark waters. A long glowing line of light hung low over the distant town, and stronger lights twinkled here and there below, some of them being also reflected by the waters of Breydon. "Seen anything of 'Peg-leg' up here lately?" I asked Jary. " No," replied he, " I hear his leg's in a bad way reg'lar worm-eaten, and he can't either get about or get a new 'un," and he laughed heartily, tickled by the joke. I had found him busily engaged in cutting out floats for his new smelt net, using a razor blade 148 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS lashed on to a stout handle whittled from a bit of firewood. The floats were being fashioned from the derelict floats that drifted up to Breydon during the herring fishery: he had accumulated a sackful in the course of the season. "Peg-leg" is an old man-o'-war pensioner who had lost a leg. As soon as he could manage to get back to Breydon, he returned to his old-time haunts on river and tide-way, adding to his small regular income a varying additional sum by eel-babbing and picking. He and his small open boat seem part and parcel of each other ; I never remember seeing him standing up in it, and it is just possible that had he done so he would have scuttled it with his wooden leg. The stump of his leg had been inserted in a cup- like structure, with a screw-hole in the end of it. The additional "peg" was renewed from time to time as the old one wore up or was broken by use or accident. "Peg-leg" has his own peculiar methods of embarking and changing his position in the boat ; but he prefers to keep them secret. When once afloat, he seldom moves from one position, either to row or to fish. "You've heard about him settin' fire to his leg once, h'ain't you, Pattson ? " asked Jary, smiling. I pleaded ignorance. "Well," said he, "he goes home one night after he'd just got his pension, and he sits afore the fire, cogitatin'-like. The fire didn't burn exactly to his likin', so he uses his peg for a poker, as he'd often done afore. It happens he was gettin' drowsy, and SHALLOW WATERS 149 also that his toe gets fast between the bars. A smell of burning wakes the old woman ; she roused the house up, and comes floppin' downstairs, to find him sound asleep, and the leg smoulderin' well up the stick ! " It was the butt-end now that had gone, Jary said, : had succumbed to the attacks of worms. "Peg- leg " is the most optimistic eel-fisherman I ever knew ; [ never saw him with a greater catch than seven pounds of eels, but from the way in which he would describe the "whoppers" and "monsters" and "clinkers" that kept biting, you might imagine he was filling his boat. It is quite a usual thing for another fisherman to vary the monotony of a night's fishing by asking the size and weight of the eel he (Peg-leg) had just lost. "I've got some beauties round about," he would reply, "but they 'ont hang !" Chatting of wooden legs reminded me of one eccentric character who frequented Breydon until the early seventies. I never knew him by any other name or nickname, than "The One-legged Stint," from his misfortune of possessing one sound leg only, and another as brittle and rigid as "Peg-leg's." There were other Stints'' little and big in the family who beasted at least a respectable Christian name. " One- legged Stint" was keen after birds and reckless in his methods. One day he laid at a bunch of curlews and killed several;, then, forgetting the risks he ran, he sprang out of the boat, and tried to stump across the flat to retrieve them. He had not proceeded many steps before his wooden-leg disappeared up to the ISO MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS stump in ooze, throwing him off his balance, and placing him in an awkward predicament. There was nothing for it but to throw himself on his back in the mud, and yell at the top of his voice for help, which, fortunately, was not long in coming. Jary grumbled about the way eels had fallen off in late years, thanks to the carbolic acid and sewage which polluted these lower waters. He had had some good hauls at times, but only at irregular intervals. " My largest catch ? " he queried. " Well, I got that at South Walsham a few years ago, on the 2ist and 22nd of May, when the bream and other fresh-water fishes were * rouding ' (spawning). These first two nights of spawning fairly roused up the eels, which bit at anything. I made a rattling good haul. After that they were so full of ova that they went off feed so far as worms and babs was concerned. The bream crowded so into the reeds to spawn, that I got hold of three simply by dropping naked hooks in amongst them, and jerkin' 'em into them. " How did I cook them ? Well, I skinned 'em, flaked off each side, and fried 'em ; and ripping tack they wor." "Swans," Jary went on, "are awful fond of ova and gobble it up with gusto ; so will tame ducks, which seem to know when spawning time comes on. My eel-pots and nets have been smothered with the slimy stuff, when I've laid up the rivers, and they took some getting clean. " Swans are rum things, I can tell you. I know'd B get into a rare muddle with an old he-bird. B had taken a fancy to a fine cygnet in a brood of SHALLOW WATERS 151 little 'uns a nice duck-size little chap thinking it would make him a decent dinner. He caught it, but the old 'un came at him like a steam-engine, and do what he would he couldn't beat it off. The swan actually started climbing up the stern of the boat, and certainly would have managed to get in if B hadn't thought it time to come to terms. So he hulled (threw) the cygnet overboard, and while the old 'un was assuring itself that it was all right, he rowed away as fast as his oars could take him. Swans are funny old nuts to crack, 'specially when they're in a bad temper." " Hallo ! you there ! " " What O ! " said Jary, opening the door of the houseboat. " What's up, old Short'un ? " " Nothin' pertickler," said Short'un Page, hitching his painter to the ringle at the stern of the houseboat. " Only can you give us a match, for I've got my blessed pipe, and every bloomin' match gone. I hadn't only two in the box when I first lit up." We got Short'un inside, and Jary poured out for him a cup of mahogany-coloured tea, which he drank almost at a draught "Not much doin'," went on Short'un, "fare as if there's nothin' stirrin'. What's come to the blessed eels goodness only knows." " You've given up smelting ? " I queried. " Yes, bor, yes ! I'm gettin' old and good-for- nothin'. I was obliged to give it up. I couldn't hold the net, it got too much for me ; besides I got so giddy I was allers afeard of pitchin' in hid first. So I've hired this old boat (a veritable wash-trough it was ! ) 152 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS off ' Clamps ', and I'm tryin' to do a bit of babbin' : I can't live on parish allowance." " We were talking of swans," I remarked. " Swans ! " he jibed in " I like swans' eggs, when they're to be got easy. I once found no less than five wind-eggs lash-eggs, you know, without shells on 'em layin' in shallow water up the Norwich river. I fished 'em out, sosh-ways, with the eel-pick, and it took a bit of doin'. I afterwards eat 'em." " Liked them ? " " Liked 'em ? I should just say I did. Why, one of 'em, and a bit of steak fried with it, filled the pan and me too ! " And he chuckled over the recollection. " I could jist do with one now this minnit ! " " Swans are fond of bream spawn, aren't they ? " I asked. " Rather," replied the old man ; " so's eels, Lor' bliss you, yes, you can't get them away