“Eh! that caps me!” cried one.
“That’s brave music!” said another.
And a third, when Tambourine began his contortions, shrieked, “Eh! looky! looky! he’s nobbut a porriwiggle;” which translated out of Yorkshire into English, means, “nought but a tadpole.” And to see how the weather-beaten old fishermen chuckled and roared with laughter, showing such big white teeth all the while, was not the least amusing part of the exhibition. Such lusty enjoyment I thought betokened an open hand; but when the hat went round the greater number proved themselves as ‘close-neaved,’ to use one of their own words, as misers.
Near the end of the street, and under the shadow of Penny Nab, there is an opening whence you may survey the little bay, or rather cove, which forms the port of Staithes, well protected by the bluff above-named, and Colburn Nab on the north. Here the Cod and Lobster public-house, with a small quay in front, faces the sea, as if indifferent to consequences, notwithstanding that the inmates are compelled from time to time to decamp suddenly from threatened drowning. Even as I stood there I was fain to button my overcoat against the spray which swept across and sprinkled the windows, for there was a heavy ‘lipper’ on, and huge breakers came tumbling in with thunderous roar. You see piles driven here and there, and heaps of big stones laid for protection; and not without need, you will think, while looking at the backs of the houses huddling close around the margin of the tide. In the month of February, twenty-seven years ago, thirteen houses were swept away at once, and among them the one in which Cook was first apprenticed. Judging from what Staithes is now, it must have been a remarkably primitive and hard-featured place in his day.
Then, crossing over, I threaded the narrow alleys and paths to look at the backs of the houses from the hill-side. You never saw such queer ins and outs, and holes and corners as there are here. Pigstyes, little back yards, sheds, here and there patches of the hill rough with coarse grass and weeds, and everywhere boat-hooks and oars leaning against the walls, and heaps of floats, tarred bladders, lobster-pots and baskets, and nets stretched to dry on the open ground above. If you wished to get from one alley to another without descending the hill, it would not be difficult to take a short cut across the pantiles. Indeed, that seems in some places the only way to extrication from the labyrinth.
I was on my way to look at the cove from the side of Colburn Nab, when a woman, rushing from a house, renewed a screeching quarrel with her opposite neighbour, which had been interrupted by the negro interlude. The other rushed out to meet her, and there followed a clamour of tongues such as I never before heard—each termagant resolute to outscold the other. They stamped, shook their fists and beat the air furiously, made mouths at one another, yelled bitter taunts, and at last came to blows. The struggle was but short, and then the weaker, not having been able to conquer by strength of arm, screamed hoarsely, “Never mind, Bet—never mind, you faggot! I can show a cleaner shimmy than you can.” And, turning up her skirt, she showed half a yard of linen, the cleanness of which ought to have made her ashamed of her tongue. A loud laugh followed this sally, and the men, having maintained their principle that “it’s always best to let t’ women foight it out,” straggled away to their lounging-places.
The beck falls from the ravine into the cove at the foot of the Nab, having a level wedge of land between it and the cliff. This was more than half covered by fishing-boats and the carts of dealers, who buy the fish here and sell it in the interior, or convey it to the Tunnel Station for despatch by railway. Two smoke houses for the drying of herrings are built against the cliff, and in one of these a man was preparing for the annual task, and shovelling his coarse-grained salt into tubs. “The coarser the better,” he said, “because it keeps the fish from layin’ too close together.” A fisherman, who seemed well pleased to have some one to talk to, assured me that I was a month too soon: the middle of August was the time to see the place as busy as sand-martens. And with an overpowering smell of fish, he might have added. Six score boats of one kind or another sailed from the cove, and they took a good few of fish. Some boats could carry twenty last, and at times a last of herrings would fetch ten or eleven pounds. In October, ’56, the boats were running down to Scarbro’, when they came all at once into a shoal, and was seven hours a sailin’ through ’em. One boat got twelve lasts in no time, came in on Sunday, cleared ’em out, sailed again, and got back with twelve more lasts on Wednesday. That was good addlings (i. e. earnings). He knowed the crew of one boat who got sixty pound a man that season.
Some liked cobles, and some liked yawls. A coble wanted six men and two boys to work her: a yawl would carry fifty tons, and some were always out a fishin’. Now and then they went out to the Silver Pit, an oyster-bed about twenty-five miles from the coast. He thought the French and Dutch were poachers in the herring season, especially the French. They’d run their nets right across the English nets, and pretend they didn’t know or didn’t understand; and though the screw steamer from Dunkirk kept cruising about to warn ’em not to come over the line, the English fishermen thought ’twas only to spy out where the most fish was, and then let the foreign boats know by signal. Yorkshire can’t a-bear such botherments, and retaliates between whiles by sinking the buoy barrels.
This is an old grievance. In former times, no Dutchmen were permitted to fish without a license from Scarborough Castle, yet they evaded the regulation continually; “for,” to quote the old chronicler, “the English always granted leave for fishing, reserving the honour to themselves, but out of a lazy temper resigning the gain to others.”
He remembered the gale that swallowed the thirteen houses. ’Twas a northerly gale, and that was the only quarter that Staithes had to trouble about. Whenever the wind blew hard from the north, the Cod and Lobster had to get ready to run. But the easterly gales, which made everything outside run for shelter, never touched the place, and you might row round the port in a skiff when collier ships were carrying away their topmasts in the offing, or drifting helplessly ashore. He saw the thirteen houses washed away, and at the same time a coble carried right over the bridge and left high and dry on the other side.