MEN AND MANNERS 51 



old fellow would pull the two ends of it in, his faithful wife 

 " splouncing " the water behind the bight of the net to keep 

 the fish from bolting out. 



Thacker called a ripple of water a " brevell," and rough 

 water was a " swell." " Get a wounded poker in a brevell," 

 said he, " and you may lay your life you'll never get it out, 

 for it will lay itself flat just under the water, with only the 

 bill out that much " (measuring the tip of his finger !). 



Among the strange captures he had made on Breydon was 

 a hundred and a half of full-grown herrings during the mid- 

 summer fishing season. Turbots and brills up to a foot long 

 he had also taken, and small plaice. 



One sharp winter the "stock-ice" came up from below in 

 big lumps, and crabs (Carcinus mcenas) came up in thousands 

 frozen in and to it. 



" We wasn't much troubled with crabs the next eel-babbin' 

 season nowadays you can't drop your line in afore you're 

 fast to a crab confound 'em ! " said Thacker. 



Fair play, in the old days of many birds and many guns, 

 was an understood thing. When laying for fowl, no man 

 was supposed to cross another's bows, and the first man to 

 arrive on the scene had first choice of place. Although 

 lapses from grace were not unknown, such an incident was 

 remembered for long after, especially if by sharp practice 

 some unusual advantage had been gained. On one occasion 

 Gibbs, when lying in his punt in the middle of Breydon, shot 

 an osprey. The bird, mortally wounded, gradually came 

 down, still pursuing its direction of flight, and landed in a 

 marsh over the south wall. " Silky " Watson, who had been 

 watching from a point near the walls, rowed might and main 

 to get to the bird first and, gun in hand, ran up the bank, 

 detected the bird in the grass, and hurried towards it. It 

 was already dead, but he fired a shot at it as if it were only 

 wounded and making an effort to escape. Gibbs topped the 

 wall in time to see this trick of "Silky's," and a wordy 

 encounter followed. By rights the bird belonged to Gibbs, 

 but, being the weaker man, might defied right successfully, 

 a compromise being arrived at, and a division of the profit 

 being promised ; otherwise Gibbs would have got nothing at 

 all. To this day reference to the subject ruffles the temper 

 of poor old Gibbs. 