from it. Old Snicker 'an me have bin workin' up the rivers right among the ' spawnin' ' roach, and perch, and bream ; all choose their own partic'lar places. I've seen the spawn hangin' like curtains (festoons) on the reeds, and heer'd the eels suckin' on it down. You could see the reeds all a-work with eels. I once stuck in my pick down below among the reeds, flat-ways, you know, not upright, and I brought up at one stroke thirteen eels as thick as your finger six and seven to the pound size. Eels die very quickly at that time, if you cut 'em with the pick above the navel (vent) ; spawn fare to spile 'em and reg'lar rot 'em. "Big catches of eels? Well, bor, you've got to go well up the rivers for 'em nowadays, and then it SHALLOW WATERS 153 ain't like what it wor. The best catch I ever know'd of? Well, that was in May, 1896, when old ' Bugles ' and 'Sharper' got right in among 'em at South Walsham Broad ; they took seventeen stone of eels, gettin' a 7 cheque from London for 'em. " Bite ! ah ! It's a treat to feel 'em when they're properly on the chuck ; you feel it right up the string through the stick, sorter electrifying you. Old Crowther used ter say as how the biting of a nice eel at a bab was a ' lovely sensation.' I liked the sensa- tion of seem' it a scrigglin' in the boat ; then I know'd I'd got him ! " What's that ? Who's shootin' ? " he asked, whilst refilling his pipe, preparatory to going. " I expect that's Fred Clarke," said Jary, " killin' rats over by his houseboat. He's been troubled a bit with 'em lately. He baits 'em for a night or two, and marks the spot ; he can hear when they're squakin', for they haggle for a bit of herrin'. He killed four the 'tother night." "Rats! ah, the varmin!" exclaimed Short' un. " I 'member once layin' in my houseboat at Reed- ham, when I found I'd got a fam'ly of rats aboard. They reg'lar run'd over me a-nights, and played the dowst with my wittels. So I got a chap with a ferret to see if he couldn't settle 'em. Blow my skin ! if they didn't skeddadle one arter the 'tother out through the fore part of the boat, over the moorin' rope and up the pilin's of the bridge. Every blessed one of 'em escaped. But so long as they wor gone I didn't care so much. I bunged up the hole so they didn't get in ag'in, besides shifting my moorin's. 154 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS And when we comes to overhaulin' the boat I found in the lockers and under the floor-boards three bushels of mushel-shells clean and picked as if biled. They'd taken the mushels in when I laid on Breydon picked 'em up off the flats at low-water. But I must be a-goin'. Good night, both on ye." " Good night, Short'un ! " " Good night . . . ! " Jary and I sat chatting long after tea, while he completed his task of float- making. We discussed various subjects interesting to both of us. Otters, rats, herons, eels, wildfowl, and man. At ten o'clock, when I took a last look out, the darkness shut out all the town-lights and the stars. The only sound to be heard was the mellow " Smee-ou " of a sentinel wigeon that was keeping watch while his companions dozed or fed. " I don't like the feel of the air," said Jary, " there's a change comin'." In the morning, at 5.45 a.m., I opened the house- boat door and looked out The sun had risen with a glaring, watery eye, above a purple horizon. "Look at those mock suns!" I said to Jary. Two circular spots, the parhelia of scientists, bore the sun company, one on either side of him. They looked like two magnificent glass marbles, with irides- cent blotchings, for all the world like circular discs stamped out of a rainbow. The sun looked about as big as a large barrel-head ; the dogs were each about a fourth of that size. " Lor', bor ! " said he, " they're sun dogs, and a sure sign of weather a-comin'." "Weather ? " I queried" w/iat weather ? " i $6 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS "There'll be some weather afore night," he replied sagely, " I've seen them afore." He was not far out in his prophecy, for it blew pretty stiffly in the afternoon, and rained heavily at night. AMONG THE SMELTS " Snicker " Larn and his new smelting chum, " Buck " Smith, were carefully taking down their net from some spikes that for years had been stuck in the railway fencing at the entrance of the Bure. The prudent fisher was always careful of his nets ; and just as the herring-fisher spreads his " fleet " upon the sand-dunes in order to dry out the salt sea water, so the smelter, when opportunity offers, expands his saturated net to the sun and wind. " Ah, bor," said Snicker, " we get our livin' by our nets, and we'd need be kind to 'em. They ain't made for nothin', for the * sheet ' (the net proper) cost us 3 los. athowt (without) the leads and ropes and that, though they ain't a great deal, becos we can use 'em for the next. We get the net part ready made ; that come from Scotland. I hev a mould and cast my own leads ; and we get plenty of floats, hulled or dropped from the herrin' luggers, what we can carve out for ours. We used ter braid our own nets in the old days, and we allers carry a needle to mend up a rent." Whilst talking, the two smelters had been folding the net carefully on a wet sack on the stern sheets of the smelt-boat. SHALLOW WATERS 157 " It run off easier," volunteered Snicker, " and ain't so liable to chafe when payin* out." "What's the depth of it?" " Six-score mesh," he replied ; " about seven feet." There was very little to be stowed under the thwarts ; for these hardy fellows work for hours with- out food, being quite content with a good supply of tobacco and a bottle of strong tea. Spirits they prefer to go without, as they do another favourite beverage, until a leisure hour comes round. "You'd better jump in," said Larn, "we shall be back by about tea-time." Less than an hour's steady pulling brought us to the end of Duffell's drain, where we made fast in order to await the first of the ebb, the intentions of the crew being to work down stream with the falling tide. The ebb tide is preferred by the smelters to the flood, for they believe that the smelts " come up " on the flood and work down into the deeper waters with the ebb. " Besides," they say, " the water ain't so sheer," a fact evident to any one ; for the rush of water from the flats brings with it a good deal of ooze, which " thickens" the water. " Smelts is that sharp-sighted," said Snicker, " they can see you in sheer water like a pound roach, and '11 reg'lar spring away from the sight o' you. They're wonderful nervous. Then a ebb-tide gives you more force to work the net along. My net is gettin' a bit tender ; I've had it pritty nigh three year. Two years '11 spile a net on onkind ground." While Snicker was imparting this information, he was fastening the trammel sticks to the ends of the 158 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS net, the ends being only about half as deep as the rest of the net. Trammels are stoutish poles a yard in length, with a lump of lead on the lower ends. To them are attached bridle ropes, which, with the stick, make triangles. To the apex of each triangle the draught lines are fastened. Where the draught lines are attached, a flint stone is usually tied also to weight them. The net is a simple engine of destruc- tion a small edition of the well-known seine-net. " We 'ont start yet," said Snicker, " the tide ha' hardly done. Lor, smeltin' ain't nothin' like what it wor, though I'll allow some on 'em light lucky even in these sorter wore-out times. But I