Where the Atlantic meets the land

by H. Caldwell Lipsett

THE GAUGER'S LEP

There was agitation in Kilcross. For years the fishing industry of the place had been deteriorating. Steam-trawlers owned by English and Scotch firms in Liverpool and Glasgow had gradually come to infest the bay, and tugs came twice a week to relieve them of their takings. The primitive appliances and means of transport of the native fishermen had left them unable to cope with this competition; so that it was with difficulty they could get their fish sold, and often it was left to rot on their hands. Further than that, the huge beams of these new-fangled engines disturbed the bottom of the bay, raked up the spawning beds, and interfered with the habits of generations, so that no man knew where to look next for the fish.

But all that was going to be altered now; the press had taken the matter up and interested itself on behalf of this distressed class; busybodies who saw an opportunity of gaining a cheap notoriety for themselves wrote to the papers and caused questions to be asked in Parliament. The result was that relief works had been undertaken in the shape of a boat-slip, with a jetty to protect it from the weather, and to form a harbor for incoming boats. Up to this time the open beach had been their only landing-place, and dragging the heavy boats, over the rough shingle every time they were launched or taken out of the water had not tended to increase their lasting qualities; while often, when it was at all rough, it was impossible to land at all, and a sandy cove further round the coast had to be sought out. So now, with a placid gratitude to Providence, all Kilcross was sitting on the shore watching the first stone being laid.

For weeks afterwards the new works afforded great employment for eye and tongue to the inhabitants of the little village. In the reunions on the beach or round the fires at night in the cottages, there was no other subject of conversation but 'the gran' new kay;' and when there was nothing else to do, the large square stones lying about came in handy to sit upon and smoke a pipe while watching the masons at work. Some of the men even went the length of earning an occasional day's wages by helping to transport the stones to their resting-places; but the general opinion was that, when everything was being done for them, it was unnecessary to jog the elbow of Providence, and that such sustained energy as regular work entailed could not be expected of a people used to the precarious calling of the sea.

Presently the works were finished, and the idlers' occupation was gone. The particular busybody who took the credit to himself for all that had been done, broke a bottle of champagne over the new pier and made a speech. The fishermen quite believed him when he told them that they were very fine fellows; but with the narrow shrewdness of their class, thought that he was rather a fool to take so much trouble over other people's affairs that did not concern him, for they did not know how it served his interest to do so.

On the following Sunday morning, a lovely day in the late Donegal summer, when the women and the younger men were preparing to set out for chapel, the word went round that 'the fish is in the bay,' and in a moment all thought of devotions was abandoned. First there was seen a dark-blue ripple on the surface of the water, coming rapidly nearer, and shot with flashes of silver in the sunlight; this was caused by the 'sprit' or small herring-fry leaping out of the water to escape their natural enemies. Above them hovered screaming flocks of gulls; every now and then one of these would mount to a height, and sheathing its wings, would drop with a splash like a stone into the water, emerging with a small fish in its beak. Hard upon the track of the 'sprit' followed shoals of shehans, glascon, whiting, mackerel, herring, and pollack; after them came porpoises, dolphins, and seals; conger-eels twined themselves among the wrack along the rocks lying in wait for the fry; and even a whale was seen spouting in the offing. The larger fish devoured the smaller, only to be themselves devoured in turn by others.

In a moment the nets were got out and the boats launched. The women and boys remaining on shore armed themselves with baskets and seine-nets. With these they rushed into the water up to the waist and lifted out baskets full of the fry and even of the mackerel, which sometimes ran themselves up dry upon the beach in their eagerness after their prey. A shoal of mackerel entered the mouth of the little harbor, and a seine-net being quickly stretched across the entrance, not one escaped.

That evening there were rejoicings in the little village. Enough fish had been caught in that one day to salt down and last them through the winter, leaving a handsome surplus to hawk through the inland towns and villages. The whiting had been caught in such numbers that no one had any use for them, and they were left to rot in heaps upon the shore, until the country people came with carts and drew them for manure. But the old men shook their heads, and said it was a bad sign for the weather; they had never known so plentiful a take, and the fish must be flying before some prodigious storm.

Upon this occasion the croakers proved right for once. For when the people awoke two days later, they found that the first of the equinoctial gales was upon them before its usual time. The clouds were scurrying in huge banks across the sky, and the sea, turned leaden-gray, was running violently shorewards, beaten flat by the furious force of the wind, and breaking upon the beach with a low moaning sound. As the day progressed the wind abated slightly and allowed the waves to rise, and they roused themselves in their might and beat upon the devoted pier. For a time their efforts were unavailing, for the back that it presented to them was encased in concrete and proof against assault; but at last a huge roller launched itself over the top of the pier and fell upon the stone-work in its centre; the mortar, impregnated with the salt air and the spray, had never had a chance to dry and get properly hard; the force of the water, gripping the edges of one of the huge stones in the centre, whisked it from its feeble hold and carried it hurtling into the sea beyond. The waves laughed, exulting in their success, and hurled mass after mass into the breach thus begun, churning stones and mortar up in a circular whirlpool, until by evening there was a huge round hole in the new pier reaching to the bed-rock beneath.

Meanwhile the sights and sounds of wrecks at sea were beginning to be apparent. Minute-guns were heard in the offing, the reports almost drowned in the rush of the storm; a three-masted vessel went ashore on the opposite side of the bay under the lighthouse upon St. John's Point, and could be seen rapidly breaking up. Masts of vessels, beams, and pieces of wreckage began to come ashore, brought by the set of the currents and the force of the wind. All the fishermen were gathered upon the beach apathetically watching the destruction of the quay, from which they had hoped so much, and on the look-out for prizes.