CRABBING ON THE NORTH-EAST COAST.
THE golden glory of the ragwort is long since over; the purple crane's-bill has vanished; the coarse grass of the bents has lost its green and taken on the grey tinge of winter. In a few sheltered places inland, and in isolated patches among the hedgerows, the red-brown tints of autumn persist right up to the burgeoning of spring ; but by the coast, where the strong sea winds assert their power, the boughs stand out black and base against a sombre sky. The beach gives evidence of the time of year : huge piles of seaweed lie at high- water mark, torn up during the easterly gales; driftwood and wreckage are scattered about ; while here and there the white breast of a dead guillemot or razorbill shows clear against a dun background of sand.
During the winter months the mornings are generally of
pitchy blackness, and the prevailing wind blows bitingly from the south-east. Not a sound is to be heard from the bents save the ceaseless roar of the surf on the beach and the rhythmical blast of the foghorn on the Fame Islands, borne against the wind ; even the sandpipers—those birds which one can generally hear at all hours of the night and day—are silent. Occasionally a star gleams forth, to be obscured directly by the hurrying grey drift. At last the East throws out signs of daylight, and dawn sees the e,obles well on their way to the Banks. Out of the ghostly dimness of the early light guillemots whirr away to landward; a solitary kittiwake sails silently aloft, facing the freshening wind ; while it few minutes later a rustling of many wings discovers a flock of two or three hundred fieldfares, brought over by the strong south- east wind from the Continent to spend the winter on our more hospitable shores.
Occasionally it happens, in very foggy weather, when the landmarks are obscured, and no bearings can be taken, that the "bows," as the bladders marking the anchorage of the " craes " are called, cannot be found, and after a fruitless morning's search the boat returns to shore without having accomplished anything, unless the lines are shot for haddock to send away. Fortunately, the crabs will live in the crass for a considerable time, and the lines, when once baited, remain fresh for a full week, if carefully packed and covered with grass, so that a few days of thick weather and failure to find the cra,es are not so disastrous a matter as might be other- wise supposed. But if the bad weather exceeds a week, all the labour of the gathered limpets, all the toilsome hours spent over the lines, are absolutely wasted, and the dead shell- fish must be torn from the hooks and thrown away.
As soon as the "bow" is found, the lines are shot for bait: two "five piece," or one five and one "six piece" line, as a rule,—ten or eleven hundred books in all. And then the oars are got out and the boat kept stationary, with her head against the sea and tide, until the skipper judges it time to take in the line, the hauling of which occupies from thirty to forty minutes. The large haddocks are cut up, the small ones notched under gills and fin, and fixed in the bait noose of the cram. The line attached to the " bow" marking the resting- place of the crass is then brought aboard. As soon as the heavy rope attached to the light bladder line is reached, oars are laid in, for this part of the work requires all hands. Two men haul up the crass, and the third takes each one as it comes inboard, examines it carefully to see if there are any holes in the netting (for the crabs frequently eat their way out through the strong cord), and repairs these, if they are not too large or numerous, with some spare cord carried in the boat; while if the crae is too much repatched and damaged already it will either be left unbaited till another time, or taken off, brought home, and re-covered. The end of the netting is then unlaced, and the crabs brought out and thrown into the locker : delicate work, as they are very quick with their strong nippers. They are packed and despatched immediately on arrival, the standard of measure being the "score," a " five-score " barrel containing as a rule about a hundred and thirty moderate-sized crabs, for the size of the barrel is determined by the dealer, who measures his score by crabs of a very large average size.
The soft-shelled crabs—numerous in the latter months of the year—are thrown back into the water. Many strange things are found adhering to the craes : curious seaweeds, odd-shaped bags of spawn, and crowds of delicate, brittle star- fish, writhing about and breaking off limb after limb in their anxiety to get back into the water. Occasionally a lobster is found; more rarely a small flatfish manages to get in through the hoop entrance, and is unable to find its way out.
When the wind blows cold, and a frosty rime covers all the gear in the boat, it is bitter work, and wretchedly paid, this toil of the fishermen who risk their lives daily on the treacherous waters of the German Ocean. Not a year passes without some sudden storm which jeopardises the lives of hundreds, There was the great October gale, nearly twenty years ago, when a hundred and fifty men from the little village of Eyemouth alone were drowned ; there was the blizzard, only a few years back—on February 7th, as any fisherman on the coast will tell you—when the snow came up from the south-east as they were hauling their ernes, with a cold so bitter that the halyards were frozen like iron rods, when the waves broke in furious foaming lengths of a hundred yards, and the "Uppers" were on the boat before they could be seen through the snow.
The hauling and baiting finished; the brown sail is hoisted, and the coble skims homeward before the sharp south-easter, which generally in these parts turns to rain before noon. The crabs are despatched by rail to the great distributing centres of the Midlands and the South, being packed imthediately on the arrival of the boats at the little harbour; the rain driving with incessant rattle upon oilskins and sme-vrester, and oozing out in thin rivulets from the heaps of laminaria which lie rotting at high-water mark, tracing curious patterns . on the bard surface of the sand. From the bents a solitary
• curlew calls, a flock of sandpipers zigzag over the, shining rocks, while, thunderous above all other sounds, the gusts of • wind bear in crescendo blasts the ceaseless roar of the 'grey waters,—" the irreclaimable menace of the Sea."
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