get sick of grumblin'. Fare to me you may do nothin' else." " What's the best time for 'em ? " I asked. " Why, in April and May we get our best catches ; we look to earn money by the middle of April. Then September agin ain't a bad season. Smelts go up- river to spawn the first part of April, and come back the latter part of May : that's when you get yer finest fish real beauties, some on 'em. Small ones fare to hang about in and out from sea in August, though they don't fare to go up much above brackish waters. Then we get little titty ones like stanickles (though we only catch 'em like by accident, amon' the weeds) right down to November and December; them I reckon are this year's brood. Eels '11 smoke into 'em ; so '11 pike. January's a rotten month for 'em. " Last spring (1908) wor an awful one. Half a dozen smelts, offen only four, didn't pay for the slight of the net, let alone at dividin' up time. Fifty SHALLOW WATERS 159 year, a'most to a day, I ha' follered smeltin' up here, and never know'd things wuss. 1 " Smelts is pretty fish ; and sharp as needles ; they'll jump out arter whitebait, like hawks arter sparrows. I ha* had 'em land on the floor of the boat. They sune die ; jist garp a time or two, and do a little floppin', and theer you are dead, and scarce a scale awryed. Pretty they smell, too, don't they ? jist like rale cucumbers. They'll gill theerselves in the meshes and drown'd afore you get the net out. Some'll drop out dead, afore you get the bight of the net in. I ha' seen crabs grabbin' hold of 'em as the net cum in. Seen theer tails bit off, and eyes grubbed out, and theer innerds out all done by them beggarin' crabs in the fifteen minutes it take to draw the net round and ashore. I think we'll make the first draught." " Buck " jumped out of the boat on to the mud over which barely two inches of water trickled towards the " drain " taking with him the shore-end of the draught rope, " Snicker " rowing across to the opposite side, and then down-stream, the net sliding off gently into the water, righting itself as the leads carried the under side of it downwards. The long line of small cork floats (each the size of a lunch biscuit, but much thicker) bobbed along on the surface. Down-stream for a full five hundred yards 1 It is the amateur fisherman who revels in the narrative of his big catches ; the professional never does more than " middlin'," if so well as that ; but 1908 was the worst spring and summer on record. 160 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS Larn slowly rowed and then turned in. " Buck " meantime had been plodding along in the soft ooze. The net now made a half-circle, and Larn kept hauling it in, hand over hand, keeping the bottom on the mud and curved inward, so that no fish could escape. " Look like gettin' a few," said " Snicker " cheer- fully. We could see quite a score smelts enfolded in the meshes, as the fishermen dropped yard by yard of the net into an increasing pile. Shore crabs came in, kicking and entangled ; now and then a flounder or a blenny could be seen enmeshed, not to mention whitebait (young herrings) that squirmed through the meshes, leaving behind them a few tiny bright scales, that hung to the cotton. A number of them were helplessly entangled in the weed that to the hideous accompaniment of discordant syrens and clamorous hooters. The scene at the fish-wharf on a busy day, from sunrise to sunset, and after, is an animated one. Out at sea the waves may be flinging up weeds amid the foam, but in the harbour this is forgotten as the high- funnelled, rust-speckled vessels push their way up to their berths at the quayside. The fish- market is full of bustle and excitement. Brawny and begrimed fishermen shovel the glistening heaps of herrings into handy "maunds," scale-speckled fishermen haul at the derricks, and pass on the maunds to oily-clad fishermen ashore ; and rows upon rows of " swills " down the whole length of the wharf and quays are A HARVEST OF THE SEA 289 filled up with the harvest of the sea. Only a few years ago hosts of tellers " lined the quaysides, ready o jump aboard each incoming boat to count the herrings warp by warp, until the full tale of every last on board was -told." This work was a boon to hordes of unskilled labourers. But the evil day came when the Scotch method of cranning," or judging fish by measure instead of by numbering, superseded the slower and more expensive method. As a writer once said, " The Scotchman saves time by averaging his fish. He also saves money." It was inevitable that sooner or later his English rival, more speculative and enterprising in the matter of using steam power, should follow suit. When the fish have been landed there is heard the clangour of bells and the babble of many voices. f Buy ! buy ! buy ! " shout the auctioneers. " Hurry up ! " bawl the fish-buyers to their carters and fisher- girls. All day long on busy days the rattle and rumble of carts goes on as they hasten away with their loads of ten swills or twenty crans a full half- last of salt or fresh or overday herrings, as" the case may be. What a glut of herrings means one cannot fully describe to the reader. I shall never forget the record catch, which occurred on the eve of October 2 1st, 1907. On the 22nd the boats raced in, laden to excess; there had never been such a miraculous "strike" of herrings. The oldest herring folk described it tersely as a "staggerer." There was piled up along two and a half miles of quays a solid bank of herringsfrom the Haven bridge right down 2QO MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS to the mouth of the river, the air was laden all day, and for days after, with the odour of herrings. The boats brought them in by the million, from early dawn till the close of day, and when night came on the boats were still crowding in. Those that were fortunate enough to get a berth, lay moored end-on to the quays ; while boat after boat, deeply laden, tried to force their way in between them or took up places in the rear, waiting for the opening of the slightest gap in the solid phalanx of craft. The nets had been so heavily struck that they filled almost at once with fish : the top catch reported was two hundred and thirty crans. Fish salesmen could only dispose of such catches as were landed on the quays. Prices naturally ruled low, and from twelve shillings per cran in the morning, they speedily fell to six, and then to three. There were no idlers that day ; every man that could lift a swill, every horse that could pull a cart was requisitioned, and proper meals were unthought of. It was unfortunate that the weather was very fine, a bright sun and clear sky being bad for a glut of herrings, which do best under opposite conditions, and are the better for a keen air. Of salt there was soon a dearth, for such an invasion had been undreamt of. I well remember pushing my way through the reeking mass of fish and humanity, squeezing between the piled up " swills " (baskets), and slipping and slopping amid the ooze that besmeared the stones. Men and horses were at it until they nearly dropped with exhaustion ; the men worked day and night ; their poor beasts dozed in the A HARVEST OF THE SEA 291 shafts while the carts were loaded at the wharf and quays or unloaded at the fish houses. The wretched animals hung their heads as they ran ; they shambled for want of rest. The strangest of vehicles were requisitioned to remove the fish from the wharves ; and even then the carrying power was utterly unable to cope with the catch. Train