1 82 ALONGSHORE iv 



to get 'en out o'ee. Smith, the jeweller, dropped 

 some liquor on it out o' a little bottle, an' said t'was 

 gold. Give'd me dree-an'-six for it, he did.' 

 'They'm wuth more'n that.' 

 'That's what 'er give'd me for 'en, anyhow.' 

 'Some o'ee always has all the luck, . . .' 

 'Us don't hae what us don't earn; n'eet so 

 much. I tell 'ee there's plenty to be found down 

 under beach if you'm minded to look for't when 

 'tis there. There's never no knowing what thee 

 ca'st pick up.' 



There's never no knowing. And, indeed, at 

 low tide during or after a gale, the beach looks a 

 wildish place that, like the sea itself, may yield up 

 who knows what. So long as fine weather lasts, 

 town and sea merge, and to most longshoremen 

 the sea is the more familiar. In a storm the two 

 part company; the boundary between them is 

 clean-cut; the beach is that boundary. It be- 

 longed to the town by usage; now for a while 

 it is the sea's. Boats, the handiwork of man, his 

 implements, which had, as it were, domesticated 

 the shore, are in safety upon the top of the wall. 

 One long shallow curve, of shingle flecked with 

 spindrift, extends to the water's edge, increasing 

 for the eye all distances upon the beach, and lending 



