Part 10
It was easy to see what they thought of us at the Fife Arms, where we stayed in Banff. We were given our breakfast with the nurse and children of an A. R. A., while the great man breakfasted in state in a near dining-room. They ate very like ordinary children, but their clothes showed them to be little boys and girls of æsthetic distinction. I fear, however, we were not properly impressed.
There was no doubt that now our walking was all done. We asked about the stage for Fraserburgh, as if staging with us was a matter of course. It was a relief not to begin the day by strapping heavy knapsacks to our backs. The hours of waiting were spent partly in strolling through the streets of Banff, where here and there is an old gray house with pretty turret at its corner, or quaint old inscription with coat of arms or figures let into its walls; partly in sitting on the beach looking out on a hot blue sea.
But hot as it was in the morning, a sharp, cold wind was blowing when, at three o'clock, we took our seats in the little old-fashioned stage that runs between Banff and Fraserburgh. Stage and coachman and passengers seemed like a page out of Dickens transposed to Scotland. Inside was a very small boy, put there by a fat woman in black, and left, with many exhortations and a couple of buns, to make the journey alone; opposite to him sat a melancholy man who saw but ruin staring in the face of farmers and fishermen alike. At every corner in Banff and Macduff we stopped for more passengers, until the stage, elastic as it seemed, was full to overflowing, and we took refuge on the top. Here the seats were crowded with men, their heads tied up in scarfs. The coachman was carrier as well, and at different points in the open country women and children waited by the road to give him, or to take from him, bundles and boxes and letters. He was the typical cheery carrier. He had a word for everybody, even for a young man who dropped his wheelbarrow to flap his arms and greet us with a vacant smile. He was a puir thing, the driver explained, who went wrong only four years ago. He was the third we had seen in two days.
Many of the carrier's jokes we lost. A commercial traveller, who sat next to us, supposed we could not understand some of the expressions hereabouts. He might better have said we could not understand the language. We could make out enough, however, to find that one joke went a long way. A man in the front seat, trying to light his pipe in the wind, set off the whole box of matches. "That's extravagance," said the carrier; and when another box was handed to the man, he told him that these were safety matches--it took only one to light a pipe; and this he kept saying over and over again, with many chuckles, for the next half-hour. We had a specimen, too, of Scotch humor. At one stopping-place the commercial traveller got down and went into the public-house. A family party scrambled up and filled every seat, his with the rest. J---- remonstrated; but the man of the party answered that he paid his money for a seat as well as anybody else. "An empty seat's naebody's seat," he argued, and carrier and passengers roared at his fun.
The country was dreary, for all its cultivation. The fields were without tree or hedge to break their monotony. The villages were full of new houses. There was nothing striking or picturesque until we came within sight of Fraserburgh. Far across a level stretch we first saw it, its spires rising high above gray and red roofs. The near meadows were dark with fishing-nets; in places fishermen were at work spreading them over the grass; and we began to pass carts heavily laden with their brown masses, and men and women bent under the same burdens.
FRASERBURGH.
We walked out after supper. Rain was falling, and the evening was growing dark. Down by the harbor carts were still going and coming; men were still busy with their nets. Along the quay was a succession of basins, and these opened into others beyond. All were crowded with boats, and their thickly clustered masts seemed, in the gathering shadows, like a forest of branchless, leafless trees. One by one lights were hung out. On the town side of the quay, in crypt-like rooms and under low sheds, torches flamed and flared against a background of darkness. Their strong light fell upon women clothed in strange stuffs that glistened and glittered, their heads bound with white cloths. They were bending over shiny, ever-shifting masses piled at their feet, and chanting a wild Gaelic song that rose and fell with the wailing of all savage music. As we first saw them, from a distance, they might have been so many sorceresses at their magic rites. When we drew near we found that they were but the fish-curers' gutters and packers at work. Thanks to Cable and Lafcadio Hearn, we know something of the songs of work at home; but who in England cares about the singing in these fishing towns--singing which is only wilder and weirder than that of the cotton pressers of Louisiana? To the English literary man, however--the Charles Reades are the exceptions--I fear the gutters would be but nasty, dirty fisher persons. Now and then groups of these women passed us, walking with long strides, their arms swinging, and their short skirts and white-bound heads shining through the sombre streets. Over the town was the glow of the many fires.
