Chapter X: The Fisher-Folk (2)

Taking a jump from Auchmithie, it is desirable to pause a moment at the small fishing village of Findon, in the parish of Banchory-Devenick, in Kincardineshire, in order to say a few words about a branch of industry in connection with the fisheries that is peculiar to Scotland. Yarmouth is famed for its “bloaters,” a preparation of herrings slightly smoked, well known over England; and in Scotland, as has already been mentioned in a previous chapter, there is that unparagoned dainty, the “Finnan haddock,” the best accompaniment that can be got to the other substantial components of a Scottish breakfast. Indeed, the Finnan haddock is celebrated as a breakfast luxury all over the world, although it is so delicate in its flavour, and requires such nicety in the cure, that it cannot be enjoyed in perfection at any great distance from the sea-coast. George IV., who had certainly, whatever may have been his other virtues, a kingly genius in the matter of relishes for the palate (does not the world owe to him the discovery of the exquisite propriety of the sequence of port wine after cheese?), used to have genuine Finnan haddocks always on his breakfast-table, selected at Aberdeen and sent express by coach every day for his Majesty’s use. Great houses of brick have now been erected at various places on the Moray Firth and elsewhere; and in these immense quantities of haddocks and other fish are smoked for the market by means of burning billets of green wood. Formerly the fisher-folk used to smoke a few haddocks in their cottages over their peat-fires for family use. I have already described how the fame of the Finnan haddock arose. The trade soon grew so large that it required a collection to be made in the fishing districts in order to get together the requisite quantity; so that what was once a mere local effort has now become a prominent branch of the fish trade. But it is seldom that the home-smoked fish can be obtained, with its delicate flavour of peat-reek. The manufactured Finnan or yellow haddock, smoked in a huge warehouse, is more plentiful, of course, but it has lost the old relish. It is pleasant to see the clean fireside and the clear peat-fire in the comfortably-furnished cottage, with the children sitting round the ingle on the long winter evenings, listening to the tales and traditions of the coast, the fish hanging all over the reeking peats, acquiring the while that delicate yellow tinge so refreshing to the eyes of all lovers of a choice dish.

Footdee, or “Fittie” as it is locally called, is a quaint suburb of Aberdeen, figuring not a little, and always with a kind of comic quaintness, in the traditions of that northern city, and in the stories which the inhabitants tell of each other. They tell there of one Aberdeen man, who, being in London for the first time, and visiting St. Paul’s, was surprised by his astonishment at its dimensions into an unusual burst of candour. “My stars!” he said, “this maks a perfect feel (fool) o’ the kirk o’ Fittie.” Part of the quaint interest thus attached to this particular suburb by the Aberdonians themselves arises from its containing a little colony or nest of fisher-folk, of immemorial antiquity. There are about a hundred families living in Fittie, or Footdee Square, close to the sea, where the Dee has its mouth. This community, like all others made up of fishing-folk, is a peculiar one, and differs of course from those of other working-people in its neighbourhood. In many things the Footdee people are like the gipsies. They rarely marry, except with their own class; and those born in a community of fishers seldom leave it, and very seldom engage in any other avocation than that of their fathers. The squares of houses at Footdee are peculiarly constructed. There are neither doors nor windows in the outside walls, although these look to all the points of the compass; and none live within the square but the fishermen and their families, so that they are as completely isolated and secluded from public gaze as are a regiment of soldiers within the dead walls of a barrack. The Rev. Mr. Spence, of Free St. Clement’s, lately completed plans of the entire “toun,” giving the number and the names of the tenants in every house; and from these exhaustive plans it appears that the total population of the two squares was 584—giving about nine inmates for each of these two-roomed houses. But the case is even worse than this average indicates. “In the South Square only eight of the houses are occupied by single families; and in the North Square only three, the others being occupied by at least two families each—one room apiece—and four _single_ rooms in the North Square contain _two_ families each! There are thirty-six married couples and nineteen widows in the twenty-eight houses; and the number of distinct families in them is fifty-four.” The Fittie men seem poorer than the generality of their brethren. They purchase the crazy old boats of other fishermen, and with these, except in very fine weather, they dare not venture very far from “the seething harbour-bar;” and the moment they come home with a quantity of fish the men consider their labours over, the duty of turning the fish into cash devolving, as in all other fishing communities, on the women. The young girls, or “queans,” as they are called in Fittie, carry the fish to market, and the women sit there and sell them; and it is thought that it is the officious desire of their wives to be the treasurers of their earnings that keeps the fishermen from being more enterprising. The women enslave the men to their will, and keep them chained under petticoat government. Did the women remain at home in their domestic sphere, looking after the children and their husbands’ comforts, the men would then pluck up spirit and exert themselves to make money in order to keep their families at home comfortable and respectable. Just now there are many fishermen who will not go to sea as long as they imagine their wives have got a penny left from the last hawking excursion. There is no necessity for the females labouring at out-door work. There are few trades in this country where industrious men have a better chance to make money than fishermen have, especially when they are equipped with proper machinery for their calling. At Arbroath, Auchmithie, and Footdee (Fittie), the fishing population are at the very bottom of the scale for enterprising habits and social progress. When the wind is in any way from the eastward, or in fact blowing hard from any direction, the fishermen at these places are very chary about going to sea unless dire necessity urges them.

