128 NORTH SEA FISHERS AND FIGHTERS 



Our own skipper is a man who has followed the drift- 

 ing for thirty years. His very life is wrapped up in the 

 herring and its possibilities, for upon the success of the 

 fishing his income depends. He is learned in the lore of 

 herringing. You may try to turn him from the topics of 

 the sea and drifters, but he will invariably come back to 

 the herring, and you listen contentedly to his talk by the 

 hour, for he has a subtle knowledge of his subject. He 

 has much time to spend at the wheel, and in giving 

 orders when the nets are shot or hauled ; and there are 

 the odd moments, too, when we assemble in the cabin 

 aft, with its lack of light and air, and ways of life that are 

 reminiscent of the customs of the Middle Ages. 



The mate after awhile takes the wheel and we go 

 below to dinner. George, the boy, who is the skipper's 

 son, has laid the feast. There is no waiting, no helping, 

 no ceremony. A leg of mutton is in a tin dish on the 

 cabin floor ; another dish, big and oblong, contains gravy 

 a small lake of it ; a third is heaped up with potatoes, 

 and a fourth is filled with Norfolk dumplings. They 

 have been boiled, and consist of flour and water and 

 baking-powder. On the Dogger, rolled out flat and 

 baked, they would have been called " busters." George 

 is proud of his cooking skill, and explains that he can 

 make the dumplings better and richer by the addition of 

 suet. We pour out tea, a heavy, sickly liquid, sweetened 

 with condensed milk and much sugar, all boiled together 

 with a mass of used leaves which have not been removed 

 from the kettle. We help ourselves from the joint with 

 our own little knives and two-pronged steel forks, and 

 with a long, common, pewter spoon scoop up such gravy 

 as we can catch between the drifter's rolls and pitches, 