In the morning there was less mystery, but not less picturesqueness. We were up in time to go to the harbor with the fishermen's wives, and watch the boats come in. Everything was fresh after a night of rain. It was still early, and the sun sent a path of gold across the sea just where the boats turned on their last tack homeward. Each brown sail was set in bold relief against the shining east, and then slowly lowered, as the fishermen with their long poles pushed the boats into the already crowded harbor. At once nets were emptied of the fish, which lay gleaming like silver through the brown meshes. Women and boys came to fill baskets with the fresh herrings; carts were loaded with them. In other boats men were hanging up their floats and shaking out their nets. The water was rich with the many black and brown reflections, only brightened here and there by lines of blue or purple or white from the distinguishing rings of color on each mast. There was a never-ending stream of men and carts passing along the quay. Many fishermen with their bags were on their way to the station, for the fishing season was almost over. So they said. But when one thousand boats came in, and twenty thousand fisher-folk were that day in Fraserburgh, to us it looked little like the end. In all this busy place we heard no English. Only Gaelic was spoken, as if we were once more in the Western Islands.
It was the same in the streets. The day's work in the curing-houses was just about to begin. Girls and women in groups of threes and fours were walking towards them. In the morning light we could see that the greater number were young. All were neat and clean, with hair carefully parted and well brushed, little shawls over their shoulders, but nothing on their heads. They carried their working clothes under their arms, and kept knitting as they walked. Like the men, they all talked Gaelic.
When they got to work, we found that those strange stuffs which had glistened in the torch-light were aprons and bibs smeared with scales and slime, that the white head-dresses were worn only for cleanliness, that the shining masses at their feet were but piles of herring. I have never seen women work so hard or so fast. Their arms, as they seized the fish, gutted them, and threw them in the buckets, moved with the regularity and the speed of machines. Indeed, there could not be a busier place than Fraserburgh. All day long the boats kept coming in, nets were emptied, fish carted away. The harbor, the streets, the fields beyond where nets were taken to dry, the curing-houses, were alike scenes of industry. If the women put down their knives, it was only to take up their knitting. And yet these men and women, working incessantly by day and by night, were almost all Western Islanders--the people who, we are told, are so slovenly and so lazy! No one who comes with them to the east coast for the fishing season will ever again believe in the oft-repeated lies about their idleness.
There were no signs of rest until Saturday evening. Then no boats went out, and the harbor and curing-houses were deserted. The streets were full of men and women walking about for pleasure. The greatest crowd was in the market-place, where a few "cheap Jacks" drove their trade. Two, who dealt in china, as if to make up for their poor patter, threw cups and saucers recklessly into the air, breaking them with great clatter, while the women and girls they had attracted stood by and bought nothing.
The fishermen had gathered about a third, who sold cheap and tawdry ornaments, but who could patter. When we first came near he was holding up six imitation gold watch-chains, and offering the buyers prizes into the bargain. "O ye men of little faith!"--shaking his fist at them--"can't any of you favor me with a shillin'? You don't want 'em, gen'lemen? Then there'll be smashin' of teeth and tearin' of hair. Glory! glory hallylujah!" All this, I regret to say, was interspersed with stories that do not bear repetition. But he sold his watch-chains without trouble. "And now, gen'lemen, for any of you that wants to take home a present to your wife and chil'ren, here's an album. It'd adorn a nobleman's mansion, and wouldn't disgrace a fisherman's cottage. It's bound in moroccer and stamped with gold, and'll hold many pictures. I'll only sell half a dozen, and it's the very thing you wants. You'll have one? Well, sir, I can't reach you, but these gen'lemen'll pass it along."
