MEN AND MANNERS 47 



flowing of the tides as boys to-day know the north and south 

 on the map. Sometimes they would go to sea with the 

 shrimpers and help them sort the catches, or hold the tiller while 

 the shrimper manipulated his nets. There was quite a number 

 of mussel-boats, even within recent years, that were worked 

 by a sort of horizontal hand-capstan placed in the bow, 

 which wound the boat up close to some post in Breydon, or 

 to a vessel in the harbour a dredge scooping in mollusc and 

 rubbish, mud and stones as it dragged along on the bottom. 

 These boats were cut-down lugger's boats, of which the small 

 boy acted as a sort of mate or second hand. Of late years, 

 thanks to the sewage abomination, a medical veto has con- 

 demned the mussel, of which myriads people the river and 

 channel-bottoms. Then the boys would borrow an old 

 boat and go up Breydon, with naked legs and dilapidated 

 pails and cans, to gather the winkles that swarm, even to this 

 day, in the Zostera on the mudflats. Small fishmongers were 

 ever ready to take all they could gather, and as this was a 

 remunerative pursuit to themselves as well as their elders, 

 they worked industriously at it, getting themselves into a 

 sorry plight with mud and moisture. They would vary the 

 fun by stripping and wading about in the drains in pursuit of 

 flounders which, thirty or forty years ago, were far more 

 abundant than now ; they could feel these flatfish gliding 

 about between and around their legs, and would promptly 

 plant a foot upon them, stooping down, often at arm's length, 

 to seize a prisoner with both hands, and adroitly throwing it 

 on the flat, to be bucketed by those remaining upon it. Their 

 pursuit of wounded fowl after the night's shoots I have 

 already described ; 1 and as soon as they had strength enough 

 to handle a spare oar, into father's boat they went as a super- 

 numerary hand, to help pull against the tide, or tow the net that 

 encircled the cunning grey mullet or the scented smelt. Soon 

 they helped to mend the old nets, and in time to braid new 

 ones. There were a dozen other incidental pursuits that 

 brought a little grist to the mill, or helped to fill the pot ; 

 lines were laid for eels, mushrooms were found on the marshes 

 just beyond the walls, driftwood was gathered for the fires, 

 and to supply the neighbours, for ere iron supplanted timber, 

 much wood from the shipyards went upstream. There was 



1 Nature in Eastern Norfolk, p. 37. 



