Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XI.—April, 1851—Vol. II.

But now, while we have a chance, while the doorway is accidentally clear for a few moments, let us enter the salting-house, and approach the noisiest and most amusing of all the scenes which the pilchard fishery presents. First of all, we pass a great heap of fish lying in one recess inside the door, and an equally great heap of coarse, brownish salt lying in another. Then, we advance further, get out of the way of every body, behind a pillar; and see a whole congregation of the fair sex screaming, talking, and – to their honor be it spoken – working at the same time, round a compact mass of pilchards which their nimble hands have already built up to a height of three feet, a breadth of more than four, and a length of twenty. Here we have every variety of the "female type" displayed before us, ranged round an odoriferous heap of salted fish. Here, we see crones of sixty and girls of sixteen; the ugly and the lean, the comely and the plump; the sour-tempered and the sweet – all squabbling, singing, jesting, lamenting, and shrieking at the very top of their very shrill voices for "more fish," and "more salt;" both of which are brought from the stores, in small buckets, by a long train of children running backward and forward with unceasing activity and in inextricable confusion. But, universal as the uproar is, the work never flags; the hands move as fast as the tongues; there may be no silence and no discipline, but there is also no idleness and no delay. Never was three-pence an hour more joyously or more fairly earned than it is here!

The labor is thus performed. After the stone floor has been swept clean, a thin layer of salt is spread on it, and covered with pilchards laid partly edgewise, and close together. Then another layer of salt, smoothed fine with the palm of the hand, is laid over the pilchards; and then more pilchards are placed upon that; and so on until the heap rises to four feet, or more. Nothing can exceed the ease, quickness, and regularity with which this is done. Each woman works on her own small area, without reference to her neighbor; a bucketful of salt and a bucketful of fish being shot out in two little piles under her hands, for her own especial use. All proceed in their labor, however, with such equal diligence and equal skill, that no irregularities appear in the various layers when they are finished – they run as straight and smooth from one end to the other, as if they were constructed by machinery. The heap, when completed, looks like a long, solid, neatly-made mass of dirty salt; nothing being now seen of the pilchards but the extreme tips of their noses or tails, just peeping out in rows, up the sides of the pile.

The fish will remain thus in salt, or, as the technical expression is, "in bulk," for five or six weeks. During this period, a quantity of oil, salt, and water drips from them into wells cut in the centre of the stone floor on which they are placed. After the oil has been collected and clarified, it will sell for enough to pay off the whole expense of the wages, food, and drink given to the "seiners" – perhaps, for some other incidental charges besides. The salt and water left behind, and offal of all sorts found with it, furnish a valuable manure. Nothing in the pilchard itself, or in connection with the pilchard, runs to waste – the precious little fish is a treasure in every part of him.

After the pilchards have been taken out of "bulk," they are washed clean in salt water, and packed in hogsheads, which are then sent for exportation to some large sea-port – Penzance, for instance – in coast traders. The fish reserved for use in Cornwall, are generally cured by those who purchase them. The export trade is confined to the shores of the Mediterranean – Italy and Spain providing the two great foreign markets for pilchards. The home consumption, as regards Great Britain, is nothing, or next to nothing. Some variation takes place in the prices realized by the foreign trade – their average, wholesale, is stated to about fifty shillings per hogshead.

Some idea of the almost incalculable multitude of pilchards caught on the shores of Cornwall, may be formed from the following data. At the small fishing cove of Trereen, 600 hogsheads were taken in little more than one week, during August 1850. Allowing 2400 fish only to each hogshead – 3000 would be the highest calculation – we have a result of 1,440,000 pilchards, caught by the inhabitants of one little village alone, on the Cornish coast, at the commencement of the season's fishing!

At considerable sea-port towns, where there is an unusually large supply of men, boats, and nets, such figures as those quoted above, are far below the mark. At St. Ives, for example, 1000 hogsheads were taken in the first three seine nets cast into the water. The number of hogsheads exported annually, averages 22,000. This year, 27,000 have been secured for the foreign markets. Incredible as these numbers may appear to some readers, they may nevertheless be relied on; for they are derived from trustworthy sources – partly from local returns furnished to me – partly from the very men who filled the baskets from the boat-side, and who afterward verified their calculations by frequent visits to the salting-houses.