loads of salt were fran- tically wired for. It was the fish-buyers' opportunity ; the previous year they had done badly, whilst the fishermen had made big sums. The sight at night on the denes between the river and the sea, was a striking one, as it is on any busy night or ordinary day. Highland lasses, bare headed and bare armed, stood around their troughs on the pickling plots in the glare of flaring naptha lamps, working their hardest, and lightening their by no means easy toil by singing quaint songs and hymns. Many of the boats failed in landing their catches at all they could not even get into harbour with them, and many loads of fish were thrown back into the sea. Much more might be written about the great herring harvest, and those who labour in it. Some of the changes that have taken place have already been noted. The superseding of the wooden sailers by the iron steamers, resulted in the shipyards, that found employment to hundreds of men, becoming idle, while engineering sheds have arisen like gigantic mushrooms. The artificer in iron and steel has ousted the shipwright, the spinner of ropes, and the rigger. The lofts of the sail-makers are forsaken. The beachmen disappeared ; and last of all the teller the last hanger-on to the old methods. 292 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS The clear skies that smiled down on the fleet at home are now obscured by coal smoke ; and the smoke- cure, although still largely pursued, is a small affair compared with the barreling of salted herrings. The cooper, who twenty years ago was an obscure worker, is now a busy man. A striking feature of the herring season are the Scotch lassies, who every year come in train loads from Aberdeen, Wick, and even far away Shetlands and other Scottish Isles ; they come in their thou- sands. The old steady typical Scotch fisherman, whose good behaviour moralists used to enlarge upon to our east coast fisherman's disadvantage, comes no longer alone, for the steamboats ship engineers, stokers, and others, whose training may have been in the Glasgow slums. The coopers generally are not a blameless race. All too many of them love their whisky, and indulge too freely in the vile liquors pro- vided especially for their use during the herring fishing. The great majority of the men and lasses, how- ever, behave well ; their services on the wharf and in the local chapels are hearty and decorous ; their conduct when the boats are kept in by rough weather, or late unlading, is beyond reproach. On Saturday nights the lasses, bare headed, but wearing their best skirts, perambulate the streets in their com- panies, while the stolid-faced men, with hands deep in pockets, stroll idly up and down, talking in Gaelic or some northern dialect understood only by them- selves. On other idle nights and workless afternoons, the lasses roam about with their knitting needles busy and their tongues busier still. A HARVEST OF THE SEA 293 THE CURING OF THE HERRINGS A "fresh" herring, newly captured and landed, should be stiff, well scaled, and without the slightest tinge of red between the eyes and the gill-covers. The uninitiated may be misled by this infusion of blood which follows on "death by suffocation," from which the creature really expires ; but this does not really obtain until some hours after decease. Than a plump herring, fresh from the sea, packed firmly with roe, and fat with its native juices, no sweeter morsel can be placed in a fry-pan and fried to a rich brown ; not even the mackerel can beat it. To add to its appearance, and to improve its cooking, the sides should be slightly " scored " (cut), and the beef dripping should be of the very best. But there are few people outside a fishing town by whom the luxury can be enjoyed ; for the herring is frail, although lending itself to several methods of smoke and pickle-curing. Real Yarmouth Bloaters have a world-wide fame, and are unsurpassed by any imitations which may be cured outside the herring metropolis. The following methods of herring cure are pursued ; and herring-curing forms a not inconsider- able item in the economy of a huge industry. A considerable acreage of the outskirts of Yarmouth consists of fish-yards, curing-sheds and smoke-houses, and a fish-house, in full going order, is a hive of industry. In many of the narrow "Rows" ancient curing-houses, where long past generations of 294 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS Yarmouthians conjured with the herring, still exist ; horses and barrow-carts rattle up and down them now, as did horses and troll-carts in the days of Queen Elizabeth. In the fishing season the south part of the town lies under a fog of wood smoke, reeking with the aroma of smoking fish in every stage of their cure. Not long ago, afish-curer named Jerrard sat in an armchair by my fireside. Quite a " character " is this merry, hard-working fellow, who, in the days when the fish- houses are comparatively idle, earns a scanty livelihood by perambulating the streets with a barrow of trawl fish. 1 " Now then, Jerrard," I said, " chop your sentences short, and modulate your voice. Gesticulate as much as you like, but keep away from those vases." "Very well," said he, "tell us how to begin and what you really want to know." " Well, first of all tell me how you help to turn a fresh herring into a bloater," I replied. " Very good," he remarked, with a sort of Parisian flourish of both hands, " I'll tell you. As soon as we get the fresh herrin's, say a last of 'em that's two loads of ten swills each ten crans, as they'd say to-day we shoot them out of the swills on to the floor (of brick or concrete). For bloaters, we slightly salt 'em, sprinklin' and mixin' about a quarter ton of bay salt. (Sea salt). We let 'em remain there about thirty hours. You don't need to turn the fish about durin' that time for bloaters. We then pump the ' vat,' 1 Jerrard has been one of my most devoted and industrious " fish-curio " collectors. A HARVEST OF THE SEA 295 a very large half-shaped tub, full of fresh well-water. One man stands at the vat with a ' maund ' (a round basket of rather open vertical wicker work), and another shovels (with a great wooden shovel) the herrin's into it. Then they are well rinsed, after which they are shot into a trow " " Trough ? " I said. " Yes ! a trow t-r-o-w," said Jerrard, spelling it. " But that is near enough. Six women we call ' rivers ' (the accent on the ' i ') then ' rive ' the herrin's on ash sticks ' speets ' we call 'em what hold from twenty- five to thirty. They shove the sharp end of the ' speet ' (spit) through under the right gill (gill cover) bringing it out at the mouth ; you see, they hold the herrin' with the back to the hand. You may see fifty million of herrin's smoked and not one ' rove ' wrong. Directly a ' speet ' is filled it is hung on a ' hoss,' a stand with arms projecting, to drain, and as sune as it is filled, the first one hung on is handed by women to the chaps in the Moves.' The 'loves/ you know, are the cross-beams in the smoke-house, what reach from about eight feet from the floor to the roof. Three men generally stand straddle-leg athort from ' love ' to ' love ' handin' 'em up ; the top man is the ' hanger.' Some ' rooms ' will hold a last and a quarter (pritty nigh seventeen thousand herrin's) ; and some fish-houses have three smoke- rooms, or even more. There they hang twelve hours, only oak billets bein' used; you may say they're hung in the evenin' and ' struck' (taken down) in the mornin'. These are packed into boxes for London, Antwerp, and country orders. 