156 THE LAST SCENE. 



striped petticoats and dashing shawls ; for, of course, 

 they have now assumed a more suitable attire generally 

 a kind of oilskin gabardine. Behold them, then, about 

 ten or eleven o'clock in the forenoon, when the gutting 

 scene is at its height, and after they have been at work 

 for an hour or so : their hands, and necks, and busts, 

 their 



" Dreadful faces thronged, and fiery arms," 



their every bit about them, fore and aft, are spotted and 

 besprinkled over with little scarlet clots ; or as Southey 

 says of Don Roderick, after the last and fatal fight 



" Their flanks incarnadined, 

 Their poitral smeared with blood. " 



See yonder trough, surrounded by a ferocious host, two 

 of them wearing the weeds of widowhood ! How dexter- 

 ously they ply the knife ! With a downward movement 

 they seize the herring, with an upward movement they 

 throw it into the basket, and the operation is over ! 'Tis 

 done with lightning-like dexterity by a mere turn of the 

 hand, and thirty or forty fish are " gutted " before you 

 have time to count sixty ticks of your watch. These 

 ruthless widows seize upon the dead herrings as if to re- 

 venge upon them their lost husbands, who are sleeping 

 full many a fathom down in the " salt ooze;" and they 

 scatter about the entrails as if they had no " bowels of 

 compassion."* 



There are fresh herrings and there are pickled her- 

 rings, and both are excellent in their way, savoury, and, 

 it is said, nutritious ; but there are also " red herrings " 



* We borrow these details from Mr. Bertram, for we confess that, in our 

 visits to the herring-ports, we have never cared for this scene in the drama. 



