I am only a plain fisherman, with but little book learning; but I think I can muster up enough form o’ speech to tell you one of the skeeriest tales you ever heard in all your born days. It was the first week in January, 188--, that we had a dreadful gale from the north-west which came at the full moon; consequently the tides were high, and this here gale came with such a scouring force, that the soft cliffs melted away like a lump of butter in the glare o’ the sun. The sand was swep’ away right down to what you might term the foundations of the shore, and everything laid as bare as my forehead. I liken it to my forehead, which is kinder wrinkly, because there were great ruts and scars along the beach which had once been holls,[1] deeks,[2] and lokes.[3] I and a mate o’ mine walked along the beach next day, just to see if anything had been thrown ashore that would come in handy to a couple of poor chaps like ourselves; but little did we find, for some one had been pawkin’[4] before us. Still, we got a useful length of two-inch rope and a couple of dantos,[5] attached to a score fathom of decent net, so our walk paid for shoe-leather. When we got to the third breakwater--for we live at Hasbro’--and peeped over, we were wholly stammed[6] to see the old village of Eccles laid bare and plain like a map. There was the walls of the housen standin’ up two foot and more in some places; and some of the door thresholds were still there, with the wood as good as ever. We could make out the shapes of the gardens, and could see where the fruit-trees had once stood, by the roots and tree-bolls that still remained. In grubbing about with a pointed boat-streak, I roused out an old leathern bag with a golden guinea in it, and a piece of rusty iron tangled in the strap, which might have been a knife or somethin’ of the sort in days gone by. Afterwards we looked over the churchyard wall, and to our surprise found that many of the graves had been washed open; in fact, some of the coffins lay there nearly level with the ground, for you know we don’t bury very deep in Norfolk, not more than four foot, and only one corpse in each hole. The coffins wor of a different shape to what they make ’em now-a-days, for they were long, like a seaman’s chest, but broad at one end and narrow at the other, and the lid hinged on at one side. Human bones were washing about in all directions, and a long line of them lay among the rubbish left at high watermark. We found one immense coffin near the north wall of the church, which must have been seven foot long, if it was an inch. The lid was much decayed, and in some parts broken away; so we thought it no sin to prize the rest off, and see what was inside.