IN AN OYSTER DREDGER.
THE tide had been ebbing out of the creek about two hours, and the east was pink and dove.coloured with the dawn, when Burke Thurgood's boat grated alongside the causeway to take me off to his smack. " Well, what do yaou think on it P" asked Burke in broad Essex, with a glance upward at the sky, and went on: "That fared to be wonnerful an fine last night, that did. But naow—well, I reckon there's agoen to ho a change or suthen o' that." At all events there was no change yet. All night the water had run as smooth and silent as oil into the creek, and now as smooth and silent as oil it was running out again. I jumped into the boat, and we were swept down the creek while Burke jerked at his oars. In five minutes we were abreast of the fleet of smacks which were lying in the mouth of the creek. All these smacks were making ready to spend the day dredging for oysters in the estuary. The boats which brought the crews from the shore were splashing alongside, or had already been made fast astern. The smacks themselves seemed to lie in • tangle, and, all riding to a single anchor, were sheering this way and that to the run of the tide. The conditions of this creek reproduce those of the Judges, for every man does that which is right in his own eyes. There is no harbourmaster in the creek; or, if there is, he appears only on public holiday.. when a mop seems to be his emblem of office. With this he pushes about the boats full of holiday-makers as they crowd alongside the causeway, and you might think that he was a very strict and very regular person indeed. But we who use the creek in normal times know that there is no responsible authority. As they say in the laws of boat-racing, "every crew abides by its own accidents." In other words, if your vessel is run into, or is fouled by another vessel, you (at all events if you are an amateur seaman) have to pay. There is no recognized means of redress. Why the damage throughout the year is not greater than it is I have never been able to discover. No smackemen and very few yachtsmen moor their craft here. In South Coast harbours the yachtsman looks for hard words if he does not lay his kedge out as well as his bower. But here smacks and yachts fly about at single anchor, and you may often see two or three smack. banging together and grinding one another's bulwarks into matohwood. As Burke Bays: "I don't hould with all that moorin', at least not for the likes o' we, for we ain't got the time. No, no. That 'on't do for we. But same as if you gents with yachts choose to moor, I ain't agoen to say nawthen against that. Oftentimes I wishes you'd do ut. But look at here, Sir, same as the little ould ' Nellie' acumen in jilt to lay the night. I might o' course give she a sheer against the wind and that'd keep she quiet, but then that ould tide ain't agoen to run all one way times I lay abed. And when she'd swung then she'd be wrong again. Happen, too, that'd come on to blaow t'other way. No, no. We-an-all's come lo the conclusion that that's best for we jiet to drop one anchor. None the more for that, I don't say as haow there ain't never agoen to be no detriment to the smacks."
When I stepped on board the ' Nellie' the crew already had the mainsail eat. I had kept Burke waiting at the causeway, and a qualm ran down my spine that I had kept him too long, for I thought I felt the heavy thudding touch of the ground under the keel. It was only the imagination of a guilty con- science after all. For I well knew that if Burke, who had anchored his smack for safety's sake rather out of the channel the night before, had got left on the mud for a tide he would be disgraced in the eyes of all the oyster fleet, and particularly in his own. I said nothing, and it was an excellent proof of what he felt was due from host to guest that he said nothing either. But I knew from the look on his face that till the ' Nellie' had slid diagonally across the mud flat into the deep slit of water which we call the channel he would not be quite happy. The capstan clinked, and twelve fathoms of bower chain came rapidly on board. Burke told one of his crew to haul the jib awesthor, and the man held it out so that it caught the breath of wind that was barely ruffling the glassy water. The bead of the smack paid off ; we were saved; the smack had two feet of water under her still. The
mainsail caught a breath off the land as the mainsheet was- sleeked off, and in five minutes we were in the heart of the
fleet. Two of us drifted along locked together, and Burke pushed the ' Nellie' ahead with an oar against the side of our companion. "That 'on't do, mate ! " said the other skipper. "If pion shove we home agin us'll do nawthen with the oysters to-day." "All right, mate!" cried Burke, still shoving, "the one as shores ',Teets a little advantage. And I don't think yaou're agoen to be without plenty wind neither. I reckon that's agoen to be a strorng 'ard wind."