The people of “Fittie” are progressing in morals and civilisation. One of the local journalists who took the trouble to visit the place lately, in order to describe truthfully what he saw, says:—“They have the reputation of being a very peculiar people, and so in many respects they are; but they have also the reputation of being a dirtily-inclined and degraded people, and this we can certify from personal inspection they are not. We have visited both squares, and found the interior of the houses as clean, sweet, and wholesome as could well be desired. Their white-washed walls and ceiling, their well-rubbed furniture, clean bedding, and freshly-sanded floors, present a picture of tidiness such as is seldom to be met with among classes of the population reckoned higher in the social scale. And this external order is only the index of a still more important change in the habits and character of our fisher-toun, the population of which, all who know it agree in testifying, has within the past few years undergone a remarkable change for the better in a moral point of view. Especially is this noticed in the care of their children, whose education might, in some cases, bring a tinge of shame to the cheek of well-to-do town’s folks. Go down to the fisher squares, and lay hold of some little fellow hardly able to waddle about without assistance in his thick made-down moleskins, and you will find he has the Shorter Catechism at his tongue-end. Ask any employer of labour in the neighbourhood of the shore where he gets his best apprentices, and he will tell you that for industry and integrity he finds no lads who surpass those from the fisher squares. Inquire about the families of the fishermen who have lost their lives while following their perilous occupation, and you will find that they have been divided among other families in the square, and treated by the heads of these families as affectionately as if they had been their own.”

As regards the constant intermarrying of the fisher class, and the working habits of their women, I have read an Italian fable to the following effect:—“A man of distinction, in rambling one day through a fishing-village, accosted one of the fishermen with the remark that he wondered greatly that men of his line of life should chiefly confine themselves, in their matrimonial connections, to women of their own caste, and not take them from other classes of society, where a greater security would be obtained for their wives keeping a house properly, and rearing a family more in accordance with the refinement and courtesies of life. To this the fisherman replied, that to him, and men of his laborious profession, such wives as they usually took were as indispensable to their vocation as their boat and nets. Their wives took their fish to market, obtained bait for their lines, mended their nets, and performed a thousand different and necessary things, which husbands could not do for themselves, and which women taken from any other of the labouring classes of society would be unable to do. ‘The labour and drudgery of our wives,’ continued he, ‘is a necessary part of our peculiar craft, and cannot by any means be dispensed with, without entailing irreparable injury upon our social interests.’ MORAL.—This is one among many instances, where the solid and the useful must take precedence of the showy and the elegant.”

As I have already mentioned, the fishers are intensely superstitious. No matter where we view them, they are as much given to signs and omens at Portel near Boulogne as at Portessie near Banff. For instance, whilst standing or walking they don’t like to be numbered. Rude boys will sometimes annoy them by shouting—

“Ane, twa, three;
What a lot o’ fisher mannies I see!”

It is also considered very offensive to ask fisher-people, whilst on their way to their boats, where they are going to-day; and they do not like to see, considering it unlucky, the impression of a very flat foot upon the sand; neither, as I have already explained, can they go to work if on leaving their homes in the morning a pig should cross their path. This is considered a particularly unlucky omen, and at once drives them home. Before a storm, it is usually thought, there is some kind of warning vouchsafed to them; they see, in their mind’s eye doubtless, a comrade wafted homeward in a sheet of flame, or the wraith of some one beckons them with solemn gesture landward, as if saying, “Go not upon the waters.” When an accident happens from an open boat, and any person is drowned, that boat is never again used, but is laid up high and dry, and allowed to rot away—rather a costly superstition. Then, again, some fisher-people perform a kind of “rite” before going to the herring-fishery, in drinking to a “white lug”—that is, that when they “pree” or examine a corner or lug of their nets, they may find it glitter with the silvery sheen of the fish, a sure sign of a heavy draught.

But the fishermen of other coasts are quite as quaint, superstitious, and peculiar as those of our own. The residents in the _Faubourg de Pollet_ of Dieppe are just as much alive to the signs and tokens of the hour as the dwellers in the square of Fittie, or those who inhabit the fishing quarter of Boulogne. It is a pity that the guide-books say so little about these and similar places. The fishing quarter of Boulogne is not unlike Newhaven: there is the same “ancient and fish-like smell,” the same kind of women with a very short petticoat, the only difference being that our Scottish fishwives wear comfortable shoes and stockings. We can see too the dripping nets hung up to dry from the windows of the tumble-down-like houses, and the _gamins_ of Boulogne lounge about the gutter’s side on the large side stones, or run up and down the long series of steps just the same as the fisher-folks’ children do at home.

