The men who go away in the great smacks and remain at sea for many weeks
at a time are used to call themselves fishermen; but the long-shore
fisher does not consider these smacksmen as being members of his
profession at all. A person who leaves his own village, and never comes
home in the morning like a decent citizen, is regarded with much
condescension by the owner of a coble. The bolder voyager calls himself
a fisher, but he is really only a kind of sailor; and as such he is a
being to be patronized by the true craftsman. Right up the coast, from
the Tyne to Berwick, little villages are planted at intervals of about
four miles; and these villages are mostly inhabited by men who only use
open boats. The ethnologists say that, as regards height, chest
measurement, and strength, the population of this strip of coast shows
the finest men in the world. The Cumberland dalesmen are often very
tall; but in weight and girth of chest the mountaineers are not equal to
the Northumbrian fishers. Dr. Brown has published some curious
statistics bearing on this point; and he is of opinion that the flower
of the English race may be found within a circle of two or three miles
around the village of Boulmer. The villages are much alike in every
respect. The early settlers seem to have looked for places where a
range of low rocks lay like the string of a bow across the curve of a
bay, or where a cove nestled under the southerly steep of a jutting
point. The beaches shelve very gradually, and are never shingly; so that
a special kind of boat gradually had to be contrived in order that the
peculiar nature of the landing might be suited. The early fishermen saw
that the boat must have a very light draught of water, and yet be
sufficiently weatherly to face the open sea. Thus, after years of
experiment, the "coble" was designed in its present form; and these
craft are as much the product of their special locality as are the men
who man them. The coble has an exceedingly deep bow, which grips the
water to a depth of some three feet, and which resembles in contour the
breastbone of a grebe or northern diver. This great curve is rimmed with
iron. But from the bend the lines slope upward, until at the stern the
boat is quite flat-bottomed and only about three feet in depth. She is
poised so that while her bow draws three feet of water her stern will
float in one or two inches; and she will come so near the shore that one
can climb over her stern nearly dryshod. In smooth water she may be
rowed about very easily and safely; but it would be impossible to carry
sail on a craft of which really only one-half of the keel is submerged:
she would capsize instantly in a very light wind. This difficulty is
cleverly met. As soon as the coble is put under sail her great rudder is
fixed; and this rudder, which is very broad, goes under water to a depth
of three feet or so. When the wind is on the beam the rudder acts
exactly like a centre-board: if it breaks, nothing can save the coble;
but so long as it holds the vessel will lie well over and sail with
amazing swiftness. Years upon years of apprenticeship are needed before
a man can manage one of these crank boats; in fact, the fishermen's
proverb says, "You must be born in a coble if you want to learn anything
about her."
The race of men who work in the cobles have good chances of becoming
skilful, for they begin very early. When the fisher-boy has passed the
merest infancy his steps tend to the water-side as naturally as though
he were a young sea-bird. He carries the water-bottles down to the boats
in the afternoon, and sees his father and the other men hauling off out
of the shallow cove. The evening comes down, and he watches the race
northward until the last brown sail has passed around the point. In the
morning he is ready for the boats as they come home, and he can
distinguish each craft exactly, although an outsider would be able to
see not a whit of difference. He sees the fish carted, and then goes
home with the stolid heavy-footed men. All the morning, while the
fishermen are sleeping, the fisher-lad is busy helping the women to bait
lines or spread nets, according to the season. He goes in an amateur way
to school, but he is the wildest and most gipsy-like of scholars. His
thoughts have suffered a sea change, and he takes badly to books and
slates. A studious fisherman is hardly to be found, and it is only
within the last twenty years that the accomplishment of reading has
become known in the smaller villages. Since the Government school system
spread, many little places have been established; but what can a poor
schoolmaster do with a pupil who is wanted nearly every morning to
gather bait on the rocks, and who must see the trouting boats off on the
summer afternoons? The fisher-boy always goes barefooted. Big sea-boots
suit him when he grows up, but the shabby compromise of shoes or
"bluchers" is totally unacceptable to him. When he goes to school he
sometimes puts the hated footgear on; but as soon as the prison-doors
are passed he slings the boots round his neck and goes merrily home with
his brown feet moving freely. He will charge through a clump of nettles
quite indifferently; and this wondrous power strikes civilized children
with awe. The fisher-boy's language is a strange mixture. No southerner
can understand him; for, besides using old words, the fisher speaks with
harsh gutturals that make a burring sound in his throat. He calls a wild
cherry a "guigne;" he calls a swede turnip a "baygee," a gooseberry a
"grozer," mud "clarts," a horse-collar a "brime." If he had to say "I
fell head over heels," he would remark, "Aw cowped me creels." The
stranger is puzzled by this surprising tongue, but the fisher is proud
of it. No words can express his scorn for a boy who learns to talk
"Massingem" (which is the fisher's word for English): he scouts that
degenerate boy and refuses to consort with him. When the fisher-lad gets
measured for his first oilskins he is very proud. To "get away Norrad"
is the right of men; and he feels himself manly as he sits amidships
while the coble skims out into the bay. He is usually sent to the
trouting first; and then all night long he glides about on the dark bay
and hears the sounds from the moor and the woods. It falls cold toward
the dawn, and the boy grows hard and strong through his nightly ordeal.
