GUTTERS AT WORK, FRASERBURGH.
It was the hint about presents to those left behind which bore greatest weight with the fishermen. It never failed. But we remembered their cottages and the sadness of their homes, and it angered us that they should be duped into wasting their hard-won earnings on tawdry ornaments. It seems to be their fate to be cheated by every one. Even the peddler, like the parson and the landlord, can pervert Scripture to their discomfort.
Still, there was a pleasant suggestion of holiday-making in the square. It was the first time we had seen the Western Islanders amusing themselves. True, they did it very solemnly. There was little laughter and much silence; but at least a touch of brightness was given to the gloom of their long life of work and want.
Even on Sunday we thought the people more cheerful. In the morning the women, the little shawls over their shoulders, their heads still bare, the men in blue cloth, many without coats, again filled the streets on their way to church. In the afternoon we walked to two near fishing villages. In one an old fisherman was talking about Christ to a few villagers. We sat a while close to the sea, looking out to the next village, gray against gray gold-lined clouds, to the water with the light falling softly across it, to the little quiet pools in among the low rocks of the shore, to the big black boats drawn up on the beach. And then, as we walked back to Fraserburgh, the mist fell suddenly. But the road near the town was crowded with the men in blue cloth and the women in short skirts. Some were singing hymns as they walked. To us they looked strong and healthy, and even happy. It seemed as if this life on the east coast must make up for many of the hardships they endure in the deserts of their western home.
That same evening in the hotel we heard about life in Fraserburgh, which looks so prosperous to the stranger. A Catholic priest came into the dining-room after supper. He seemed very tired. He had been visiting the sick all day, he told us. Measles had broken out among the women and girls from the Hebrides. Many had already died; more had been carried to the hospital. The rooms provided for them by the curers were small and overcrowded. So long as they were kept in their present quarters, so long would disease and death be their portion. Their condition was dreadful; but they worked hard, and never complained. He came from the west coast of Ireland, he said, where Irish poverty is at its worst, but not even there had he seen misery as great as that of the Western Islanders. He knew it well. He had lived with them in the Long Island, where many are Catholics. If the Highlands were represented by eighty-five members, all wanting Home Rule, more would have been heard about destitution in the Hebrides. In the prosperous days of the east coast fisheries the people's burden had been less heavy; but now they came to the fishing towns of the east, the women to sicken and to die, the men to beg their way back as best they could. There were too many fishermen here, just as at home landlords thought there were too many crofters.
COMING HOME FROM THE FISHERIES, FRASERBURGH.