It is only, however, by penetrating into the quaint villages situated on the coasts of Normandy and Brittany, that we can gain a knowledge of the manners and customs of those persons who are daily engaged in prosecuting the fisheries. The clergymen of their districts, as may be supposed, have great power over them, and all along the French coast the fisher-people have churches of their own, and they are constantly praying for “luck,” or leaving propitiatory gifts upon the altars, as well as going pilgrimages in order that their wishes may be realised. A dream is thought of such great consequence among these people, that the women will hold a conference, early in the day, in order to its interpretation. Each little village has its storied traditions, many of them of great interest, and some of them very romantic. I can only briefly allude, however, to one of these little stories. Some of my readers may have heard of the Bay of the Departed on the coast of Brittany, where, in the dead hour of night, the boatmen are summoned by some unseen power to launch their boats and ferry over to a sacred island the souls of men who had been drowned in the surging waters. The fishermen tell that, on the occasion of those midnight freights, the boat is so crowded with invisible passengers as to sink quite low in the water, and the wails and cries of the shipwrecked are heard as the melancholy voyage progresses. On their arrival at the Island of Sein, invisible beings are said to number the invisible passengers, and the wondering awe-struck crew then return to await the next supernatural summons to boat over the ghosts to the storied isle, which was in long back days the chief haunt of the Druidesses in Brittany. A similar story may be heard at Guildo on the same coast. Small skiffs, phantom ones it is currently believed, may be seen when the moon is bright darting out from under the castle cliffs, manned by phantom figures, ferrying over the treacherous sands the spirits whose bodies lie engulphed in the neighbourhood. Not one of the native population, so strong is the dread of the scene, will pass the spot after nightfall, and strange stories are told of phantom lights and woeful demons that lure the unsuspecting wayfarer to a treacherous death.

The Parisian fishwives are clean and buxom women, like their sisters of Newhaven, and they are quite as celebrated if not so picturesque in their costume. About a century and a half ago—and I need not go further back—there were a great number of fishwives in Paris, there being not less than 4000 oyster-women, who pursued their business with much dexterity, and were able to cheat their customers as well, if not better than any modern fishwife. One of their best tricks was to swallow many of the finest oysters under the pretence of their not being fresh. Among the Parisian fishwives of the last century we are able to pick out Madame Picard, who was famed for her poetical talent, and was personally known to many of the eminent Frenchmen of the last century. Her poems were collected and published in a little volume, and ultimately by marriage this fishwife became a lady, having married a very wealthy silk merchant. The fishwives of Paris have long been historical: they have figured prominently in all the great events connected with the history of that city. A deputation from these market-women, gorgeously dressed in silk and lace, and bedecked with diamonds and other precious stones, frequently took part in public affairs. Mirabeau was a great favourite of the Parisian fishwives; at his death they attended his funeral and wore mourning for him. These Poissardes took an active part in the revolution of 1789, and did deeds of horror and charity that one has a difficulty in reconciling. It was no uncommon sight, for instance, to see the fishwives carrying about on poles the heads of obnoxious persons who had been murdered by the mob.

As I am on the subject of the foreign fisher-folk, I may as well say a few words more about the quaint eel-breeders of Comacchio, to whom I have already had occasion to allude. According to M. Coste, the social life of the people at Comacchio, who are engaged in the work of eel-culture, is very curious; but I think the industrial phase is so much mixed up with the social as to render the two inseparable. The community is in a sense—that is, so far as discipline is concerned—a military one, and strict laws are laid down for the conduct of the fishery. A large number of the men live in barracks, and observe the monkish rule of passive obedience. Each of the islands of the lagoon may be described as a small farm, having a chief cultivator, a few servants, a plentiful supply of the necessary implements of labour, its living-house, and its store for the harvest. It appears so natural to the people to suppose these stations to be farms, that they have from the very earliest times described the various basins as fields, just as if they were composed of earth instead of water; and of these places there are no less than four hundred, the most important of them belonging to the state, the rest being private property. The government of the whole lagoon is exclusively in the hands of the farmer-general or his representative, who rents the fisheries from the Pope. There is a large body of men employed by him, who are divided into brigades, and whose business lies in the construction of the dykes, and in the management of the flood-gates during the seeding of the lagoon, and the organisation of the labyrinths during the fishing-season. This cultivating brigade numbers about three hundred men; the police brigade consists of one hundred and twenty persons; and besides these there is an administrative brigade of one hundred individuals. A great deal of work has to be done by the persons employed, whether at the various farms, in the offices, or in the kitchen, for at Comacchio a large portion of the fish is cooked for the market. Upon each farm there are about twelve labourers, who live in a barrack under severe discipline, having all things in common. There is a master who exercises absolute power in his own domain; he is paid a salary of four scudi seventy-five baiocchi per month, with two and a half pounds of fish per day, and during summer-time, when the fish are scarce, he gets an additional allowance of money. The rate of wages at this place appears exceedingly small when contrasted with the payment of English labour. The wages of the learners or apprentices are exceedingly modest; they are remunerated with the “sair-won penny-fee” of 26s. per annum, in addition to their food! But then the poor people of Comacchio—the widow, the orphan, the aged and the infirm labourer—are all maintained at the expense of the community.

