Here it was that Ida, the Flamebearer, is supposed to have landed, when he achieved the conquest of Northumbria; and here the galleys of the Sea-Kings found a precarious shelter while the daring Northmen leapt on shore to overrun the land in later centuries, when tradition alone preserved the remembrance of the former invaders and their warlike deeds.
I was prowling hither and thither in the ravine, entertained with the Present while imagining the Past, when the clouds, grown every minute blacker since noon, let fall their burden with something like tropical vehemence. For some time there was no perceptible pause in the lightning or thunder, and against the accompanying rain an umbrella was but as gauze. I rushed into the arch of a neighbouring limekiln, and once in, was kept there two hours by the roaring storm. Presently two fishermen, speeding up from the landing, made for the same shelter, and of course, under the circumstances, we fraternised at once, and talked the time away.
Clean and well clad, they were favourable—and as I afterwards saw—not exceptional specimens of their class. In their opinion the Flamborough fishermen bear as good a character as any in Yorkshire—perhaps better. About seven years ago they all resolved to work but six days a week, and on no account to go to sea on Sundays. They held to their resolve, and, to the surprise of most, found themselves the better. They earn quite as much as before, if not more, and go to work with better spirit. During the herring season it is a common practice with them to put into Scarborough on Saturday evening, and journey home by rail for the Sunday, taking advantage of the very low fares at which return tickets are issued to fishermen. And as for diet, they take a good store of bread and meat, pies even, in their boats, seeing no reason why they should not live as well as their neighbours. A glass of rum was acceptable, especially in cold and blowing weather: but so far as they knew, there were very few fishermen who would not “choose hot coffee before rum any day.”
There was none of that drinking among fishermen now as there used to be formerly. You could find some in Flamborough “as liked their glass,” but none to be called drunkards. There is a national school in the village; but not so well attended as it might be, and perhaps would be if they had a better schoolmaster. The people generally had pretty good health, which is possibly the occasion why the last two doctors, finding time hang heavy on their hands, drank themselves to death. There is, or rather was in July, 1857, an opening for a doctor in Flamborough.
The rain still fell heavily when we left our shelter, and it kept on till past midnight. Luckily the village was not a mile distant, and there I took a comfortable chair by the kitchen fire of The Ship. The landlord corroborated all that the fishermen had told me, with the reservation that he found it difficult to clear his room of tipplers on Saturday night, although none could be set down as drunkards. At times he put on his clock ten minutes, to ensure a clearance before the Sunday morning, resolutely refusing to refill the glasses after twelve. The guests would go away growling out a vow never to return to such an inhospitable house; but not one kept the vow more than a fortnight. When, nineteen years ago, he determined not to open his house on Sunday to any but strangers who might chance to arrive from a distance, the village thought itself scandalized, and the other public-houses predicted his ruin. They were, however, mistaken. The Ship still flourishes; and the host and his family “find themselves none the worse for going to a place of worship, and keeping the house quiet one day in seven.”
“Sometimes,” he ended, “we don’t think to fasten the front door when we go to bed; but it’s all the same; nobody comes to disturb us.” Which may be taken as an indication that honesty has not yet abandoned Flamborough.
CHAPTER IX.
Men’s and Women’s Wages—The Signal Tower—The passing Fleet—The Lighthouse—The Inland View—Cliff scenery—Outstretching Reefs—Selwick’s Bay—Down to the Beach—Aspect of the Cliffs—The Matron—Lessons in Pools—Caverns—The King and Queen—Arched Promontories—The North Landing—The Herring-Fishers—Pleasure Parties—Robin Lyth’s Hole—Kirk Hole—View across little Denmark—Speeton—End of the Chalk—Walk to Filey.