Ordinarily there is but short shrift for the helpless folks on a fishing vessel when struck by a liner. The keen prow cuts right through planking and stout oak frame, and the dissevered portions of the hull are tossed to starboard and to port, to sink before the white foam has faded from the wake of the destroying monster. They tell ghoulish tales of bodies sliced in twain as neatly as the boat itself; of men asleep in their bunks being decapitated, or waking, to find themselves struggling in the water with an arm or leg shorn off. And again, there are stories of escapes that were almost miraculous; of men thrown by the shock of collision out of the foretop of the schooner onto the deck of the steamship, and carried abroad in safety, while their partners mourned them as dead; of men, dozing in their bunks, startled suddenly by the grinding crash of steel and timbers, and left gazing wide-eyed at the gray sea lapping the side of their berths, where an instant before the tough oak skin of the schooner had been; of men stunned by some flying bit of wood, who, all unconscious, floated on the top of the hungry waves, until as by Divine direction, their inert bodies touched the side of a vagrant dory and were dragged aboard to life again. The Banks can perform their miracles of humanity as well as of cruelty.
Few forms of manual work are more exacting, involve more physical suffering and actual peril to life, than fishing with trawls. Under the happiest circumstances, with the sky clear, the sea moderately calm, and the air warm, it is arduous, muscle-trying, nerve-racking work. Pulling up half a mile of line, with hooks catching on the bottom, big fish floundering and fighting for freedom, and the dory dancing on the waves like mad, is no easy task. The line cuts the fingers, and the long, hard pull wearies the wrists until they ache, as though with inflammatory rheumatism. But when all this had to be done in a wet, chilling fog, or in a nipping winter's wind that freezes the spray in beard and hair, while the frost bites the fingers that the line lacerates, then the fisherman's lot is a bitter one.
The method of setting and hauling the trawls has been well described by Mr. John Z. Rogers, in "Outing," and some extracts from his story will be of interest to readers:
"The trawls were of cod-line, and tied to them at distances of six feet were smaller lines three feet in length, with a hook attached to the end. Each dory had six trawls, each one eighteen hundred feet long. The trawls were neatly coiled in tubs made by sawing flour barrels in two, and as fast as they were baited with pieces of herring they were carefully coiled into another tub, that they might run out quickly without snarling when being set.
"The last trawl was finished just before supper, at five o'clock. After supper the men enjoyed a Half-hour smoke, then preparations were made to set the gear, as the trawls are called. The schooner got well to windward of the place where the set was to be made, and the first dory was lowered by a block and tackle. One of the men jumped into it, and his partner handed him the tubs of gear and then jumped in himself. The dory was made fast to the schooner by her painter as she drifted astern, and the other dories were put over in the same manner. When all the dories were disposed of the first one was cast off. One of the men rowed the boat before the wind while the other ran out the gear. First, he threw over a keg for a buoy, which could be seen from some distance. Fastened to the buoy-line at some sixty fathoms, or three hundred and sixty feet from the keg, was the trawl with a small anchor attached to sink it to the bottom. When this was dropped overboard the trawl was rapidly run out, and as fast as the end of one was reached it was tied to the next one, thus making a line of trawl ten thousand eight hundred feet long, with eighteen hundred hooks attached. After the schooner had sailed on a straight course a few hundred yards, the captain cast off the second dory, then along a little farther the third one, and so on till the five boats were all setting gear in parallel lines to each other. When all set this gear practically represented a fishing line over ten miles long with nine thousand hooks tied to it."
The trawls thus set were left out over night, the schooner picking up the dories and anchoring near the buoy of the first trawl. At daybreak the work of hauling in was begun:
"All the dories were made fast astern and left at the head of their respective trawls as the schooner sailed along. One of the men in each dory, after pulling up the anchor, put the trawl in the roller—a grooved wooden wheel eight inches in diameter. This was fastened to one side of the dory. The trawl was hauled in hand over hand, the heavy strain necessarily working the dory slowly along. The fish were taken off as fast as they appeared. A gaff—a stick about the size and length of a broom handle with a large, sharp hook attached—lay near at hand, and was frequently used in landing a fish over the side. Occasionally a fish would free itself from the trawl hook as it reached the surface, but the fisherman, with remarkable dexterity, would grab the gaff, and hook the victim before it could swim out of reach. What would be on the next hook was always an interesting uncertainty, for it seemed that all kinds of fish were represented. Cod and haddock were, of course, numerous, but hake and pollock struggled on many a hook. Besides these, there was the brim, a small, red fish, which is excellent fried; the cat fish, also a good pan fish; the cusk, which is best baked; the whiting, the eel, the repulsive-looking skate, the monk, of which it can almost be said that his mouth is bigger than himself, and last, but not least, that ubiquitous fish, the curse of amateur harbor fishers, the much-abused sculpin. Nor were fish alone caught on the hooks, for stones were frequently pulled up, and one dory brought in a lobster, which had been hooked by his tail. Some of the captives showed where large chunks had been bitten out of them by larger fish, and sometimes, when a hook appeared above water, there would be nothing on it but a fish head. This was certainly a case of one fish taking a mean advantage of another."
Such is the routine of trawling when weather and all the fates are propitious. But the Banks have other stories to tell—stories of men lost in the fog, drifting for long days and nights until the little keg of fresh water and the scanty store of biscuit are exhausted, and then slowly dying of starvation, alone on the trackless sea; of boats picked up in winter with frozen bodies curled together on the floor, huddled close in a vain endeavor to keep warm; of trawlers looking up from their work to see towering high above them the keen prow of an ocean grayhound, and thereafter seeing nothing that their dumb lips could tell to mortal ears. Many a story of suffering and death the men skilled in the lore of the Banks could tell, but most eloquent of all stories are those told by the figures of the men lost from the fishing ports of New England. From Gloucester alone, in 1879, two hundred and fifty fishermen were lost. In one storm in 1846 Marblehead lost twelve vessels and sixty-six men and boys. In 1894, and the first month of 1895, one hundred and twenty-two men sailing out of Gloucester, were drowned. In fifty years this little town gave to the hungry sea two thousand two hundred men, and vessels valued at nearly two million, dollars. Full of significance is the fact that every fishing-boat sets aside part of the proceeds of its catch for the widows' and orphans' fund before making the final division among the men. One of the many New England poets who have felt and voiced the pathos of life in the fishing villages, Mr. Frank H. Sweet, has told the story of the old and oft-repeated tragedy of the sea in these verses:
"THE WIVES OF THE FISHERS