But it is right to mention also that a greater than a mere salaried interest in the labours incidental to the working of these fish-farms is kept up by the greater portion of the _employes_ having a share of or commission on the produce, which in good years amounts to as much as twelve Roman ecus for each man. The captain is, of course, responsible in every way for his farm, both that the labour be properly carried on, and also for the moral conduct of the men under his charge, to whom he is bound to set a good example, as well of neatness in dress as activity in business.

Exiled in the valley which they cultivate, each family finds it necessary to devote its attention to those domestic offices so necessary for economy and comfort. The _vallanti_ take in turn, as our soldiers do, the duty of cooking. They place the fish which they receive as a part of their wages in a common stock, to which is added such provision as the messenger may have brought from the town. When the cook has prepared the repast, they all sit down to table in one company, from the head man to the most humble servant; but although they mix thus promiscuously together, military etiquette is strictly observed—the foreman occupies the place of honour, having the under-foreman and the secretary by his side, next come the vallanti, and then the apprentices and cleaners. A benediction is then pronounced, after which the foreman serves out to each man his proper modicum of food, taking care to respect those rights of precedence which have been indicated. Eels, cooked upon the gridiron, form the staple of the repast, and the dinner is washed down with a little bosco-eli-esco wine. After dinner is over, the labourers return to their work. When evening arrives some remain awake all night, seated in arm-chairs, and others lie down in hard beds similar to those of the barracks. None of the _employes_ of the valley are allowed to be absent from duty without a written permission, and heavy fines are exacted on any occasion of this rule being infringed. The discipline of each valley is the same, and one cannot conceive of a more monotonous life than that led by these humble fishermen, which season after season is ever the same, and goes on for years in one dull unvarying round. An unexpected tourist excites quite a commotion among the simple people, and they have great hopes that as the place becomes known to the outer world their prison life will ultimately be ameliorated.

The fish season is opened with great solemnity of prayer, and many of those other ceremonies of the church peculiar to Roman Catholic communities—one of which is the consecration of the lagoon. The labyrinths, which have been constructed from hurdles in each watery field (see plan in “Fish Culture”) are crowded with fish, so that there is comparatively little trouble in the capture, and the salter waters of the sea being let in, the migratory instinct of the animal is excited, so that it becomes an easy prey to the fishermen. Upon the occasion of taking a great haul of fish in any particular valley, a gun is fired to announce the glad tidings to the other islanders, and next day a feast is held to celebrate the capture, which must, however, be of a certain amount.

The town of Comacchio is chiefly a long street of one-storied houses, situated on the principal island of the lagoon. There is a cathedral in the town, but it is entirely destitute of any architectural character, and there is a tower, from the top of which a good view of the lagoon and its various islands may be obtained; but in an industrial point of view the chief feature of the place is the great kitchen where the cure of the fish is carried on, one of the peculiarities of Comacchio being that a large portion of the eels are cooked before being sent to market. The kitchen where the eels are cooked is a large room containing a number of fireplaces ranged along one side. These fireplaces are about five feet square, and in front of each of them are hung six or seven spits on which the eels are impaled and roasted. The fire is placed on a low grate, and immediately below the spits is a trough or duct to catch the grease, that drops from the eels while cooking. Before being roasted the fish undergo an operation. A workman seated before a block of wood, with a small hatchet in his hand, seizes the eels one by one and with great dexterity cuts off the head and tail, which are given to the poor, divides the body of the eel into several pieces of equal length according to its size, and throws them into a basket at his side. Each piece at the same time is slightly notched to facilitate the work of the next operator, who with equal skill and quickness puts the bits on the spit. It is only the large eels, however, that are decapitated and divided, the smaller ones are simply notched and stuck on the spit. The spits thus filled are next handed to the women in front of the fire. Two women are necessary for each fireplace: one regulates the fire; the second looks after the roasting of the eels, which is the most important part of the labour, carefully shifting the spits from a higher to a lower position in front of the fire until the fish are properly done, when the spits are taken off by the woman, who places them aside for the next operation. This woman also attends to the grease that collects in the trough below the spits, and puts it in jars for future use. Besides these fireplaces, there are a number of furnaces fitted with large circular frying-pans, which are exclusively attended to by men. All the fish for which the spit is unsuitable are fried in these pans with a mixture of the grease dropped from the eels and olive-oil. They are exposed to the air for some time, even during very warm weather, before being cooked. This operation renders them fitter for preservation. The eels roasted on spits, and the fish cooked in the frying-pans, are placed in baskets of openwork to _dreep_ and cool. They are then packed in barrels of large and small sizes. The packing is carefully and regularly done similar to the method of packing herrings. A mixture of vinegar and salt is poured into the barrel before it is closed up. The vinegar must be of the strongest, and the salt employed is grey rock-salt instead of white salt. Previous to exportation the barrels are branded with different letters according to the nature of the fish contained in them.

