FIRST EMPTYING. 43 



must go somewhere, and the delightful little town of Filey, 

 where I have had some excellent sea-fishing, prefers they 

 should go elsewhere, while she rests proudly on her green 

 cliff and looks calmly out to sea, content with what nature 

 has done for her, while the North Sea lashes itself for ever 

 and for ever into sunny foam-flakes, and rears its leaping 

 waves high in spray during the drowsy August noontide, 

 when its progress southward is broken by the mighty barrier 

 of the Brigg. The knell of fallen power rings on the dancing 

 waves over nine fathoms of water off the end of these rocks, 

 where a melancholy bell, tolling listlessly as it rises and 

 falls, sounds like the funeral knell of some lost Kelpie far 

 down among the weeds below. " Pollack ? " says the 

 skipper. " Yes, sir ; plenty on 'em off the Brig ; but they 

 don't come there as they used to. Cannot say why ; only 

 knows they doesn't. Whitings, codlings, billet, gurnets, 

 sand-dabs, thousands on 'em ; now and then a big codfish, 

 and once a salmon. Yes, with a line. Gentleman fishing 

 off Filey Rocks hooked and landed him ; eight pound he 

 were. Ye might fish a long time before anything like that 

 occurred again." 



No, no, he won't have it that with a little cayenne pepper 

 and butter, all fish taste alike; he will never give in to 

 that ; thinks there is as much variety in their tastes as there 

 is in their shapes and colours. A codling, for instance, 

 won't compare with a fresh whiting ; by fresh, he means a 

 whiting straight from the sea at Filey ; he has seen fish on 

 slabs at inland shops very near old enough to talk. 



" There is a lot of people, mind you, 'at only fancies they can 

 tell the difference between one fish and another. Recollects a 

 gentleman, getting a bit old now, that came to Filey many 

 a year, and a right good fisherman he were. Says I to him 

 one day, ' Do you think, Doctor, you could any time tell 

 the difference between a whiting and a codling?' We 

 were catching codlings and nothing else you see, just then. 



