342 JOHN THOMAS, PUNT-GUNNER. 
with the result that the next discharge of the weapon not only 
blew the fowl to pieces, but knocked “Johnny ” senseless into the 
after-part of the boat, breaking his collar-bone. Once again, 
a shoulder-gun which should long before have been supei’annuated, 
burst as he fired it, blowing two fingers to pieces. His greatest 
concern seemed to centre on the birds more than upon his fingers 
hanging by shreds of skin to the stumps. 
As I knew him, Thomas’s mutilated hand, encased in a sort of 
woollen “ hutkin,” was often racked by excruciating twinges of 
rheumatism ; his not unpleasant features were scarred by powder 
burns, and his legs tormented often by gout, a complaint by no 
means ameliorated by the old man’s love of the “sina’ wee drap,” 
that had so often brought on trouble in times gone by. Thomas 
had many narrow escapes. Whilst lying with his fishing-boat in 
Shields Harbour, when a young man, be fell mast-length to the 
deck, the tide having fallen low, but tumbled in a heap on the deck 
uninjured. Most men would have been killed by the fall, assuredly 
so had they been sober. Again at Lowestoft, in more recent years, 
whilst walking along the platform near the Basin, he mistook the 
reflection of the water for the pathway, and fell in. He managed 
to cling to the piles and seaweed, and was at length found exhausted, 
and dragged out all but dead. I had only that same morning 
treated him to a short temperance homily before leaving Yarmouth. 
A broken leg may be added to his numerous mishaps ; and on 
another occasion he fell off a ’bus and broke his ankle when going 
to his boat. 
It is a most marvellous fact that John Thomas died a natural 
death, for he was most reckless in his management of a fowling- 
piece, and used on occasion most atrocious weapons ; when 
expostulated with he would declare that “they’d last him his life- 
time.” He, at one time, used an ancient punt-gun, the lock of 
which was much worn, and the trigger so weak in its action, that 
it required two or three pulls in order to crack the patch ; failing 
this, a piece of iron — part of an old swivel’s “knee” — was brought 
into use as a hammer, and the charge exploded by this means. It 
goes without saying, birds chance time profited by this cumbersome 
procedure. Incidentally it may be remarked, many bad guns were 
in use in the earlier part of the last century ; one man actually 
pulled a string in order to bring the cock down on the cap, the 