Another method of preserving the fish is by salting. In the room devoted to this operation is a raised quadrangular space inclined so as to have a flow into a kind of ditch or trough, similar to that which receives the grease from the eels in the kitchen. On this raised space a layer of grey rock-salt is spread, and upon this salt the eels are disposed, laid at full length and closely squeezed together. Another layer of salt is spread upon the eels, and then another layer of eels is disposed crosswise on the first row, and so on until the pile is sufficiently high. A layer of salt is spread on the top, which is crowned by a board heavy with weights to press the fish close together and prevent the air from penetrating into the pile. The brine that exudes from the heap of fish and salt flows into the trough already mentioned. When the fish are considered to be well impregnated with the salt, which requires a period of twelve or fifteen days according to the size of the eels, the fish are taken down and packed in barrels, the same as the cooked eels, but without any liquid. There is a third mode of preparation, which consists in first immersing them for some time in the brine obtained from the above process of salting and then drying them. It is found necessary to put them into this liquid when alive, as otherwise the entrails would not absorb enough of salt to preserve them. In order to render the operation still more effective, powdered salt is introduced into the intestines by a wooden rod. After this they are washed in lukewarm water, and then hung up to dry below the ceiling of the kitchen or in a room somewhat smoky. The eels dried in this manner become of a bronze colour and are called smoked, a name which is also applied to all the fish prepared by the drying process, although smoke has nothing to do with the process. When the fish are destined for speedy consumption they are only half-dried. A barrel of pickled eels contains one hundred and fifty pounds weight, and costs a little more than ninety-seven francs. The fish of Comacchio are sent to all parts of Italy, and in Venice, Rome, and Naples they are greatly in demand.

As I have already indicated, the income obtained at Comacchio from this one fish is something wonderful; labour being so cheap, the profits are of course proportionately large. The population of the lagoon is about seven thousand individuals, and, as I have endeavoured to show, their mode of life is exceedingly primitive, the one grand idea being the fishery, of the ingenuity and productiveness of which the population are very proud.

The short and simple annals of the fisher-folk are all tinged with melancholy—there is a skeleton in every closet. There is no household but has to mourn the loss of a father or a son. Annals of storms and chronicles of deaths form the talk of the aged in all the fishing villages. The following narrative is a sample of hundreds of other sad tales that might be collected from the coast people of Scotland. It was related to a friend by a woman at Musselburgh:—“Weel, ye see, sir, I hae’na ony great story till tell. At the time I lost my guidman I was livin’ doon by at the Pans (Prestonpans, a fishing village). The herrin’ season was ower aboot a month, and my guidman had laid by a guid pickle siller, and we had skytched oot a lot o’ plans for the futur’. We had nae bairns o’ oor ain, although we had been married for mony years; but we had been lang thinkin’ o’ takin’ in a wee orphint till bring up as oor ain; and noo that the siller was geyan’ plenty, we settled that Mairon M’Farlane should come hame till us by the beginnin’ o’ November. My guidman was thinkin’ aboot buyin’ a new boat, although his auld ane was no sae muckle the waur for wear. I was thinkin’ aboot askin’ the guidman for a new Sunday’s goon; in fac’, we were biggin’ castles in the air a’ on the foundation o’ the herrin’ siller; but hech, sir, it’s ower true that man—ay, and woman tae—purposes, but the Great Almighty disposes. The wee orphint wasna till find a new faither and mither in my guidman and me; the auld boat wasna till mak’ room for a new ane; and my braw Sunday goon, which, gin I had had my choice, would hae been a bricht sky-blue ane, was changed intae black—black as nicht, black as sorrow and as death could mak’ it. There was a fine fishin’ o’ the haddies, and the siller in the bank was growing bigger ilka week, for the wather