And then he began again with the stories and the Scripture until he had sold out all his stock of albums and note-books and cheap jewellery.
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.
The fishers also shall mourn, and all they that cast angle shall lament, and they that spread nets upon the waters shall languish.
The epidemic and its causes became the town talk. The Gaelic Free Kirk minister, differ as he might from the Catholic priest on every other point, on this could but agree with him. He told us the same story in words as strong. It was shameful, he said, the way these poor girls were being killed. He had not known it before; but now that he did, he could not and would not let the matter rest. An indignation meeting of the people of Fraserburgh was called for the day we left. The town was placarded with the notices. Since then the report must have gone abroad. Now that agitation in Lewis is forcing attention to the islands and their people, in London there has been formed a committee of _ladies_ to look into the condition of the girls and women who work on the east coast.
That last morning, as we stood by the hotel door, the funeral of one of the dead women passed up the street towards the station. Fifty or sixty fishermen followed the coffin. When we took our seats in a third-class carriage we found the Free Kirk minister there before us. The coffin had just been put on the train. Two girls came up to speak to him. He stretched out his hand; one took and held it as she struggled to answer his questions; the other turned away with the tears streaming down her face. As the train started they stood apart, their heads bent low, their faces buried in their shawls, both crying as if their hearts would break. And so, at the last, we saw only the sadness of Fraserburgh.
We had intended going to Peterhead and the smaller fishing towns by the way; but our energy was less inexhaustible than the picturesqueness of the east coast. Our journey had been over-long. We were beginning to be anxious to bring it to an end. Now we went straight to
ABERDEEN,
where we at once fell back into ordinary city life. We even did a little shopping in its fine new streets. Its large harbor seemed empty after that of Fraserburgh. Many fishing-boats were at sea; many had gone altogether. The fishing season here was really well over. We walked to the old town after dinner. In it there is not much to be seen but the university tower with the famous crown atop, and the cathedral, which looked massive and impressive in the twilight. We saw much more of Aberdeen; but we are quite of the same mind as Dr. Johnson, that to write of such well-known cities "with the solemnity of geographical description, as if we had been cast upon a newly discovered coast, has the appearance of a very frivolous ostentation."
From Aberdeen to Edinburgh we trained it by easy stages. We stopped often; once at
MONTROSE,
where, like Dr. Johnson, and for that matter, every one else who comes here, we looked to the Grampian Hills in the distance. The town itself was not picturesque. The guide-book calls it neat and Flemish, probably because it has fewer houses with high gables turned towards the street than can be seen, as a rule, in any Scotch town. But the harbor, of which the guide-book says less, was fine. We spent hours near the mouth of the river, looking over to the fishermen's houses on the opposite shore. There were constant showers as we sat there; every few minutes the sun came out from the clouds, and the wet roofs glistened and glittered through the smoke hanging above them. In the morning, women, packed like herrings in the huge ferry-boats, crossed over to the curing-houses. Now and then a fishing-boat sailed slowly in.
One sees little from the cars. Of the country through which we passed I remember only occasional glimpses of the sea and of fishing villages and of red castles, which made us wish we were still on the road. Now and then, as we sat comfortably in the railway-carriage, we determined to walk back to see them, or to get a tricycle at Edinburgh and "do" the whole east coast over again; but we always left our determinations with the carriage. Of all the places at which we stopped, I remember best
ARBROATH,
the sight of which seemed worth his whole journey to Dr. Johnson. Little is left of the abbey save the broken walls and towers. A street runs through the old gate-house. The public park and children's play-ground lie to one side of the ruined church. A few old tombs and tablets and bits of ornament have been gathered together in the sacristy, which is in better preservation than the rest of the building. We found them less interesting than the guide who explained them. He gave a poetical touch to the usual verger recitation, and indeed to all his talk, of which there was plenty. 'Twas better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all, was his manner of expressing regret for the loss of an old engraving of the abbey. There were many hard things in this world, but grass was soft; why, then, should I choose the hard things? was his way of inviting me to walk on the grass instead of the gravel. But it was not until he showed us the original copy, full of blots and corrections, of one of Burns's poems that we found he too was a poet--a successful poet, it seemed, for he had sold 14,000 copies of his volume of poems--very few, he thought. If he were a member of the London Society of Authors he would know better. He had given the last copy to William Morris, when the latter was in the town. William Morris did not wear gaudy clothes, not he. He looked like a sailor in his blue flannel shirt, and there was a slit in his hat. And when he returned to London he sent his "Jason" to his fellow-poet in Arbroath.