Yet all day we did little more than drift in light airs. It was not often that Burke was wrong about the weather, and it displeased him that the weather should have failed to fulfil his predictions. "That was a fallin' glass last night, weren't it?" he kept saying to his son. "You see'd that as well as me. Yes, yes. That was a fallin' glass. And then this morning that come all over as red as blood. Well, I reckon that's a masterpiece, that is. If that ever fared to he agoen to blaow that did then." The crew all agreed that it ought to have blown. And I noted in their deference to the skipper on this point, and in several other ways, evidence of the most curious but satisfactory accommodation to the theory that one was prima infer pares that I have ever come across. All the crew were partnere in the smack. They all drew equal shares of the profits. But it had been agreed that one was to be skipper, and the manner in which his authority was respected could not possibly be accurately described. The success of the method existed in the hearing of the whole crew towards him. They freely offered their opinions. Indeed, be often asked for them. They argued with him about sundry matters. But one somehow knew all the time that there was a line beyond which, and that there were matters about which, argument would not be permissible. The chief point to be decided was in what part of the eetuary to dredge. The debate was long, for there was plenty of time as we " boggled" along, in the smacksmen's phrase, before the light airs. In the distance there were wonderful mirages; gigantic trees seemed to be growing out of the water where the low land melted away into a pearly liquid glare. The sea was a beautiful agate or jade. It was as though all the world was swept along by a gentle and easy fate, and nothing seemed very much to matter, in this flowing system, where one's position changed continually, although the smack appeared scarcely to move. Even the regular splash, splash, splash of the dredges being thrown overboard, and the rattle of the shells and stones on the deck tus the dredges were hauled up and their contents turned oat, became a kind of monody which fell into its place in the system.
The dredges have an under-bar of some weight which scrapes along the bottom of the sea, and the speed of the smack must be regulated so that the dredges do not lift off the ground. The net of the dredge is made of wire, and this flows out behind the bar as it scrapes along the bottom. When the wire net is thought to be fall the dredge is hauled up by band—" one man one dredge" is the rule—and the eontents are sorted over with a knife. Probably every old shell, every limpet, every crab, every whelk, every starfish, has been hauled up several times before in this well-fished estuary. It needs a trained eye to see the young oyster growing on an old shell. I sorted several heaps of the sub- marine rubbish—" culch" the smacksmen call it—without finding an oyster. Bot Burke put me out of countenance by finding several in those same heaps. The superfluous shell is eat away, till just enough is left for the young oyster com- fortably to grow upon till the time when he will detach himself, and then the oyster is put into a basket. The remaining culch is gathered up between two flat pieces of board and thrown into the sea. I marvelled that a ground which was ransacked day after day, year in and year out, should still yield oysters. But Burke said: "That's jilt where you're wrong, Sir. What the oysters want is to have the gntound cleaned for 'em. Same as if you go a-drudgin' an a piece where the drudgermen ain't been for years—you 'oret find no oysters there. No, no. You 'on't find no oysters there." Now and again I noticed that one of the men sang not "I've got an oyster !" As they had all been filling their baskets for some time with oysters I asked the meaning of this apparently unnecessary information. I then learned that when a man mentioned an oyster in this way he meant se oyster large enough to eat. That day we hauled up
perhaps a dozen "oysters" worthy of their own name. Another thing which puzzled me was to know how much old shell was properly allowed to remain with each of the little oysters. For the men sell their catch to the oyster merchants by the basket, and obviously a baaketcould be filled much sooner by a rather generous allowance of old shell. But the pertinence of my questions did not seem to be recog- nized. Each man had been brought up to give an oyster just its proper allowance. His professional judgment was sure and unhesitating, and it did not seem to occur to any one that here was an occasion for disputes. Nor did I ever hear of any disputes arising.
Burke told me a curious fact whieh I remember. "The worst thing for wo chaps," he said, "is when that blaows from the east. Then the graound seems to shut up wonnerful hard. Chance time, when that's been a-blitowin' easterly for some days the graound'll be as hard as iron, and no drudge 'on% shift that, and that ain't no good a-ti7in'." Never- theless, I think there ie something worse than an east wind, and that is the American slipper limpet, which has acclima- tized itself in the Essex estuaries, thrives amazingly, and almost threatens to ruin the oyster fishery. The knotted masses of these limpets, which grow in lumps of many together and smother the young oysters, are the abomination of the dredgerman as he picks over his interesting culch. Happily it has been found within the pest few months that these limpets make a truly excellent manure. The Develop- ment Commissioners have come forward with a grant for a crushing plant. The dredgers now bring the limpets home instead of throwing them overboard, and experience alone will prove whether an American limpet fishery as such will
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