202 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 



and in the cold starlight prepare to haul in their two miles 

 of netting. 



The cable, or warp as the men term it, is brought in by 

 the capstan worked in the old-fashioned manner with bars. 

 Some of the Boulogne boats have small steam-engines to do 

 this work, which requires the incessant labour of four or five 

 hands until the hauling is at an end. To the landlubber 

 prone upon the flag of his country in the skipper's bunk, 

 the tramp, tramp of the men on their ceaseless round is as 

 the march of an army, and it is their preliminary circuits that 

 have recalled him from an uneasy dreamland, and brought 

 him into the keen morning air to watch his shipmates deal 

 with the herring. Two men stand about six feet apart in 

 the middle of the boat on the starboard side to haul the net 

 upon deck. At the bow the sailor who was perched there 

 in the afternoon is perched there again to unfasten the seiz- 

 ings he had then tied to the warp. 



A man takes his post in the hold to stow away into the 

 smallest compass, and in regular layers, the nets with bowls 

 attached. The other men are " scudders," which, being in- 

 terpreted, signifies that they seize the net as it is passed over 

 the bulwarks, and by violently shaking it, jerk the fish out 

 of the meshes. In a little while we are all speckled with 

 scales, like harlequins in silver mail ; there are scales every- 

 where, high and low ; scales in your beard and scales in 

 your pocket ay, in the tobacco-pouch in your pocket. 



Thus the herrings are scudded on the deck for the space of 

 five hours, and when the neighbourhood is too much 

 cumbered with fish, they are shovelled into a separate part 

 of the hold through holes formed for the purpose. The fish 

 are mostly exhausted from their struggles to be released from 



