M 
LAND & WATER 
The Bay 
By J. D. Symon 
September 28, 1916 
THE Bay lies in a break of iron coast, between 
two rugged headlands, bastions to a strip of 
shelving shingle. For about a mile the wall of 
cliff, running far to north and south, is entirely 
interrupted, and behind the beach the ground rises gently 
inland through a rolling pastoral country leading upwards 
to the foothills of a giant mountain range. From the 
beach itself the mountains are invisible, but row out 
about half a mile, and you may take your bearings by 
familiar peaks of the (irampians. 
Tucked snugly away in the southern corner of the dip 
lies a little town, famous as a holiday retreat, but" scarcely 
sjjoilcd by the modern conventions of such places, 
h ringing the tiny harbour the houses still cluster, red- 
roofed and quaint, around the spire of the old town 
hall, very much as they were in the seventeenth century. 
A little apart ris.es the spire of the new town hall, not 
\ery new, and marking a second hotel lie villi', now itself 
superseded for a generation back by a third, of no great 
outward pretensions, although spacious enough within.' 
The town hall, second of its name, makes an island in the 
market square t<} which it is perfectly appropriate, for 
it is a veritable market-house, of a kind not very usual 
in Scotland, with arched porticos that recall those of 
Amersham, although the building, being of the sterner 
north, is harder of face than the genial old rural exchange 
in Buckinghamshire. But the northern agora is very 
gracious for all that, a wide square with trees and pleasant 
shops dear to holiday-making children, who used to 
cherish one in particular for the marvellous peppermint 
rock sold there. " Creeds pass, rites change, no altar 
standeth whole." On a recent day. a middle-aged 
pilgrim sought the old familiar place. It had vanished ; 
but only round the corner, where the ancient confec- 
tion, unchanged in excellence and savour, is still made 
and sold to the delight of a new generation. The sticks, 
perhaps, arc less sumptuously massive — their very 
thickness, most e.xpansive to the jaw, was an added 
lu.xury — but to-day's leanness may be only another 
symptom of these abnormal times, and, with peace, the 
former corpulence must surely return. 
Memories of Childhood 
But fascinating as the town and its attractions are, 
it is the Bay of which it is our hint to speak. To see 
it once more, .sparkling blue beneath an early autumn 
sun, flung the pilgrim back more years than he cares to 
count, to dim memories, fitful and dreamlike, of a summer 
that halted, incredulous, at the news that France and 
tiermany were at war. Grave elders' fragmentary un- 
comprehended talk about the coming strife mingles 
in that dream with impressions of warm morning sunshine 
on the shore, of business with spade and pail, of an 
early moral judgment that the shingle, so trying to the 
feet, was less agreeable than the velvety sand of another 
beach nearer home. More vivid is the memory of what 
seemed a deed of purposeless maternal violence, wrought 
upon a small kicking body, dipped for an instant mider 
the gentlest and most playful of incoming rollers, which 
seemed, however, vast and remorseless as Noah's flood. 
The organism opened its mouth to yell and received a 
full complement of sea-water. Spluttering, it broke 
loose, and flew incontinent to another guardian, 
waiting with comfortable towel outspread to receive the 
rebel, who, it is recorded, as he got rid of his brackish 
draught, likened himself solemnly to the elephant and 
the tailor in the Indian story. Pity that the evil habit 
of literary allusion, thus early manifested, was not re- 
warded with convenient spanking, then and there. 
It had saved much sorrow in later years, when the habit, 
alas ! had become a trade. 
But, be the troubles of that professional habit what 
they will, for one day at least, it was possible to forget 
them m the pure enjoyment of the Bay's perpetual charm. 
Alas ! that it should be only for one day. Yet this is no 
time to complain of restricted holiday. Even a day is 
much; and such a day. one of those" that link summer 
to autumn in golden bonds. The visit was due to no 
accident or caprice, but chiefly utilitarian, for the pur- 
pose of recapturing a member of the younger generation, 
over whom the Bay and its township have e.xcrted an 
hereditary fascination. There he was living a savage, 
piscatorial life, which he described in triumphant dis- 
patches, telling of codlin and whiting captive to his line 
and hook. He decreed accordingly that the day of the 
otlicial visitation and removal schoolward should be spent 
afloat, in one last orgy of sea-fishing. 
Sea Fishing 
Only the lightest of ripples kissed the beach, as the 
fishermen jxit off. The sunshine and the gentle motion 
suggested rather some river expedition than \oyaging 
on the grey North Sea, so calm and sheltered were the 
waters. The crew of three, an indulgent uncle, a stern 
parent, and an irresponsible son, rowed out in the most 
. leisurely fashion, feeling little temptation to be fiercely 
energetic. That is to say, the elders preferred to take 
life easily. Not so the third member of the crew, who 
had several concerns of urgency. His lines were but one 
department. Recently, his nomadic holiday having 
taken him to the second city of the Empire, famous 
for ships, he had become owner of a yacht, of less than 
one ton burthen, but of excellent ])orformancc. The Bay, 
a veritable mill-pond to-day, made it possible to entrust 
the dainty craft to its waters with no hampering and 
ignominious tether of string. The " Clyde Queen " 
justified the confidence reposed in her. She tacked about 
as if manned by an accomplished crew, proved herself 
mar\eHously quick in stays, and ca])ablc of sailing very 
fast and very close to the wind. Now and then it was 
necessary to row after her when she threatened too 
ambitiously to go right out to sea, but she was a sensible 
creature and gave little anxiety, cruising here and there 
well within hail. The least possible effort kept her on 
a safe course, and meanwhile the owner and skipper 
could attend to bait and lines, that wet and strange 
smelling but exciting task. 
When the boat has drawn level with the two head- 
lands, the southern a great detached Behemoth of a 
boulder, the northern a lower craggy point very perilous 
to seamen in winter, a long and wonderful vista of clifl 
scenery springs into view, both up and down the coast. 
And on a southward peninsula tower the venerable 
remains of a castle that was in its prime itself a town- 
ship, the stronghold of a family noted in arms and in 
letters. From the castle to the craggy northern point 
aforesaid is a fair distance, it was a great distance in t he 
days of ancient gunnery, and yet across the space between 
the castle batteries and that promontory IMons Meg 
threw one of her big stone shot, with such nice accuracy 
as to carry away the topsail of a vessel which had thf 
effrontery to pass the castle without the customary salute 
It was a bigger feat than it seemed, for Meg's gunnei 
was absent when the ship passed. Now from the castle 
to our red-roofed town is a good two miles by road. 
The gunner had to be dug out of a tavern in the town 
by a messenger, and had to race back to do his memorable 
trick. But thanks to slow sailing craft he was in time, 
or so the story goes. Against one of yonder trawlers, now 
dehberately sweeping the same stretch of water, it 
would have been a hopeless game. 
Here, then, with the long silhouette of the castle just 
clearing the southern promontory, the irresponsible Boy 
says there is good fishing ground. He serves out lines 
and bait to long-suffering elders and expects them to 
do their best to depopulate the green depths flecked now 
and then with the darting flash of some silvery fish 
that, rising, catches the sunshine. And so till late 
afternoon, while the boat rocks on a gently-heaving 
tide, the members of the fishing party catch great health, 
if nothing else, from that bracing air and sea. And 
one of them, watching the Boy's antics, recaptured his 
own boyhood from the Bay's 'friendly and reminiscent 
waters. 
