I have a very few words to say about the brand: whether or not each barrel of herrings should have stamped upon it a government mark indicative of its quality has been one of the most fertile subjects of controversy in connection with herring commerce. Now the brand—which was devised during the time the British government paid a bounty to the curer as an encouragement to fish for herrings—is voluntary, and has to be paid for, and in time, there can be no doubt, it will be altogether discontinued; and it would have been better perhaps had it never existed, although its continuance has been advocated by many excellent persons on the ground of its service to the fisheries. Other kinds of goods have been able to command a market without the interference of government—such as cotton and other textile fabrics, cheese, etc. Why then could not we sell our herrings on the faith of the curer? Government is not asked to brand our broadcloths, or our blankets, nor yet our steam-engines; and I hope soon to see a total abolition of the brand on our herring-barrels; but although I am an advocate for the total abolition of the brand I wish the present Fishery Board continued: there is ample employment for all the officers of that Board in acting as statisticians and police; we can never obtain sufficient information about the capture and disposal of the fish, the fluctuations of the fishery, etc. etc.
The following detailed description of the “herring-harvest,” as gathered in the Moray Frith, may be of interest to the general reader. It is reprinted, by permission, from a paper contributed by the author to the Cornhill Magazine:—
The boats usually start for the fishing-ground an hour or two before sunset, and are generally manned by four men and a boy, in addition to the owner or skipper. The nets, which have been carried inland in the morning, in order that they might be thoroughly dried, have been brought to the boat in a cart or waggon. On board there is a keg of water and a bag of bread or hard biscuit; and in addition to these simple necessaries, our boat contains a bottle of whisky which we have presented by way of paying our footing. The name of our skipper is Francis Sinclair, and a very gallant-looking fellow he is; and as to his dress—why, his boots alone would ensure the success of a Surrey melodrama; and neither Truefit nor Ross could satisfactorily imitate his beard and whiskers. Having got safely on board—a rather difficult matter in a crowded harbour, where the boats are elbowing each other for room—we contrive, with some labour, to work our way out of the narrow-necked harbour into the bay, along with the nine hundred and ninety-nine boats that are to accompany us in our night’s avocation. The heights of Pulteneytown, which command the quays, are covered with spectators admiring the pour-out of the herring fleet and wishing with all their hearts “God speed” to the venturers: old salts who have long retired from active seamanship are counting their “takes” over again; and the curer is mentally reckoning up the morrow’s catch. Janet and Jeanie are smiling a kindly good-bye to “faither,” and hoping for the safe return of Donald or Murdoch; and crowds of people are scattered on the heights, all taking various degrees of interest in the scene, which is stirringly picturesque to the eye of the tourist, and suggestive to the thoughtful observer.
Bounding gaily over the waves, which are crisping and curling their crests under the influence of the land-breeze, our shoulder-of-mutton sail filled with a good capful of wind, we hug the rocky coast, passing the ruined tower known as “the Old Man of Wick,” which serves as a capital landmark for the fleet. Soon the red sun begins to dip into the golden west, burnishing the waves with lustrous crimson and silver, and against the darkening eastern sky the thousand sails of the herring-fleet blaze like sheets of flame. The shore becomes more and more indistinct, and the beetling cliffs assume fantastic and weird shapes, whilst the moaning waters rush into deep cavernous recesses with a wild and monotonous sough, that falls on the ear with a deeper and a deeper melancholy, broken only by the shrill wail of the herring-gull. A dull hot haze settles on the scene, through which the coppery rays of the sun penetrate, powerless to cast a shadow. The scene grows more and more picturesque as the glowing sails of the fleet fade into grey specks dimly seen. Anon the breeze freshens and our boat cleaves the water with redoubled speed: we seem to sail farther and farther into the gloom, until the boundary-line between sea and shore becomes lost to the sight.
