HOMEWAED BOUND. 191 



showers into the boat we roughly guess our capture at fifty crans 

 — a capital night's work. 



The herrings being all on board, our duty is now to " up 

 sail " and get home : the herrings cannot be too soon among the 

 salt. As we make for the harbour, we discern at once how 

 rightly the term lottery has been applied to the herring-fishery. 

 Boats which fished quite near our own were empty ; while others 

 again greatly exceeded our catch. " It is entirely chance work," 

 said our skipper; "and although there may sometimes be 

 millions of fish in the bay, the whole fleet may not divide a 

 hundred crans between them." On some occasions, however, 

 the shoal is hit so exactly that the fleet may bring into the 

 harbour a quantity of fish that in the gross would be an ample 

 fortune. So heavy are the " takes " occasionally, that we have 

 known the nets of many boats to be torn away and lost through 

 the sheer weight of the fish which were enmeshed in them. 



The favouring breeze soon carried us to the quay, where the 

 boats were already arriving in hundreds, and where we were 

 warmly welcomed by the wife of our skipper, who bestowed on 

 us, as the lucky cause of the miraculous draught, a very pleasant 

 smile. When we arrived the cure was going on with startling 

 rapidity. The night had been a golden one for the fishers — 

 calm and beautiful, the water being merely rippled by the land- 

 breeze. But it is not always so in the Bay of Wick; the 

 herring-fleet has been more than once overtaken by a fierce 

 storm, when valuable lives have been lost, and thousands of 

 pounds' worth of netting and boats destroyed. On such occasions 

 the gladdening sights of the herring-fishery are changed to wait- 

 ing and sorrow. It is no wonder that the heavens are eagerly 

 scanned as the boats marshal their way out of the harbour, and 

 the speck on the distant horizon keenly watched as it grows into 

 a mass of gloomy clouds. As the song says, " Caller herrin' " 

 represent the Uves of men; and many a despairing wife and 

 mother can tell a sad tale of the havoc created by the summer 

 gales on our exposed northern coast. 



From the .h€ights of Pulteneytown, overlooking the quays 

 and curers' stations, one has before him, as it were, an extended 

 plain, covered with thousands and tens of thousands of barrels, 

 ■interspersed at short distances with the busy scene of delivery, of 

 packing, and of salting, and aH the bustle and detail attendant on 

 the cure. It is a scene difficult to describe, and has ever struck 

 those witnessing it for the first time with wonder and surprise. 