As we were leaving, he told us how, one day, two ladies had driven up to the abbey, looked at nothing, but at once asked him to recite his "Abbey Gate." He did so, and then, without a word, they slipped a guinea into his hand, and there were tears on their cheeks. He never knew who they were. After this, we felt our tribute to be very small; but he clasped our hands warmly at parting. There was something out of the common in our faces, he said.
We talked to no one else in Arbroath, except to a pessimistic stationer. While we bought his paper he grumbled because farmers could not sell their cattle and corn. Some people said the country needed protection; "but, sir, what have we got to protect?"
Of the rest of the journey to Edinburgh my note-book says nothing, and little remains in my memory. But I know that when we walked up from the station to Waverley Bridge, and looked to the gray precipice of houses of the Old Town, we realized that our long wanderings had not shown us anything so fine.
And now our journey was at an end. Like Dr. Johnson's, it began and finished in Edinburgh, but it resembled his in little else. From the start, we continually took liberties with his route; we often forgot that he was our guide. We went to places he had never seen; we turned our backs upon many through which he and Boswell had travelled. But at least he had helped us to form definite plans without weeks of hard map-study which they otherwise must have cost us.
We had come back wiser in many ways. In the first place, we had learned that for us walking on a tour of this kind, or indeed of any kind, is a mistake. Had we never cycled, perhaps we might not have felt this so keenly. Our powers of endurance are not, I think, below the average; but the power to endure so many miles a day on foot is very different from the capacity to enjoy them; and if on such a trip one proposes, as we did, to work, without pleasure in the exercise, how can one hope for good results? But for the two days' coaching on the west coast, the necessary steaming among the islands, our utter collapse on the east coast, I am sure we never should have worked at all. Day after day we were dispirited, disheartened, and only happy when we were not walking. We went to bed in the evening and got up in the morning wearied and exhausted. The usual walking tours of which one hears mean a day's climbing in the mountains, or a day's tramp with bag or knapsack sent before by train or stage. Under these conditions we probably would not be the first to give in. But to be as independent as if on a tricycle, to have one's sketching traps when needed, one must carry a knapsack one's self. J----'s weighed between twenty-five and thirty pounds; mine, fifteen. Never before have I appreciated so well the true significance of Christian's burden. But even worse than this constant strain on our shoulders was the monotony of our pace. Whether the road was good or bad, level or hilly, there was no change, no relief. In cycling, for one hard day's work you know you will have two of pleasure. As for short-cuts, they are, as a rule, out of the question. One does not know the country through which one is passing; it is the exception to meet a native. After cycling more thousands of miles than we have walked hundreds, we know it to be not mere theorizing when we declare that no comparison between the two methods of travelling is possible. One is just enough work to make the pleasure greater; the other is all work.
Our experience has taught us to be sceptical about the tramps of other days who saw Europe afoot. We wonder if they told the whole story. Of modern tramps, none has given such a delightful record as has Mr. Stevenson of the walk he took with a donkey through the Cevennes. And yet, even with him, if you read between his lines, or, for that matter, the lines themselves, you realize that, charming as his story is for us, the reality for him was wearisome, depressing, and often painful, and that probably to it is to be referred much of his after physical weakness. We have also had a new light thrown upon the life of tramps at home, who are so often supposed to have chosen the better part. Theirs is as much a life of toil as if they broke stones on the same roads over which they journey. They are not to be envied, but pitied. The next time one begs from you as he passes, give him something out of your charity; he deserves it.