"Happen it is, and happen the shame is not so much the men's as yours."
"Mine? How?"
"I suppose you buy and eat fish?"
"Yes, and pay the price I'm asked; if I paid twice as much, would the fishermen get the money?"
"Nay, I don't know. We look to you clever folk in London to settle these things."
They are not awe-struck by the superiority of the "clever folk from London," these outspoken men of the sea. From the taciturn solitary policeman, who looks on us with undisguised contempt, to the ancient mariners by the river-side, who gaze on us with the puzzled stare that a Viking might have cast on a French dancing-master, the natives give one the painful impression that they regard us as prodigies of ignorance and uselessness.
But—we have money. People who don't seem to know anything or to do anything always have. And they that have to wrest sustenance from the churlish sea at Gorleston, are disposed to do much for money—even to tolerate inquisitive, pompously patronising, incessantly cackling Cockneys.
I went down to the sea thinking to mend my tired body with the blow of the lusty spray, but I am judging 'twas perhaps my mind most needed change of air.
They are not so much our lungs that get stifled in the cities as our brains and hearts. We are so hemmed in with glittering shams and lies that we forget Truth's features.