was at its best, and the fish plentifu’. Aweel, on the nicht o’ the seventeent o’ November, after I had put a’ the lines in order, and gien Archibald his supper, aff he gangs frae the herbour wi’ his boat, and four as nice young chiels as ye ever set an ee on for a crew. An’ there wasna muckle fear o’ dirty wather, although the sun had gaen doon rayther redder than we could hae wished. Some o’ the new married, and some o’ the lasses that were sune tae be married, used tae gang doon tae the herbour, and see their guidmen and their sweethearts awa’. I was lang by wi’ that sort o’ thing; no that my love was less, but my confidence was mair, seein’ that it had been tried and faund true through the lang period o’ fourteen years. As I was tidyin’ up the hoose afore gangin’ till my bed, I heard the men in the boats cryin’ till ane anither, as they were workin’ oot intae the firth. Tae bed I gaed, and lookin’ at the low o’ the fire, as it keepit flichterin’ up and deein’ awa’, sune set me soond asleep. What daftlike things folks think, see, and dae in their sleep. I dreamt that nicht that I was walkin’ alang the sands till meet my guidman, wha had landed his boat at Morrison’s Haven. The sun was shinin’ beautifu’, and the waves were comin’ tumlin’ up the sand, sparklin’ and lauchin’ in the sunlicht, dancin’ as if they never did ony ill. I saw my guidman at the distance, and I put my best fit forrit till meet him. I was as near him as tae see his face distinckly, and was aboot tae cry oot, ‘Archibald, what sort o’ fishin’ hae ye had?‘ when a’ on a suddint a great muckle hand cam’ doon frae the sky, and puttin’ its finger and thoom roond my guidman, lifted him clean oot o’ my sicht jist in a meenit. The fricht o’ the dream waukened me, and I turned on my side and lookit at whaur the fire ought tae be, but it was a’ blackness. The hoose was shakin’ as if the great muckle hand had gruppit it by the gavel, and was shakin’ it like a wunnelstraw. Hech, sir, ye leeve up in a toon o’ lands, and dinna ken what a storm is. Aiblins ye get up in the mornin’ and see a tree or twa lyin’ across the road, and a lum tummilt ower the rufe, and a kittlin’ or twa smoort aneath an auld barrel; but bless ye, sir, that’s no a storm sic as we folk on the seaside ken o’. Na, na! The sky—sky! there’s nae sky, a’ is as black as black can be; ye may put your hand oot and fill your nieve wi’ the darkness, exceppin’ the times when the lichtnin’ flashes doon like a twisted threid o’ purple gowd; and then ye can see the waves lookin’ ower ane anither’s heads, and gnashin’ their teeth, as ye micht think, and cryin’ oot in their anger for puir folk’s lives. Siccan a nicht it was when I waukened. My guidman had been oot in mony a storm afore, sae I comforted mysel’ wi’ thinkin’ that he would gey and likely mak for North Berwick or Dunbar when he saw the wather airtin’ for coorse. I wasna frightened, yet I couldna sleep for the roarin’ o’ the wind. Mornin’ cam’. I gaed doon till the shore, and a’ the wives and sweethearts o’ the Pans gaed wi’ me. There was a heavy fog on the sea, sae thick that neither Inchkeith nor the Law were to be seen. Naething was there but the sea and the muckle waves lowpin’ up and dashin’ themselves tae death on the rocks and the sands. Eastwards and westwards we lookit, an’ better lookit, but naething was till be seen but the fog and the angry roaring sea—no a boat, no a sail was visible on a’ the wild waters. Weel, we had a lang confab on the shore as tae what our guidmen and our sweethearts micht aiblins hae dune. It was settled amang us without a doot that they had gane intill North Berwick or Dunbar, and sae we expeckit that in the afternoon they would maybe tak’ the road and come hame till comfort us. After denner we—that is, the wives and sweethearts—took the gait and went as far as Gosfort Sands till meet our guidmen and the lads. The rain was pourin’ doon like mad; but what was that till us? we were lookin’ for what was a’ the world till our bosoms, and through wind and weet we went tae find it, and we nayther felt the cauld blast nor the showers. Cauldly and greyly the short day fell upon the Berwick Law. Darker and darker grew the gloamin’, but nae word o’ them we loo’d afore a’ the world. The nicht closed in at lang and last, and no a soond o’ the welcome voices. Eh, sir, aften and aften hae I said, and sang ower till mysel’, the bonny words o’ poetry that says—

