Many Farlingford men were engaged in the winter fisheries on the Dogger, and farther north, in Lowestoft boats.

In winter, Farlingford--thrust out into the North Sea, surrounded by marsh--is forgotten by the world.
The solitary boat came round the corner into the wider sheet of water, locally known as Quay Reach.
"A foreigner!" cried Sep, jumping, as was his wont, from one foot to the other with excitement.

"It is like the boat that was brought up by the tide, with a dead man in it, long ago.

And that was a Belgian boat." Miriam was looking at the boat with a sudden brightness in her eyes, a rush of colour to her cheeks, which were round and healthy and of that soft clear pink which marks a face swept constantly by mist and a salty air.

In flat countries, where men may see each other, unimpeded by hedge or tree or hillock, across a space measured only by miles, the eye is soon trained--like the sailor's eye--to see and recognise at a great distance.
There was no mistaking the attitude of the solitary steersman of this foreign boat stealing quietly up to Farlingford on the flood tide.