y other form of folly. I know that on the East Coast, during all the
years of my childhood, this Dutch war wasted the energies of thousands.
The villages had to drill men, each village according to its size, to
make an army in case the Dutch should land. Long after the war was over,
they drilled thus. I remember them on the field outside the church,
drilling after Sunday service, firing at a stump of a tree. Once some
wag rang the alarm-bell at night, to fetch them out of their beds. Then
there were the smugglers; they, too, were caused by the war. After the
fighting there was a bitter feeling against the Dutch. Dutch goods were
taxed heavily (spice, I remember, was made very dear thus) to pay for
the war. The smugglers began then to land their goods secretly, all
along the coast, so that they might avoid the payment of the duty. The
farmers were their friends; for they liked to have their gin cheap.
Indeed, they used to say that in an agueish place like the fens, gin was
a necessity, if one would avoid fever. Often, at night, in the winter,
when I was walking home from Lowestoft school, I would see the farmers
riding to the rendezvous in the dark, with their horses' hoofs all
wrapped up in sacks, to make no noise.

I lived for twelve years at Oulton. I learned how to handle a boat
there, how to swim, how to skate, how to find the eggs of the many wild
fowl in the reeds. In those days the Broad country was a very wild land,
half of it swamp. My father gave me a coracle on my tenth birthday. In
this little boat I used to explore the country for many miles, pushing
up creeks among the reeds, then watching, in the pools (far out of the
world it seemed) for ruffs or wild duck. I was a hardy boy, much older
than my years, like so many only children. I used to go away, sometimes,
for two or three days together, with my friend John Halmer, Captain
Halmer's son, taking some bread, with a blanket or two, as my ship's
stores. We used to paddle far up the Waveney to an island hidden in
reeds. We were the only persons who knew of that island. We were like
little kings there. We built a rough sort of tent-hut there every
summer. Then we would pass the time there deliciously, now bathing, now
fishing, but always living on what we caught. John, who was a wild lad,
much older than I, used to go among the gipsies in their great winter
camp at Oulton. He learned many strange tricks from them. He was a good
camp-companion. I think that the