She, however, at the hazard of her own life, succeeded in saving her son’s. At eleven years old, he went to school, in Brothertoft chapel, for about six months, in which time he derived all the education he ever received. His love of reading was so great, that as soon as he could manage a gunning-boat, he used to employ his Sundays either in seeking for water-birds’ eggs, or to
————“shouve the boat
A catching fish, to make a groat,
And sometimes with a snare or hook;
Well, what was’t for?—to buy a book,
Propensity so in him lay.”
Before he arrived at man’s estate, he lost his mother, and soon afterwards his father married again. Will. himself, on arriving at man’s estate, married “Suke Holmes,” and became a “gozzard,” or gooseherd; that is, a keeper and breeder of geese, for which the fens were, at that time, famous throughout the kingdom, supplying the London markets with fowls, and the warehouses with feathers and quills. In these parts, the small feathers are plucked from the live geese five times a year, at Lady-tide, Midsummer, Lammas, Michaelmas, and Martinmas, and the larger feathers and quills are pulled twice. Goslings even are not spared, for it is thought that early plucking tends to increase the succeeding feathers. It is said that the mere plucking hurts the fowl very little, as the owners are careful not to pull until the feathers are ripe: those plucked after the geese are dead, are affirmed not to be so good. The number of geese kept by Will. must have been very great, for his “brood geese,” alone, required five coombs of corn for daily consumption.
The inundations to which the fens were then liable, from breaches, or overflowing of the banks, overwhelmed him with difficulties, and ruined his prospects.
“The poor old geese away were floated,
Till some high lands got lit’rally coated;
Nor did most peasants think it duty
Them to preserve, but made their booty;
And those who were ‘not worth a goose,’
On other people’s liv’d profuse.”
After many vicissitudes and changes of residence, he settled at Marshland, in Norfolk, where his wife practised phlebotomy and midwifery, while he officiated as an auctioneeer, cowleech, &c. &c. Indeed he appeared to have been almost bred to the doctoring profession, for his own mother was
————“a good cow-doctor,
And always doctor’d all her own,
Being cowleech both in flesh and bone.”
His mother-in-law was no less skilful, for in Will.’s words
“She in live stock had took her care,
And of recipes had ample share,
Which I retain unto this day.”
His father-in-law was an equally eminent practitioner; when, says Will.,