‘His very foot has music in’t,
As he comes up the stair.’

But Archibald’s feet were never mair till come pap, pappin, in at the door. Twa sorrowfu’ and lang lang days passed awa’, and the big waves, as if mockin’ our sorrow, flang the spars o’ the boats up amang the rocks, and there was weepin’ and wailin’ when we saw them, or in the grand words o’ the Book, there was ‘lamentation and sorrow and woe.’ We kent then that we micht look across the sea, but ower the waters would never blink the een that made sunshine around our hearths; ower the waters would never come the voices that were mair delightfu’ than the music o’ the simmer winds when the leaves gang dancing till their sang. My story, sir, is dune. I hae nae mair tae tell. Sufficient and suffice it till say, that there was great grief at the Pans—Rachel weepin’ for her weans, and wouldna be comforted. The windows were darkened, and the air was heavy wi’ sighin’ and sabbin’.”

Resuming our tour, I may hint to the reader that it is well worth while, by way of variety, to see the fishing population of the various towns on the Moray Firth. Taking the south side as the best point of advantage, it may be safely said that from Gamrie to Portgordon there may be found many studies of character, and bits of land-, or rather sea-scape, that cannot be found anywhere else. Portsoy, Cullen, Portessie, Buckie, Portgordon, are every one of them places where all the specialities of fisher life may be studied. Buckie, from its size, may be named as a kind of metropolis among these ports; and it differs from some of them inasmuch as it contains, in addition to its fisher-folk, a mercantile population as well. The town is divided and subdivided by means of its natural situation. There is Buckie-east-the-burn, New Buckie, Nether Buckie, Buckie-below-the-brae, Buckie-aboon-the-brae, and, of course, Buckie-west-the-burn. A curious system of “nicknames” prevails among the fisher-people, and most notably among those on the Moray Firth, and in some of the Scottish weaving villages as well. In all communications with the people their “to” (_i.e._ additional), or, as the local pronunciation has it, “tee” names, must be used. At a public dinner a few months ago several of the Buckie fishermen were present; and it was noticeable that the gentlemen of the press were careful, in their reports of the proceedings, to couple with the real names of the men the appellations by which they were best known—as “Mr. Peter Cowie, ‘langlegs,’ proposed the health, etc.” So, upon all occasions of registering births, marriages, or deaths, the “tee” name must be recorded. If a fisherman be summoned to answer in a court of justice, he is called not only by his proper name, but by his nickname as well. In many of the fishing villages, where the population is only a few hundreds, there will not, perhaps, be half a dozen surnames, and the whole of the inhabitants therefore will be related “through-ither,” as such intermixture is called in Scotland. The variety of nicknames, therefore, is wonderful, but necessary in order to the identification of the different members of the few families who inhabit the fishing villages. The different divisions of Buckie, for instance, are inhabited by different clans; on the west side of the river or burn there are none but Reids and Stewarts, while on the east side we have only Cowies and Murrays. Cowie is a very common name on the shores of the Moray Firth; at Whitehills, and other villages, there are many bearing that surname, and to distinguish one from the other, such nicknames as Shavie, Pinchie, Howdie, Doddlies, etc., are employed. In some families the nickname has come to be as hereditary as the surname; and when Shavie senior crosses “that bourne,” etc., Shavie junior will still perpetuate the family “tee” name. All kinds of circumstances are indicated by these names—personal blemishes, peculiarities of manner, etc. There is, in consequence, Gley’d Sandy Cowie, Gley’d Sandy Cowie, dumpie, and Big Gley’d Sandy Cowie; there is Souples, Goup-the-Lift, Lang-nose, Brandy, Stottie, Hawkie, etc. Every name in church or state is represented—kings, barons, bishops, doctors, parsons, and deacons; and others, in countless variety, that have neither rhyme nor reason to account for them.

As an instance of the many awkward _contretemps_ which occur through the multiplicity of similar names in the northern fishing villages, the following may be recorded:—In a certain town lived two married men, each of them yclept Adam Flucker, and their individuality was preserved by those who knew them entitling them as Fleukie (Flounder) Flucker, and Haddie (Haddock) Flucker. Fleukie was blessed with a large family, with probable increase of the same, and cursed with a wife who ruled him like a despot. Haddie had possessed for many years a treasure of a wife, but prospect of a family there was none. Now these things were unknown to the carrier, who had newly entered on his office. From the store of an inland town he had received two packages, one for Haddie (a fashionable petticoat of the gaudiest red), and the other for Fleukie (a stout wooden cradle), to supply the place of a similar article worn out by long service. The carrier, in simplicity of ignorance, reversed the destination of the packages, which, of course, were returned to the inland merchant with threats of vengeance and vows never to patronise his store again.

Let the reader take, as an example of the quaint ways and absurd superstitions of the Moray Firth fisher-folk, the following little episode, which took place in the Small-Debt Court at Buckie, at the instance of a man who had been hired to assist at the herring-fishery, and who was pursuing his employer for his wages:—

On the case being called, the pursuer stated that he had been dismissed by the defender from his employment without just cause, indeed without any cause at all; and the defender, on being asked what he had to say, at once admitted the dismissal, and to the great astonishment of the Sheriff, confessed that he had nothing to assign as a reason for it, except the fact that the pursuer’s name was “Ross.”

“Ye see, my Lord, I did engage him, though I was weel tauld by my neibors that I sudna dee’t, and that I cudna expect te hae ony luck wi’ him, as it was weel kent that ‘Ross’ was an unlucky name. I thocht this was nonsense, but I ken better noo. He gaed te sea wi’ us for a week, and I canna say but that he did’s wark weel eneuch; but we never gat a scale. Sae the next week, I began to think there beet te be something in fat my neibors said; sae upo’ the Monday I wadna tak’ him oot, and left him ashore, and that very night we had a gran’ _shot_; and ye ken yersel’, my Lord, that it wad hae been ower superstishus to keep him after that, and sae I wad hae naething mair te dae wi’ him, and pat him aboot’s business.”

The Sheriff was much amused with this novel application of the word “superstitious;” but, in spite of that application, he had no difficulty in at once deciding against the defender, with expenses, taking occasion while doing so to read him a severe lecture upon his ignorance and folly. The lecture, however, has not been of much use, for I have ascertained that the “freit” in question is still as rife as ever, and that there is scarcely an individual among the communities of white-fishers on the Banffshire coast who, if he can avoid it, will have any transaction with any one bearing the obnoxious name of “Ross.”

I should now like to give my readers a specimen of the patois or dialect spoken by the Moray Firth fisher-folk, although it is somewhat difficult to do it effectively on paper; but I will try, taking a little dialogue between the fishermen and the curer about a herring-fishing engagement as the best mode of giving an idea of the language and pronunciation of the Buckie bodies:—

SCENE—_A Curer’s Office_. PRESENT—_The_ CURER _and the three_ “SHAVIES.”

_Curer_—Well, Shavie, ye’ve had a pretty good fishing this year.

_Shavie senior_—Ou ay, it’s been geyan gweed.

_Shavie tertius_—Fat did ye say, man? gweed—it’s nae been better than last.

_Curer_—Well, laddie, what was wrong with last year’s fishing?

_Bowed Shavie_—Weel awat, man, it was naething till brag o’, an’ fat’s mair, I lost my beets at it; ye’ll be gaun till gie’s a new pair neist fishin’.