296 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS "These boxes hold fifty herrin's. We mostly make 'em in slack times, gettin' from ninepence to a shillin' a hundred boxes." " That's the bloater" said I ; " now the " Well, the next," snapped Jerrard, in a pert sort of way, " is Light Reds. If we handle fresh herrin's for 'em, we let 'em lay in salt three or four days. If already salted, say four days salted, we get on with 'em at once ; and then smoke 'em from ten to twelve days. As ' selected milds ' we pack 'em in boxes of fifty and send 'em to London for home use or for exportation. "Now you come to Salted Reds. These are October herrin's and hang for long keepin'. They lay three weeks in salt, and hang for two or three months. They are packed in barrels of 250 to 500, pressed in a screw press, headed down, and sold for London or country orders. These herrin's '11 keep good for a couple of years if kept dry. " Let me see," said Jerrard, scratching his half- bald pate, " exports next. These are rough, cheap fish. Perhaps we get in six, or even a half score, lasts ; we hull 'em on the floor together, makin' one big ' cob ' ; and there they lay for a month or six weeks. Then they're washed, and hung for two or three days, packed in barrels, and sent abroad. Next to them we have the pickle-cured. These are bought fresh, put into vats (huge cemented storage vats sunk in the floors of certain of the houses) ; salt is thrown over 'em, and they lay and make their own pickle, lyin' there three or four weeks. They are then taken out and barrelled ; some bein' gutted, and some not, accord in' to order. A HARVEST OF THE SEA 297 " Gutted herrin's," went on my pedagogue, " go through the hands of the Scotch gals and the women generally. They are thrown into troughs, slightly salted, and picked up one by one and the gills and entrails jerked out well, like the wink of yer eye, in a manner of speakin'. The gutted herrin's are then packed with plenty of salt in barrels, holdin' roughly, from 500 to 1000 fish. Coopers head them down, and Scotch gals fill 'em up with liquid brine, pourin' it out of a can through a funnel into a hole bored in the lid. The hole is plugged ' spiked down ' we call it and the barrels are put aboard-ship and sent to Russia and all over Europe. I've heerd say they turn the herrin's out solid, like cheese, and sell 'em in junks, and people eat 'em raw." " Now tell me about the kippers," I said. "Well, we use fresh herrin's; women split' em down the backs, take all the innerds out, put 'em in brine for twenty minutes, and hang 'em, tail down- wards, on narrow ' baulks ' on tenter hooks. They're then hung on the ' hoss ' to drain for about twenty minutes, passed up into the 'loves' and smoked for about ten hours over oak-dust and shruff, or any- thing that make plenty of smoke, but has no resin in it. Packed in boxes of from thirty to forty pairs, they are sent to Billingsgate and big, inland towns. " You'd like to know about haddocks ? " " Of course." " Well, haddocks are bought fresh on the wharf or at Lowestoft pity we don't get more smacks in here without havin' to send over there for 'em. The heads 298 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS are wrung off, and the fish split down the belly. After bein' in brine a few minutes they're washed, hung on thin iron ' speets,' run through the fin-flaps, if I may call 'em so, and then smoked for five or six hours, accordin' to whether it's ' pale ' or ' dark ' brands you want. " Mackerel we usurelly ice in boxes and send away fresh ; but a little smokin's done occasionally. To cure 'em, we split 'em behind, like kippers, pickle 'em a few minutes, smoke 'em with oak all night and strike 'em in the mornin'. You pack as many in a box as '11 go in and send 'em to town or country." " Thank you." " Oh ! I ain't quite done. I must just mention sprats. These we buy on the market, wash 'em in small 'maunds,' speet 'em, as you do herrin's for bloaters, but on smaller speets, dip 'em in brine for ' reds ' or ' bloaters ' ; for the one smoke 'em two days, for the 'tother, say a hour or a little over. We pack 'em in small ' kids ' them little wee tub-kind of things and away they go." Jerrard being small and nimble, is a handy man in the fish-house, assisting in various departments, more particularly in the smoke-houses, where he is master of the bellows. Before he had left me, he told me all the art of building a fire from three and four feet lengths of billet, which, when ready for lighting, he compared to a great wooden starfish, one end of each laying to, or overlapping the others, according to the " krinks " of the wood. Smaller pieces were interpersed to " catch hold " as he termed it, which A HARVEST OF THE SEA 299 they soon did when the wind from the big bellows roared into the ignited pile. " You mustn't blaze too much," he added emphatically, "or you fire your fish; they'll cook instead of smoke, and turn soft, and the bodies are apt to fall, leaving only the heads on the speets." THREE-MAST SAILING LUGGER (In use early part of l()th century) LAPWINGS CHAPTER XI FLOTSAM "It blew great guns, when gallant Tom Was taking in a sail ; And squalls came on in sight of home, That strengthened to a gale." DIBDIN. A FAMOUS LIFEBOATMAN BRAVE as a lion, modest to a degree, gentle, resourceful, daring, and with a voice at once masterful and yet kindly, old " Laddie " Woods, at sixty-eight, is resting on his oars. " Laddie " is 300 FLOTSAM 301 Gorleston's hero, and his name has been a household word on our eastern coast for many a year. I met him not long ago at Colby's. He had dropped in for a " mardle " with my crippled shrimper friend, "just to chip the old chap up " as is his wont ; and we yarned full two hours of the sea and things stormy, wild and daring. The big round-bodied, great-hearted fellow, in bright blue guernsey and pilot coat, chatted freely on his adventures, telling, in terse sentences, graphic stories of gales and wrecks, and mentioning dates and names as readily as if they were deeply graven on his mind. I could not mention a gale or incident, but he at once gave me date and detail. " Now what do you want fust ? " he asked, as I edged him into a yarn. " I remember most vividly," said I, " a big barque going ashore in the Ham (at Gorleston) and seeing her go to pieces. I was then a lad, and had raced beachward from Sunday school to see that smart vessel drifting at her anchors." "That was in 1870," he replied promptly; " the ship was the Victoria of North Shields. The date was the fust of December. It was blowin' a whole gale from the east'ard, and there was icicles hangin' on Gorleston pier as long as your arm, and growin' bigger and longer with every burst of sea water as broke on 'em. Ah, bor, we was handi- capped that afternoon. We couldn't launch, and the rockets wouldn't reach her." " Yes," said I, " I saw her break in halves, the bow half swinging one way as the other swung the 302 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS other ; I saw the masts fall one after the other, bringing death to more than one of the crew as the raffle of the gear held them down to the wreck. One by one they were drowned, some of them being washed into the boiling seas before our eyes." " I went in," he went on, " through the breakers, and seft (saved) one poor fellow as was stark naked, the sea throwin' him right into my arms. We rubbed and chafed him back to life. There was only four others out of a big crew saved, and