Ned Corry and the
ages of his children. I met him last summer--have never ceased hearing
about him, for his sayings are often repeated and his adventures at sea
recounted. He came down here on holiday with his wife, who appeared to
be very happy and was obviously very proud of her Ned. The morning he
went back, he collected all of his old mates he could find, before
breakfast, into a public-house, treated them to whisky until his
pockets were empty, and then borrowed money to return to London. His
personality seems to have left a deeper impression than any other on
Seacombe. He is a man very alive; big, generous and uncontrollable in
all things; so broad that he seems short; great in voice, great in
strength, greatest in laughter. Very dark, and prominent in feature
where his fierce black beard allows any of his face to be seen, he is a
kind of Hebraic Berserker in general appearance, in the uncompromising
force of him and the squat sloppiness of his clothes. Yet his eyes,
almost bedded in hair, have often the bright peeping humorousness of a
shaggy dog's.

He had the most boats on the beach, and mighty strokes of luck with the
fish; employed more men than anyone before or since; paid them well
when he had the money, and with an irregularity which would have been
tolerated from no other boat-owner. Dina went to lodge at his house. He
made of her, so gossip says, a second wife. He succeeded in running a
household of three; then bought two lodging houses and set a wife to
manage each. "Ned was all right," Tony says, "on'y he didn't know how
to look after hisself--didn't care--nor after his money when he made
it." One evening, Tony found him in his bath in the middle of the
kitchen whilst his womenfolk were cooking him a good hot supper. It was
not his being in his bath which made Tony blush, but the freedom with
which he called, "Come in!"

When the prudent-minded of Seacombe clamoured to Ned for their money,
he sold up his boats and furniture, went to London, took without
apprenticeship a well-paid job at the docks, and now, as he walks home
along the dockside streets, he is given _Good Night_ from London
Bridge to Tilbury. The exerting of strength seems to have been his
leading impulse; pride in Ned Corry his only check. He was too big for
Seacombe. In London he remains entirely himself--'West-country Ned!'

Before Ned Corry's affairs were finished with, Tony came into the
kitchen, saying: "I just been talking out th