WITH A LOWESTOFT DRIFTER 127 



catching herrings has scarcely changed during the last 

 thousand years or more, and that their nets must be the 

 same in principle as those which were employed before 

 Richard the Lion-hearted and his Crusaders sailed for 

 the Holy Land. The statement has much of truth in it, 

 and when a sailer drifts at the nets she presents much 

 the same spectacle that could have been witnessed many 

 centuries ago. It was at night when the herrings were 

 caught, and night on the vast and melancholy waste of 

 water hides that modernity which only day reveals. 

 There are other riding-lights, and here and there, the 

 mast-head and sidelights of a steamer going north or 

 south ; but the steel and iron hulls are only guessed by 

 some chance glimmer from a port or deck-house. 



And the men have changed but little, surely ! Their 

 dress for work is primitive, hiding all that is suggestive 

 of the modern landsman. There is the jumper which 

 the skipper and crew wear a garment made of stout 

 canvas and barked like the sailcloth. It covers the arms 

 and trunk nearly to the knees, almost as the coarse 

 smock garbed the serf of old, and the men of his rank 

 who would alone, in those days, go to sea to fish. The 

 jumper in its long variety is like a night-dress. Its short 

 form is generally favoured, but skippers often use the 

 long garment, as the covering keeps the cold out, and 

 skippers, being leaders, have spare time in which to feel 

 the draughts that invade all unprotected crevices. There 

 are rough, thick, woollen stockings, and boots which may 

 be thigh boots, or half boots, or dumpers, according to 

 the weather, and as for head-dress, that is anything in 

 the way of covering which comes handy ; but mostly a 

 cap, except in bad weather, when it is the sou'-wester. 