We ought to have shot our nets before it became so dark, but our skipper, being anxious to hit upon the right place, so as to save a second shooting, tacked up and down, uncertain where to take up his station. We had studied the movements of certain “wise men” of the fishery—men who are always lucky, and who find out the fish when others fail; but our crew became impatient when they began to smell the water, which had an oily gleam upon it indicative of herring, and sent out from the bows of the boat bright phosphorescent sparkles of light. The men several times thought they were right over the fish, but the skipper knew better. At last, after a lengthened cruise, our commander, who had been silent for half-an-hour, jumped up and called to action. “Up, men, and at ’em,” was then the order of the night. The preparations for shooting the nets at once began by our lowering sail. Surrounding us on all sides was to be seen a moving world of boats; many with their sails down, their nets floating in the water, and their crews at rest, indulging in fitful snatches of sleep. Other boats again were still flitting uneasily about; their skippers, like our own, anxious to shoot in the best place, but as yet uncertain where to cast: they wait till they see indications of fish in other nets. By and by we are ourselves ready, the sinker goes splash into the water, the “dog” (a large bladder, or inflated skin of some kind, to mark the far end of the train) is heaved overboard, and the nets, breadth after breadth, follow as fast as the men can pay them out (each division being marked by a large painted bladder), till the immense train sinks into the water, forming a perforated wall a mile long and many feet in depth; the “dog” and the marking bladders floating and dipping in a long zigzag line, reminding one of the imaginary coils of the great sea-serpent.
Wrapped in the folds of a sail and rocked by the heaving waves we tried in vain to snatch a brief nap, though those who are accustomed to such beds can sleep well enough in a herring-boat. The skipper, too, slept with one eye open; for the boat being his property, and the risk all his, he required to look about him, as the nets are apt to become entangled with those belonging to other fishermen, or to be torn away by surrounding boats. After three hours’ quietude, beneath a beautiful sky, the stars—
“Those eternal orbs that beautify the night”—
began to pale their fires, and the grey dawn appearing indicated that it was time to take stock. On reckoning up we found that we had floated gently with the tide till we were a long distance away from the harbour. The skipper had a presentiment that there were fish in his nets; indeed the bobbing down of a few of the bladders had made it almost a certainty; at any rate we resolved to examine the drift, and see if there were any fish. It was a moment of suspense, while, by means of the swing-rope, the boat was hauled up to the nets. “Hurrah!” at last exclaimed Murdoch of the Isle of Skye, “there’s a lot of fish, skipper, and no mistake.” Murdoch’s news was true; our nets were silvery with herrings—so laden, in fact, that it took a long time to haul them in. It was a beautiful sight to see the shimmering fish as they came up like a sheet of silver from the water, each uttering a weak death-chirp as it was flung to the bottom of the boat. Formerly the fish were left in the meshes of the nets till the boat arrived in the harbour; but now, as the net is hauled on board, they are at once shaken out. As our silvery treasure showers into the boat we roughly guess our capture at fifty crans—a capital night’s work.
The herrings being all on board, our duty is now to “up sail” and get home: the herrings cannot be too soon among the salt. As we make for the harbour, we discern at once how rightly the term lottery has been applied to the herring-fishery. Boats which fished quite near our own were empty; while others again greatly exceeded our catch. “It is entirely chance work,” said our skipper; “and although there may sometimes be millions of fish in the bay, the whole fleet may not divide a hundred crans between them.” On some occasions, however, the shoal is hit so exactly that the fleet may bring into the harbour a quantity of fish that in the gross would be an ample fortune. So heavy are the “takes” occasionally, that we have known the nets of many boats to be torn away and lost through the sheer weight of the fish which were enmeshed in them.
The favouring breeze soon carried us to the quay, where the boats were already arriving in hundreds, and where we were warmly welcomed by the wife of our skipper, who bestowed on us, as the lucky cause of the miraculous draught, a very pleasant smile. When we arrived the cure was going on with startling rapidity. The night had been a golden one for the fishers—calm and beautiful, the water being merely rippled by the land-breeze. But it is not always so in the Bay of Wick: the herring-fleet has been more than once overtaken by a fierce storm, when valuable lives have been lost, and thousands of pounds’ worth of netting and boats destroyed. On such occasions the gladdening sights of the herring-fishery are changed to wailing and sorrow. It is no wonder that the heavens are eagerly scanned as the boats marshal their way out of the harbour, and the speck on the distant horizon keenly watched as it grows into a mass of gloomy clouds. As the song says, “Caller herrin’” represent the lives of men; and many a despairing wife and mother can tell a sad tale of the havoc created by the summer gales on our exposed northern coast.