_Shavie senior_—Ay, that was whan he _k_-nockit his _k_-nee again the boat-shore and brak his cweet.

_Curer_—Well, but lads, what about next fishing?

_Shavie senior_—Ou, is’t neist fishin’ ye’re wantin’ till speak o’?

_Curer_—Yes; will you engage?

_Shavie junior_—Fat are ye gaun till offer?

_Curer_—Same as last.

_Bowed Shavie_—Fat d’ye say, man?

_Curer_—Fourteen shillings a cran and fifteen pound bounty.

_Shavie senior_—Na, na, Maister Cowie; that winna dee ava, man.

_Bowed Shavie_—We can get mair nor that at Fitehills.

_Shavie junior_—I’ll be fuppit, lathie, if I dinna hae mair siller an’ mair boonty tee.

_Curer_—Well, make me an offer.

_Shavie senior_—Ou ay, man; we’ll tak’ saxteen shillin’ the cran an’ a boonty o’ twunty pound, an’ a pickle cutch, an’ a drappie whisky; an’ that’s ower little siller.

_Curer_—Well, I suppose I must give it.

_Bowed Shavie_—Gie’s oor five shillin’ then, an we’re fixed wi’ you an’ clear o’ a’ ither body.

And so, on the payment of these five shillings by way of arles, the bargain is settled, and the men engaged for the next herring-season.

As will be inferred from these details, the fisher-folk, as a body, are not literary or intellectual. They have few books, and many of them never look at a newspaper. It is not surprising, therefore, that only one author has arisen among the fisher-people—Thomas Mathers, fisherman, St. Monance, Fifeshire. We have had many poets from the mechanic class, and even the colliers from the deep caverns of the earth have begun to sing. Mathers’ volume is entitled, _Musings in Verse by Sea and Shore_. The following lines will at once explain the author’s ambition and exhibit his style:—

“I crave not the harp o’ a Burns sae strong,
Nor the lyre o’ a sweet Tannahill;
For those are the poets unrivalled in song,
Can melt every heart, and inspire every tongue,
Frae the prince to the peasant, at will.

“To weep wi’ the wretched, the hapless to mourn,
To glow wi’ the guid and the brave;
To cheer the lone pilgrim, faint and forlorn,
Wi’ breathin’s that kindle and language that burn,
Is the wealth and the world I would crave.”

The British fisher-people as a class are very sober and industrious, and they are becoming more intelligent, and, it is to be presumed, less superstitious. The children in the fishing villages are being educated; and in time, when they grow to man’s and woman’s estate, they will no doubt influence the fisheries for the better. Many of the seniors are now teetotal, and while at the herring-fishing prefer tea to whisky. The homes of some of the fisher-folks, on the Berwickshire and Northumberland coasts, are clean and tidy, and the proprietors seem to be in possession of a great abundance of good cheer.

It is, no doubt, considered by some to be an easy way to wealth to prosecute the herring or white fisheries, and secure a harvest grown on a farm where there is no rent payable, the seed of which is sown in bountiful plenty by nature, which requires no manure to force it to maturity, and no wages for its cultivation. But it is not all gold that glitters. There are risks of life and property connected with the fishery which are unknown to the industries that are followed on the land. There are times, as I have just been endeavouring to show, when there is weeping and wailing along the shore. The days are not always suffused in sunshine, nor is the sea always calm. The boats go out in the peaceful afternoon, and the sun, gilding their brown sails, may sink in golden beauty in its western home of rosy-hued clouds; but anon the wind will freshen, and the storm rise apace. The black speck on the distant horizon, unheeded at first, soon grows into a series of fast-flying clouds; and the wind, which a little ago was but a mere capful, soon begins to rage and roar, the waves are tossed into a wilder and wilder velocity, and in a few hours a great storm is agitating the bosom of the wondrous deep. The fishermen become alarmed; hasty preparations are made to return, nets are hauled on board, sails are set and dashed about by the pitiless winds, forcing the boats to seek the nearest haven. Soon the hurricane bursts in relentless fury; the fleet of fishing-boats toss wildly on the maddening waves; gloomy clouds spread like a pall over the scene; while on the coast the waters break with ravening fury, and many a strong-built boat is dashed to atoms on the iron rocks in the sight of those who are powerless to aid, and many a gallant soul spent in death, within a span of the firm-set earth. Morning, so eagerly prayed for by the disconsolate ones who have all the long and miserable night been watching from the land, at length slowly dawns, and reveals a shore covered with fragments of wood and clothes, which too surely indicate the disasters of the night. The _débris_ of boats and nets lie scattered on the rocks and boulders, dumb talebearers that bring sorrow and chill penury to many a household. Anxious children and gaunt women—

“Wives and mithers maist despairin’”—

with questioning eyes, rush wildly about the shore, piercing with their frightened looks the hidden secrets of the subsiding waters; and here and there a manly form, grim and stark and cold, cold in the icy embrace of death, his pale brow bound with wreaths of matted seaweed, gives silent token of the majesty of the storm.