they come ashore on spars. We'd been out that mornin' and seft the crew of an Austrian brig what struck on the Scroby sands. "The fishin' boat CJwsen, of Yarmouth, comes ashore on the north sand (near the harbour mouth). It was blowin' a gale from the east'ard. Snow was thick on the ground. We couldn't get the boat out, it bein' so rough ; so we rowed athort the river to the Yarmouth side. Then I just swims off to the fishin' boat, clambers aboard, and drifted a line ashore tied to a cork fender, and sent the crew after it. " On the 1 3th of January, 1866 it was a Saturday we see signals of distress, and put off in the life- boat Rescuer. The wind was off shore, and we didn't feel much of it while we was going along under the lee of the pier ; in fact, it fared right calm at the pier end. It was ebb tide. We'd got the mainsail up, but hadn't yet got the jib up, when the wind struck her, filled the sail and hove her down, the sea breakin' into her, and capsized her. None of us had got our lifebelts on ; and in the rough seas each had to look after hisself. There was twelve on us strugglin' FLOTSAM 303 in the sea, and eight was drowned. The wurst on it was, there wor eight widows left, and thirty youngsters with 'em ; and one of us as was seft lived only forty hours, and then pegged out. " On the I2th of November, 1891, it came on to blow a heavy gale from the south' ard. We heerd there was a vessel on the Scroby Sands, and we soon saw her burnin' flares for assistance. Two boats was launched the Mark Lane (my boat) and the Elizabeth Simpson. We went on to the pier, and the seas was breakin' clean over, smotherin' the light- house on the end of it. " Two pilots come to me, and one says " ' I believe the wind's westerin' a bit, and fancy we can get to sea.' But the wind wasn't, not a bit of it. " ' I'll try it,' I says. ' Now then, lads, it's off! ' "So we shot out for the harbour under reefed canvas, and must have had at least a hundred Scotchmen towin' the boat towards the sea ; you see, they was holdin' us off, so we didn't go athort the harbour, for the sea what was runnin' would have smashed us to matchwood if we'd drifted to le' ward. When we'd got her under command, several heavy seas broke over us, and buried us. But thank Gord we just cleared the north sands. 1 We went and found the ketch Aid of Portsmouth (Captain Newman) ridin* draggin' her anchors abreast of the jetty. We at once dropped our anchor and wore down to her by the cable, takin' off the crew. 1 A sand bank running northward from the north pier and at right angles to it. 304 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS Then we got a large cable from the ketch to stop her from drivin', and got it fast to the lifeboat. That and her two anchors stayed her till the weather 'bated. Our boat had got a hundred and twenty fathoms of cable out. When the weather cleared enough, we fetched vessel and crew into the harbour. "What is the most valuable bit of salvage I've had a share in? Why, when we got the Agabar, worth seventy or eighty thousand pounds. She'd got part of a cargo of jute aboard ; she'd been on Winterton Ridge, losin' stern-post and rudder, and playin' the dowst up with herself. "I remember goin' out to the Livadia (fourteen hundred tons), of South Shields, on the East Cross Sands. She was an iron vessel, and had broke up into three parts afore we got to her, only the middle part bein' out of the water. All the crew of twenty- six hands was lost, except two, when we got to her ; and even while we were drawin' up, one of 'em went mad and jumped into the sea afore our eyes. The only one we brought in was Tom Sewell, a Yarmouth man. That wasn't the finish of this awful job, for in the second week in March, the Livadia's lifeboat was picked up with three poor dead fellows in it " One of the worst in fact, the worst gale I was ever in, was on that awful Sunday, the 24th March, 1895. You remember what a lot of trees was blowed down for miles around, and half Yarmouth fared stripped of tilin's. The rate of the wind was eighty- six miles. Well, a barquentine came into Yarmouth Roads and let go her two anchors. It was bio win' FLOTSAM 305 from the west-sou'-west. She parted from both, and the crew at once run'd up the red ensign, union jack reversed, in the riggin'. We mustered and launched, and as we was goin' out of the harbour, we meets the steam tug Meteor, and hailed 'em. They shouted back as they couldn't take us in tow, for they'd got their work cut out to look after theerselves : she'd been layin' outside when the storm broke, and it was all she could do to get in. However, we managed to get out, and finds the ship she was the Isabella of Swansea outside the bell buoy. We drew up to her close reefed, ranged up alongside, and took nine hands off her. Lor' ! how it blew ! We braced her up and tacked back to Gorleston. "We had a rare Gord-send once. A steamboat got on Winterton Ness and broke up, and no end of sacks of flour fell into our hands ; in fact, folks all along the coast got well in amongst 'em. They'd took water in less than half an inch, the flour under that rind, as you might call it, being dry and uninjured. At the same time, a vessel loaded with dead meat from a Baltic port comes to grief, and sheep floated about everywhere. People lived like fighting cocks that hard winter : it was some thirty-eight yeer ago. " A Scotch fishin' boat, some eight year ago, got aground on Scroby. When we went out we found the Yarmouth and the Caister lifeboats makin' towards her, but the Mark Lane (our boat) got alongside her first. The wessel got off and bumped on again. The crew was drunk, and one fool was tearin' around with a big hatchet, theatenin' to cut down the first man as come aboard. As it was he 306 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS chopt through the fore halyards and let the foresail down all on top the crew. They were all more like madmen than anything else. When one of our chaps clambered aboard the Scottie comes for him ; but he was too quick for him, seized his wrist, snatched away the hatchet, and hulled it overboard. After a bit of argerin' we got 'em to come into the lifeboat. " The longest spell I ever had," continued Laddie, "was in November, 1881. We went out at eleven o'clock on Sunday night (it was the Hth), and went in search of a ship as had shown signals of distress. We sailed as far as the Hasbro* lightship, and from there to the Leman and Oiver. From the Leman we went to the Dudgeon, spoke her, and directly found ourselves abreast of the Humber. We'd got one spell of towin' behind a steamboat ; but we sighted no craft in distress. It comes on a gale on the Monday night from the south-east, so we run'd up the Humber to Grimsby." " What had you been living on ? " I asked. " Well," said he, " from the Sunday night until the Tuesday mornin' we been livin' on the wind, and a few sea-biscuits we happened to have on board. We'd been sittin', too, all them hours. " Some of us once went out in a yawl of our own to a full-rigged ship grounded on Gorton sands ; but the wind from the south-east proved too much for us, and we run'd home again, and went out to her in the lifeboat Rescue. We took twenty-eight hands out of the raffle riggin' and everything bein' mixed up and when we'd got 'em aboard there was another craft a brig burnin' a tar bucket. We found her FLOTSAM 307 water-logged, laden with coal, and we took nine hands off her. What with them thirty-seven poor fellows and our own crew of sixteen, we looked a fair Noah's ark, you