The Little Harbours
THERE are two very distinct interpretations to be put upon the words of that venerable song, " I do like to be beside the Seaside " (if that is its correct title). The sentiment so poetically expressed in this line, of course, admits of no argument. We see the long shining stretch of yellow sand—at least, we would see it if it were not for those Gay Throngs of Happy Pleasure Seekers, and so on—of a South Coast resort. We see the nigger minstrels, the red and white striped bathing tents, in fact, the whole " outfit " just as the popular Press describes it for us every year with such unflagging energy, beginning at Easter and ending with a last delirious outburst towards the end of August. But the line of the song which follows the one quoted may surely be allowed to stand for something rather different : " I do like to be beside the sea." Being beside the sea is not at all the same thing, for some-of us, as being beside the seaside. There are, fortunately, some inhabited places which, while they have no seaside at all, and are not sea-ports, are undeniably beside the sea. They smell strongly of the sea's traffic—mvch more strongly indeed, than the seaside does—of fish, tar, salt water, and sometimes, in the winter, of jasmin that climbs up grey cottage walls. They are the places where Men, very long ago in the history of our islands, first signed a treaty with the sea and folded. their small ships. between two circling arms of stone.. They were built for lasting use, these little English and Scottish harbours. (Ireland's harbours have a different character altogether.) They are not used much now except by fishermen.: but, except where the sea has gone back leaving them high and dry beyond the marshes, or where they have been commercially exploited, many of them are very much as they were in the time of. Francis Drake. They just go on existing beside the sea.
Therein, of course, lies the secret of their preservation : they just exist.. There is " nothing to do "—blessed phrase—in . them at all. One does not bathe amidst floating herring boxes and fishes' heads. There is, indeed, a complete lack of any of those things known, for some odd reason, as " Attractions." The little harbours have nothing for which to advertise themselves.
No doubt, everyone who is at all attracted by little fishing villages and forgotten ports which have no attrac- tions has his favourite among them, where he meets, and for a while lives with, the sea and the men, who draw their living from the sea. In Cornwall you may still find many a small harbour where the majority of this maritime nation of ours, so steeled to the hazards of waves breaking wildly. round the piles of the Grand Pier in August, would have a dull time of it. So also on the East Coast of England, where nothing flourishes along the level shores but marram grasses, and, in summer, pale yellow poppies dance forlornly in a day-long wind : the harbours there are often only little stone fortresses -built in the teeth of the sea: And the wrinkled coasts of Scotland offer a thousand bollards and upturned herring smacks as seats, solitary sometimes, but never lonely, for those whose pleasure it is to sit on them through the long sunny evenings and fill in the hours happily doing nothing.
This business of doing nothing is, of course, a specialized art, and never more so than when one is in league with- a cockle-gatherer, a far-away feather of smoke on the horizon, or a fleet of herring boats. If the wind is light and off-shore at sunset, hours may elapse before the boats, seen first as a flock of great birds with silver and coppery wings spread on the water, are safely tucked close into their night-refuge, wings folded taut against their 'breasts : • like grey doves then, sombre and brooding in the glimmer of low-hung lamps. What a rare and golden time of inaction the idler-artist has of it, till the last catch is unloaded, the last glint of opalescent mackerel obscured, and the heavy-booted fisheimen all .gone from 'the little silent harbour, up the cobbled street to the inn. It is time to follow then, perhaps, when the nefarious doings of the Government (whichever happens to be in power : they are all the Same to us—quite hopeless) may be discussed and derided. But whilst we are out there, on the bollard, We do not want to be disturbed with such trivialities.
Theie 'smallest of harbours may well be left nameless. Whether we -have in mind some tiny West Of England haven, a nest of fisher-people whose direct ancestors settled there beside the blue Toll of the Atlantic long ago and first- built those beautiful, rough, duck-like boats Whose secret has not been lost, or a -Ross-shire herring-pod-With the dolorous cry of gulls in the syllables of its name, the less that is seen about them in print the better for their quiet. But there are larger harbours which still have 'no seaside and no passenger traffic to speak a, but - well enough known; where you may do nothing very, comfortably for hours in the busier atmo- sphere of the steam trawlers and drifters, going in and .out.
Of these, the ancient, cold harbour at St. Andrews, well removed from sands and golf courses, is typical. There are many such in Scotland. They are not popular with sightseers—for one thing, the smell of the fish, those great glittering masses of sea-spoil lying in the trawlers' holds—is often so overpowering. It rises up and fills the nostrils in a wave of (to the born idler) delicious odour. Lean over the bollard and look down into those holds : one by one the little ships steam in between the pale harbour lights at sunset, bump along- side, and are emptied. The herring boxes are waiting on the quay. You have nothing to do but lean over
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