When his hands are properly hardened like his horny feet, he is allowed
to row the coble with crossed oars; and then he becomes very useful, for
the men are left free to haul nets and plash on the water to frighten
the trout. When he reaches the age of sixteen, the fisher-lad clothes
himself in thick pilot-cloth and wears a braided cap on Sundays. He
pierces his ears too, and his thin golden rings give him a foreign look.
The young fisher-folk are very shamefaced about sweet-hearting. A lad
will tramp eight miles after dark to see his sweetheart; but he would be
stupefied with shame if anyone saw him walking with her. The workman of
the towns escorts his lover on Sunday afternoons, and is not ashamed;
but the fisher-folk never walk openly in couples.
Courtship is a very unpoetic affair with them. No one ever heard a
fisher use such a word as "love:" he would not consider himself a man if
he once learned such a fragment of "Massingem." If by any chance the
village grows crowded and some of the young men have to go southward to
the seaports, then those who return may bring sailor-like ways with
them; but the natives always remain hard and undemonstrative.
It is difficult to say when the fisher-lad is considered to have reached
man's estate. A good deal depends on his physical development. The work
to be done at sea is so very heavy that only a very powerful fellow can
perform it. It sometimes happens that a very strong lad of eighteen can
do a "man's turn;" but usually a fisherman must be thoroughly "set"
before he is counted as one of the elect. He then begins to think of
marriage, and his long Sunday evening journeys become frequent. He must
marry a fisher-girl; for if he chooses a hind's daughter he is as badly
off as a one-armed man. The work done by the fisher-women needs long and
special training: the baiting of lines is a delicate and subtle
operation, while the business of seeking bait is one which no
country-woman ever learns properly. Moreover, a country girl who has
been used to wearing long dresses and shoes can never take kindly to
bare feet and brief petticoats: the cold and exposure are too much for
her. A fisherman who marries a girl from inland is considered to have
wrecked his chances in life, and the gossips bewail his fate. He is shut
off from social intercourse; for his wife, even though she may have
lived within two miles of the sea, cannot meet the clannish fishers on
equal terms. If, however, the fisherman marries according to natural
law, he and his wife begin their partnership without any of the
frivolities of wedding trips and such like. The girl settles down
quickly; and in a week she is baiting lines in the stone-floored
kitchen, or tramping inland with her great fish basket slung round her
forehead. She bows her strong figure under her burden, and the great pad
which prevents the rope from cutting her brow looks like a strange
head-dress. Her husband is too secretive to exhibit any pride, but he is
satisfied with his helpmate.
The fisherman has no amusements. In the afternoons, when his sleep is
over, he walks up and down in the Row and gazes around; but he rarely
laughs, and few things interest him unless he is religious. Fishermen
seldom gossip like rustics. Sometimes they have a queer dry humour which
comes out in short phrases, but they never carry on sustained
conversation. The faculty of expression is granted them in very sparing
degree. The fisherman's courage is perfect, yet he cannot speak of his
own actions. He will do the most brave things in a stolid, unconscious
way; but he could not frame a hundred consecutive words to tell anyone
what he had done. He never shows any emotion excepting when under the
influence of religious excitement. The melancholy of the sea seems to
have entered his nature, and his chief efforts aim at self-restraint.
When the little Methodist chapel resounds with the noise of appreciative
groanings and sighing, it is very rarely that anything like
gesticulation or vivid facial change is seen. Deep-chested men utter
sonorous ejaculations and the women sigh, but there is no shuffling of
feet and no movement. As a class, the fishers have grown to be more
religious than almost any other body of men, and they like powerful
excitement; but they are always severely decorous. In his behaviour
toward his social superiors the fisherman is rugged--perhaps morbidly
rugged--but his brusque familiarity is not offensive. To touch his cap
would be impossible to him, but his direct salute is neither
self-assertive nor impolite. The fisherman toils on till the time comes
for him to stay ashore always. His life is a very risky one, and the
history of every village is largely made up of stories about drowned
men, for the coast is an ugly place, and the utmost skill and daring can
hardly carry a man through a lifetime without accident. If the accident
is fatal, there is an end of all: the bruised bodies are washed up; the
women wring their hands, and the old men walk about silently. But if
things go well, then the fisherman's old age is comfortable enough. The
women look after him kindly, and on sunny mornings he enjoys himself
very well as he nurses the children on the bench facing the sea.