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.