may reckon, when we made the harbour early next mornin'. " Is there anything more I can tell you ? " he asked ; " for I could jaw on for a fortnight, if I didn't tire you. I ain't been a lifeboat man for forty-two years (I've been retired eight) without goin' through suffin : bruises, broken limbs, hunger, cold, and perils enough to satisfy a glutton." " How many lives have you helped to save ? " " How many ? why suffin' like a thousand, roughly told. And I didn't get these 'ere for nothin' (holding out for my inspection some bronze and silver medals he had been carrying in his pocket). If you go into the lifeboat shed at Gorleston, you'll see any amount of vessels named and the crews rescued, chalked up on the notice boards ; and you can see how many of 'em figure durin' my two score years' service. I'm sixty- eight ; so I didn't lose much time, you see, afore I jined the crew." THE LAST OF THE EBB TIDE " The wind was high and the clouds were dark, And the boat returned no more." T. MOORE. There is a knock at the door, impetuous and commanding. It is a raw, windy December night; the gas-jets flicker fitfully in the dripping street- lamps, threatening, at the street corners, to go out 308 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS altogether. Another sharp rap follows before I reach the door. " Excuse me, master," says the kindly voice of old "Snicker" Larn, "but old Billy's wussened since nune-time, and for aught I know it's jest about all up with him. He keep sorter wanderin' at times, talkin' about Breydon, an' the tides, and that ; an' he's bin axing for you, sir. I know'd you was kinder an old pal, in a way, sir, of his, and I thowt he'd feel aisier in his mind if I come an' I did. I've jest took him sum warm eel-stew as he kep' cravin' for ; my neyber biled a eel as I got off young * Stork ' ; but law, I didn't think as he'd take more 'an a spuneful, an' he ain't ; but it kinder chipt him up. ..." This is the half-row, and here is the " snack " of the door ; a glimmer of lamplight through the worn keyhole guides us to it We step down from the draughty alley into the sparingly furnished room and turn to the left. Here lies the poor old fellow whose life is fast ebbing away. By the bedside, on a backless chair, sits the little parson 1 of the Shrimpers' Shelter, with an open Testament on his knee. " Hallo ! Pattson, my lad. . . . I'm glad you've come. So Snicker told you I've bin axin' for you. Well, I thought you jest like to give me one more call afore I cross the bar. You fare suffin' like one on us. I'm a poor old hulk, an' driftin' out on the ebb : it's allers the ebb afore the tide makes up agin. . . . There's the old house-boat my niece'll see to that, and the gear. There'll be enough to bury me 1 Vide Wild Life on a Norfolk Estuary, pp. 70-71. FLOTSAM 309 decent, without callin' on the parish. ... I allers dreaded that. Flaxman, go on with Peter, what you wor a readin'." " But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with the waves" the little parson reads slowly and distinctly, while the old man lies with closed eyes, "for the wind was contrary" "Why didn't they tack a bit?" soliloquises the dying man. " Never mind, go on." " And in the fourth watch of tJie night " That 'ud be about now, Pattson, wouldn't it ? " The fourth watch of the night. . . . Jesus went tinto them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were trotibled . . . and they cried out for fear. But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying: Be of good cheer ; it is I ; be not afraid. And Peter ansivered Him, and said, Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come unto Thee on the water. And He said, come. And when Peter ivas come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid ; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord save me " "They hadn't no lifebuoy " murmurs the old fellow. " Poor . . . old . . . Peter ! and no rope . . . neither ! " " And immediately Jesus stretched forth His hand " " That done it ! " " And caught him . . . and . . . the wind ceased" The old man lies still and peaceful, his breast heaving, his eyes closed, making no further comment 310 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS " It's about low water with him," says the kindly little parson, a tear standing in the corner of each eye. My own throat feels lumpy. Suddenly the old man's eyes open, and he lifts his hand feebly, as if bidding us adieu. "And Jesus caught hold of Peters hand!" whispers the little parson. " Ah ! " pants the dying man, " Peter . . . caught him. Let go ... the painter . . . the flood-tide's . . . makin' ! " The old Breydoner has gone out alone on to the Great Silent Sea, on the last of the ebb tide. FLOTSAM INDEX Accidents, gun, 49-50, 53-60 Adams' gun, 95 Adding of new species, 142 "Admiral" Gooch, gentleman- gunner, 135-143 Adventure of " Sambo," 41-42 with swan, 150-151 Amateur gunsmiths, 47-49 punt-gunners, 2-3 Amathillahomari) 182 Anchors, recovering, 253-254 Arnoglossus laterna t 182 Baker naturalist, the, 228-233 Barber, fish-poacher, 31-32 Beachmen, Yarmouth, 278-280 Beckett and his "pals," 132-133 , punt-gunner, 5 Berney, Squire, punt-gunner, 65- 66 Bessey, old, the punt-gunner, 124 " Billy" Sampson, gunner, 47~5 2 Bird-dealer, the, 128 Birds, a blind naturalist, 232 , strange grouping of, 235 Bird-stuffers, opinions on, 133- 136 Blake, " Old," poacher, 293-296 , "Toby," eel-man, 202-206 Blind naturalist, a, 222-235 Bloater-curing, 293, 296 " Blue " Calver, eel-man, 129, 213-215 Boat, a strange, 198 Boiler burst, a, 209 Boiling shrimps, 172 Booth, collector, 7 . Bostock, shoulder-gunner, 67 Bowles, " Fates," eel-picker, in, 127 Breydon in winter, 2-3 "Breydon Stork," punt-gunner, 6 Breydoner, the dying, 307-310 Breydoners' superstitions, 1 1 7- 1 1 8 Breydoners, wooden-legged, 147- 150 Broadland cottage, a, 227 memories, 221 Brookes, Tom, 195 B 's retriever, 101-102 Bull, adventure with, 204 Burch, Captain, snipe-shooter, 68, 70 Bure excursion, a, 233-235 "Butts, "food of, 163 Cattle and gulls, 234 " Cadger " Brown, 90, 129-130 Calver, " Blue," 129, 213-215 Cat, bird-stuffer's, 136-137 Catching a stoat, 225 the herrings, 282-283 sea-fish, 267, 270-271 Catch of soles, 173 Celebrities of Breydon, 126 Coal-stealing, 37-39 Cockatoo and monkey, 1 13-1 14 Colby, mackerel-catcher, 263 , my shrimper friend, 182- 1 88 Colby's ice-procuring, 28-30 "Collector" Booth, 7 312 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS Colouration, protective, 72 Cooking a herring, 293 Coots, raffling for, 131 Cormorant, shooting a, 98-99 Coursing hares, 76-82 Crab, killing a, 186 Crab-shore, 189 Crab, the "ross," 184-185 Crabs, various, 182-185 Crew of mackerel-boat, 281 Crippled guns, 55-58 Crowther, punt-gunner, 64-65 Curing haddocks, 297-298 herrings, 294-297 mackerel, 298 Curlews, shooting of, 8-9 Decoying of ducks, 11-18 "Dilly" Smith, wherry-owner, 36-37 Disappointed wild-fowler, 60-6 1 Dissecting a linnet, 134 Ditches, marsh, 196 Dogs, gunners', 51 , poachers', 88-89 Ducks, decoying, 11-18 , shooting of, 8 , tame, shooting of, 138 Durrant, game-dealer, 67, 134- 135 Dye's first gun, 228 Dying Breydoner, 307-310 Eagles on Breydon, 140 Eel-catching German, 208-210 Eel-picks, 216-217 Eels and fish ova, 152 , "flying" for, 207-208 , from the sea, 212 , habits of, 203 , kinds of, 205 , large catches of, 150-152 Enemies of herring, 276 mackerel, 268 Falcon, Peregrine, story of, 96 " Fates" Bowles, eel-picker, in, 127 Fish caught in trawl, 191 Fish-curer's yarn, 294-299 Fisher-girls, Scotch, 