The sketch of fisher-life in the Antiquary applies as well to the fisher-folk of to-day as to those of sixty years since. This is demonstrable at Newhaven; which, though fortunate in having a pier as a rendezvous for its boats, thus admitting of a vast saving of time and labour, is yet far behind inland villages in point of sanitary arrangements. There is in the “town” an everlasting scent of new tar, and a permanent smell of decaying fish, for the dainty visitors who go down to the village from Edinburgh to partake of the fish-dinners for which it is so celebrated. Up the narrow closes, redolent of “bark,” we see hanging on the outside stairs the paraphernalia of the fisherman—his “properties,” as an actor would call them; nets, bladders, lines, and oilskin unmentionables, with dozens of pairs of those particularly blue stockings that seem to be the universal wear of both mothers and maidens. On the stair itself sit, if it be seasonable weather, the wife and daughters, repairing the nets and baiting the lines—gossiping of course with opposite neighbours, who are engaged in a precisely similar pursuit; and to-day, as half a century ago, the fishermen sit beside their hauled-up boats, in their white canvas trousers and their Guernsey shirts, smoking their short pipes, while their wives and daughters are so employed, seeming to have no idea of anything in the shape of labour being a duty of theirs when ashore. In the flowing gutter which trickles down the centre of the old village we have the young idea developing itself in plenty of noise, and adding another layer to the incrustation of dirt which it seems to be the sole business of these children to collect on their bodies. These juvenile fisher-folk have already learned from the mudlarks of the Thames the practice of sporting on the sands before the hotel windows in the expectation of being rewarded with a few halfpence. “What’s the use of asking for siller before they’ve gotten their denner?” we once heard one of these precocious youths say to another, who was proposing to solicit a bawbee from a party of strangers.
To see the people of Newhaven, both men and women, one would be apt to think that their social condition was one of great hardship and discomfort; but one has only to enter their dwellings in order to be disabused of this notion, and to be convinced of the reverse of this, for there are few houses among the working population of Scotland which can compare with the well-decked and well-plenished dwellings of these fishermen. Within doors all is neat and tidy. When at the marriage I have mentioned, I thought the house I was invited to was the cleanest and the cosiest-looking house I had ever seen. Never did I see before so many plates and bowls in any private dwelling; and on all of them, cups and saucers not excepted, fish, with their fins spread wide out, were painted in glowing colours; and in their dwellings and domestic arrangements the Newhaven fishwives are the cleanest women in Scotland, and the comfort of their husbands when they return from their labours on the wild and dangerous deep seems to be the fishwife’s chief delight. I may also mention that none of the young women of Newhaven will take a husband out of their own community, that they are as rigid in this matrimonial observance as if they were all Jewesses.[20]
The following anecdotic illustration of the state of information in Newhaven sixty years since is highly characteristic:—
A fisherman, named Adam L——, having been reproved pretty severely for his want of Scripture knowledge, was resolved to baulk the minister on his next catechetical visitation. The day appointed he kept out of sight for some time; but at length, getting top-heavy with some of his companions, he was compelled, after several falls, in one of which he met with an accident that somewhat disfigured his countenance, to take shelter in his own cottage. The minister arrived, and was informed by Jenny, the wife, that her husband was absent at the fishing. The Doctor then inquired if she had carefully perused the catechism he had left on his last visit, and being answered in the affirmative, proceeded to follow up his conversation with a question or two. “Weel, Jenny,” said the minister, “can ye tell me the cause o’ Adam’s fall?” By no means versed in the history of the great progenitor of the human race, and her mind being exclusively occupied by her own Adam, Janet replied, with some warmth, “’Deed, sir, it was naething else but drink!” at the same time calling upon her husband, “Adam, ye may as weel rise, for the Doctor kens brawly what’s the matter; some clashin’ deevils o’ neebours hae telt him a’ aboot it!”
The remains of many old superstitions are still to be found about Newhaven. I could easily fill a page or two of this volume with illustrative anecdotes of sayings and doings that are abhorrent to the fisher mind. The following are given as the merest sample of the number that might be collected.
They have several times “gone the round” of the newspapers but are none the worse for that:—
If an uninitiated greenhorn of a landsman chanced to be on board of a Newhaven boat, and, in the ignorance and simplicity of his heart, talked about “salmon,” the whole crew—at least a few years ago—would start, grasp the nearest iron thowell, and exclaim, “Cauld iron!” “cauld iron!” in order to avert the calamity which such a rash use of the appellation was calculated to induce; and the said uninitiated gentleman would very likely have been addressed in some such courteous terms as “O ye igrant brute, cud ye no ca’d it redfish?” Woe to the unfortunate wight—be he Episcopalian or Presbyterian, Churchman or Dissenter—who being afloat talks about “the minister:” there is a kind of undefined terror visible on every countenance if haply this unlucky word is spoken; and I would advise my readers, should they hereafter have occasion, when water-borne, to speak of a clergyman, to call him “the man in the black coat;” the thing will be equally well understood, and can give offence to none. I warn them, moreover, to be guarded and circumspect should the idea of a cat or a pig flit across their minds; and should necessity demand the utterance of their names, let the one be called “Theebet” and the other “Sandy;” so shall they be landed on terra firma in safety, and neither their ears nor their feelings be insulted by piscatory wit. In the same category must be placed every four-footed beast, from the elephant moving amongst the jungles of Hindostan to the mouse that burrows under the cottage hearth-stone. Some quadrupeds, however, are more “unlucky” than others; dogs are detestable, hogs horrible, and hares hideous! It would appear that Friday, for certain operations, is the most unfortunate; for others the most auspicious day in the week. On that day no sane fisherman would commence a Greenland voyage, or proceed to the herring-ground, and on no other day of the week would he be married.
In illustration of the peculiar dread and antipathy of fishermen to swine, I give the following extract from a volume published by a schoolmaster, entitled An Historical Account of St. Monance. The town is divided into two divisions, the one called Nethertown and the other Overtown—the former being inhabited entirely by fishermen, and the latter by agriculturists and petty tradesmen:—“The inhabitants of the Nethertown entertained a most deadly hatred towards swine, as ominous of evil, insomuch that not one was kept amongst them; and if their eyes haplessly lighted upon one in any quarter, they abandoned their mission and fled from it as they would from a lion, and their occupation was suspended till the ebbing and flowing of the tide had effectually removed the spell. The same devils were kept, however, in the Uppertown, frequently affording much annoyance to their neighbours below, on account of their casual intrusions, producing much damage by suspension of labour. At last, becoming quite exasperated, the decision of their oracle was to go in a body and destroy not the animals (for they dared not hurt them), but all who bred and fostered such demons, looking on them with a jealous eye, on account of their traffic. Armed with boat-hooks, they ascended the hill in formidable procession, and dreadful had been the consequence had they not been discovered. But the Uppertown, profiting by previous remonstrance, immediately let loose their swine, whose grunt and squeak chilled the most heroic blood of the enemy, who, on beholding them, turned and fled down the hill with tenfold speed, more exasperated than ever, secreting themselves till the flux and reflux of the tide had undone the enchantment.... According to the most authentic tradition, not an animal of the kind existed in the whole territories of St. Monance for nearly a century; and, even at the present day, though they are fed and eaten, the fisher people are extremely averse to looking on them or speaking of them by that name; but, when necessitated to mention the animal, it is called ‘the beast’ or ‘the brute’ and, in case the real name of the animal should accidentally be mentioned, the spell is undone by a less tedious process—the exclamation of ‘cauld iron’ by the person affected being perfectly sufficient to counteract the evil influence. Cauld iron, touched or expressed, is understood to be the first antidote against enchantment.”