" THE BRIDE'S RETURN' 103 



one o' they, not round and round buoys. But 

 Ware isn't what 't used to be, nuther. Why, I 

 can mind when there was pigs running about 

 among the boats on Ware beach, eating up the 

 fish offal what nobody couldn't sell. Gert, flop- 

 eared, evil-looking brutes they was, an' savage; 

 but they did keep the beach sweet. Com- 

 memorated in a song, they pigs was, printed on one 

 o' they there ol' broadsheets what used to be sold 

 for a penny; an' a blind man used to come along 

 an' sing it. I forgets what 'twas called. There 

 ain't no such songs now. . . .' 



'The Bride's Return, it was called,' said Daddy 

 Pearn. 



'That's It.' 



'I was to Ware when it happened.' 



Daddy Pearn straightened himself up. He 

 turned towards the other two old men, waving his 

 stick in the air. And while he talked, speaking, 

 as It were, out of the old times, It was the dinghies 

 that looked strange upon the sea, not the black 

 Ware trawlers. 



'I was there,' he said. 'What do 'ee think o' 

 that? I was working for the same bride's father 

 up to Ware. 'Bout ten year old I must have 

 been; 'twas my first place, afore I took to the 