292 Fish-house operations, 294-296 Fish ova and eels, 152 swans, 150-152 Fish-poacher, Barber, 31-32 Fish-poachers, 129 Fishing for mackerel, 260 boats, evolution of, 273 , illegal, 25-27, 31, 40-41 Flaxman's eel-picks, 216-217 Flint-lock, my grandfather's, 45 "Flying" for eels, 207-208 Food of flounders, 163 herring, 275 Fransham, the Broadman, 224 Frosts, great, 30-31 Game-dealer, Durrant, 67, 134- 135 Game-dealer Watson, 86-87 Gates, " Peg-leg," 147, 210-213 " Gentleman-gunner," "Admiral " Gooch, 135-143 George Sampson, eel-man, 207- 208 German eel-catcher, a 208-210 Glaucous gull, shooting a, 91-92 Glut of herrings, 289-291 Godwits, incursion of, 53-54 Goldsinny, Jago's, 182 Gooch, " Admiral," 135-143 Goosanders, 4 Goose, shooting a, 55 Grandfather's flintlock, my, 45 "Granny" Reed, punt-gunner, 64-65 Great catch of mackerel, 261-262 Great frosts, 30-31 Great snipe, 71 Grey plovers, shooting of, 9-10 Gulls' feather, use for, 94 Gulls and cattle, 234 Gun accidents, 49-50, 53-60 Gunner Bostock, 67 Quinton, 66-67 Sampson, 47-52 Gunners' dogs, 51 Gunsmiths, amateur, 47-49 Habits of eels, 203 mackerel, 266 Haddock boats, 270 INDEX 313 Haddock, curing of, 297-298 " Hake "for gulls, 93 Hare and lapwing, 89-90 Hare-coursing, 76-82 Hare-shooter, 95 Hares in an eel-box, 85-86 Harvest of herrings, 284-292 Harvey, the bird-stuffer, 133-137 Harwood and stoats, 140-142 Herring-boats, crews of, 281 Herring fishery of to-day, 284- 292 Herring-nets, 277 Herrings, early cure of, 274 , enemies of, 283 , food of, 275 v. sprats, 275 Home of Broadman, 226-227 Shrimper, 166 Home-made boat, 198 Houseboat Moorhen, 219 , night in a, 145-156 Ice, procuration of, 25, 28-30 Illegal fishing, 25-27, 31, 40-41 Incursion of Godwits, 53-54 Items of mackerel catching, 258- 259 Jackdaw, a troublesome, 97 Jago's goldsinny, 182 Jary's houseboat, 145-146 Jawbones of whales, 248-249 Jerrard, fish-curer, 294 " Jibro " Jessop, poacher, 54-55 Jex, punt-gunner, 61-62 Kentish plovers, 66 Kestrels and swallows, 223 Killing a crab, 186 "Laddie" Woods, lifeboatman, 300 Lamb-net, description of, 198- 199 Lamb-netter, a professional, 202- 206 Landing herrings, old style, 279 Lapwing and hare, 89-90 Leach, mariner-gunner, 68-73 Limb-growing in crabs, 186-187 " Limpenny " King, eel-man, 207 Linnet, dissecting a, 133-134 Local celebrities in a " pub," 126 Lobster, Norwegian, 187-188 Mackerel and its prey, 257 curing, 298 expensive, 258 weather, 259, 263 Magistrate and duck-shooter, 138 Malformation in claws, 187-188 Mariner-gunner Leach, 68-73 Marsh-ditches, 196 Marshes, impressions of, 198 Massacre of geese, 116-121 Meat-stealing dog, 103 Memories of Broadland, 221 Migrants swimming, 97 Mole-heaps, 197 Mongrel-dog, Sampson's, 102-103 , " Scarboro " Jack's, 88. Monkey and cockatoo, 113 , blacksmith's, the, 217-218 Mud worms and birds, 146 Mullet catching, 241 , red, 267 Mussel-men, 236 trade, 238-241 My first gun, 46-47 Naturalist, blind baker, 222-235 Navigation, bad, 192 Net, lamb-, a 198-199 Nets for herrings, 277 smelting, 156 Netting experiences, 190-192 mackerel, 268 New British Birds, on, 139-142 Nicholls, "Noah," wherryman, 34-42 Nicknames of shrimpers, 167 Night in Houseboat, 145-156 "Nobby" Skoyles, 189-194 Norfolk wherry, on the, 18-43 Norwegian lobster, 187-188 Old mackerel " Fairing," 262 Otter, desperate, 31 Ova, and swans, 150-152 Owls' pellets, 227 H4 MAN & NATURE ON TIDAL WATERS Page, "Short'un," after hares, 78 , on musseling, 240-241 Parasite on prawn, 184 Parhelia, 154 Parrot shot on Breydon, 138-139 Partridge, French, swimming, 98 Partridges, shooting of, 56 Pawning a gun, 50 P.-c. Gill and "Cadger" Brown, 130 P.-c. Gill and " Scarboro Jack," 85-86 " Peg-leg " Gates, eel-man, 210- 213 "Peg-leg" Gates' wooden leg, 147-148 Pellets of Owls, 227 Peregrine falcon, story of, 96 Pestell, punt-gunner 7 Pheasant poaching, 83-85 Phillips, gun-dealer, 56 " Pintail " and his wife, 123-124 Thomas and goosanders, 5 Plovers, grey, 9, 10 , Kentish, 66, 230 , Ringed, 67 "Poacher "Blake, 75-76 " Cadger" Brown, 90, 129- 130 Jessop, 54-55 '^ Scarboro Jack," 75, 83-90 Poaching pheasants, 83-85 Poachers' dogs, 88-89 Polecats and stoats, 141 Policeman and hares, 85-86 Porpoise, shooting a, 99 Prawn, yEsops, 172 and parasite, 184 Prawns and shrimps, 183 Protective coloration, 72 "Pubs," waterside, 106 Punt-gunner Beckett, 5 Berney, 65-66 Bessey, 124 Crowther, 64-65 Tex, 61-62 Pestell, 7 Reed, 64-65 "Stork, "6 Thomas, 6 Watson, 62-64 Punt-gunning in snow squall, 1-3 Quinton, gunner, 5, 57-59, 66-67 Raffling for coots, 131 Rats and smelts, 162-163 in houseboat, 109-110, 153 Recovering anchors, 253-254 Red herrings, 296 , invented ', 274 Red mullet, 267 Reed, "Granny," punt-gunner, 64-65 Reflections on slaughter, 5-6 Reproduction of herrings, 186- 187 Retriever, a stupid, 101 eats birds, 101-102 Richard's-pipit, 66 Ringed plovers, 67 Riot of sailors, 244-245 " Ross " crab, 184-185 , ground, 184-185 Sabella worm, 184-185 Sailors' riot, 244-245 " Salt-fish " Jex, punt-gunner, 61- 62 Salting herrings, 297 Sambo's adventure, 41-42 Sampson, George, eel-man, 207- 208 Sampson, gunner, 47-52 Sampson's clever mongrel, 102- 103 "Scarboro Jack," poacher, 75, 83-90 Scenes in herring-port, 287-292 Scotch fisher-girls, 73 Sea-fish, catching, 267, 270-271 Ships, on wooden, 242-246 Shipwrecks, 301-307 Shoemaker-sportsman, a, 92-99 Shooting a cormorant, 98-99 glaucous gull, 91-92 porpoise, 99 woodcock, 52 ducks, 8 goosanders, 4 hares, 85-89, 95 in the dark, 124 INDEX Shooting snipe, 69-71 woodcock, 67 Shore-crab, 187 Shorelarks, 66 "Short'un" Page, after hares, 78 " Short'un " Page's coots, 130-131 Shoulder -gunner Bostock, 67 Shrimp-boats, description of, 168- 169 - -, gear of, 169 Shrimpers' nicknames, 167 going to sea, 175 home, 1 66 parson, 307-310 Shrimp-net catches, 177-179 Shrimps, abundance of, 176 and prawns, 183 Sights at sea, 193 Signs of herrings, 286 "Silky" Watson, punt-gunner, 62-64 Skoyles, " Nobby," wolder, 189- 194 Skuas, 108 Slaughter, reflections on, 5-6 Smacking, decline of, 251 Smelting on Breydon, 156-163 , time for, 158 Smelt-nets, 156 Smith, wherry-owner, 36-37 "Snicker" Larn smelting, 156- 163 Snipe feeding in snow, 70 shooting, 69-71 winter, a, 73-74 Soles, catching, 173 Sowerby's hippolyte, 181 Sprats and herrings, 275 Squall, a nasty, 193-194 Squire Berney, punt-gunner, 65- 66 Statistics of herring fishery, 285 Stealing coals, 37-39 Stoat-catching, 225 Stoats on a warren, 141 Strange hauls, 191-192 "Sun-dogs," 154 Superstitions of Breydoners, 117- 118 Swan adventure, 150-151 Swan shooting, ethics of, 137-138 Swan-song, by Whiley, 143-144 Swans and ova, 150-152 Swimming migrants, 97 Toad and vole, 223 "Toby" Blake, eel-man, 202-206 Tom Brookes goes eel-lambing, 194 Thomas " Pintail," punt-gunner, Thomas's wife, 123-124 Trawling industry, 25 smacks, 250 Water vole and fish, 222 toad, 223 Water-side "pubs," 106 Watson, game-dealer, 86-87 , "Silky," punt-gunner, 62- 64 Whalers, Yarmouth, 247-249 Whelks and shrimps, 179 Wherry, on the Norfolk, 18-43 Wherryman, "Noah" Nicholls, 34-42 Whiley on swan shooting, 143- 144 Whiley, shoemaker - sportsman, 92-99 Wigg shoots a parrot, 138-139 Wild-fowler, disappointed, 60-6 1 Wolder, the, 189-194 Woodcock, shooting a, 52 Woodcocks, shooting of, 67 Wooden ships, 242-246 Wooden-legged Breydoners, 147- 150 Woods, "Laddie," lifeboatman, 301 Worms, mud, birds eating, 146 Wrecks, stories of, 301-307 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES A SELECTION OF BOOKS PUBLISHED BY METHUEN AND CO. 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