Such is the pilchard fishery of Cornwall – a small unit, indeed, in the vast aggregate of England's internal sources of wealth: but yet, neither unimportant nor uninteresting, if it be regarded as giving active employment to a hardy and honest race who would starve without it, as impartially extending the advantages of commerce to one of the remotest corners of our island, and – more than all – as displaying a wise and beautiful provision of Nature, by which the rich tribute of the great deep is most generously lavished on the land which most needs a compensation for its own sterility.

[From Dickens's Household Words.]

LUCY CAWTHORNE. – A TALE BY A BACHELOR CLERK

The office of clerk of the Carvers' Company has been filled by members of my family for one hundred years past. My great-grandfather was elected in the year 1749. After him, came his younger brother; and, when he died, my grandfather was chosen by nine votes out of twelve; after that, all opposition vanished: our dynasty was established. When my grandfather died, my father went through the ceremony of calling upon the members of the Court of Assistants, and soliciting their votes; and, afterward, the formality of a show of hands being passed, he was declared, as every one knew he would be who was aware of the existence of the Carvers' Company, the successor of his father. The transition from him to myself was so easy as to be hardly felt. When I threw aside my yellow breeches, and came out of the "Blue-Coat School," with some knowledge of Greek, and very small skill in penmanship, I was at once transplanted to a stool at my father's desk; which stood railed off, in a corner of the great hall, under the stained-glass window. The master and twelve senior liverymen, who formed what is called the Court of Assistants, saw me there when they met together; and one patted me on the head, and prophesied great things of me, while I sat, very red in the face, wondering who had been talking to him about me. Another, who had himself worn the girdle and blue-petticoats, some half a century previously, examined my classical knowledge; and, finding himself somewhat at fault, remarked that he was not fresh from school, like me. At length, my father and I attended their meetings alternately; and, as he became old and infirm, the duties devolved entirely upon me. When he died, therefore, there was no change. The twelve liverymen held up twelve of their four-and-twenty hands, and my election was recorded on the minutes.

Carvers' Hall was a place not very easy to find out, for any but the warder and twelve liverymen: but, as few people else ever had occasion to find it out, that was not of much consequence. The portion of the city in which it stood had escaped the fire of London, which took a turn at a short distance, owing, perhaps, to a change in the wind, and left the hall and some adjacent courts untouched. In order to arrive there, it was necessary, first, to pass through a narrow passage running up from Thames-street; then, along a paved yard, by the railing of a church; and, lastly, down an impassable court, at the bottom of which stood the antique gateway of Carvers' Hall. Over the door-way was a curious carving of the Resurrection, in oak, which must have cost some ancient member of the Worshipful Guild considerable time and trouble. There were represented graves opening, and bald-headed old men forcing up the lids of their family-vaults – some looking happy, and some with their features distorted by despair. Out of others, whole families, mother, father, and several children, had just issued, and were standing hand-in-hand. Some, again, were struggling, half-buried in the ground; while others, already extricated, were assisting their kinsmen in their efforts to disinter themselves. The scene was made a section, in order to give the spectator a view of an immense host of cherubim above, sitting upon a massy pile of cloud; through, which – the middle point of the picture – the summoning angel was throwing himself down, with a trumpet in his hand; which, according to the relative scale of the work, must have been several leagues, at least, in length. Having passed under this gate-way, you entered a small square yard, paved with black and white stones, placed diamond-wise; and facing you was the hall itself, up three stone-steps, and with a wooden portico.

This solitary building, silent and retired, though in the heart of a crowded city, has been my home for nearly sixty years. I have become assimilated to the place by long usage. I am myself silent, retired, and tenacious of old habits; though I do not think this is my natural disposition. But why do I talk of natural disposition? Are we not all moulded and made what we are by time and outward influences? However, when I was at school I was a cheerful boy, though the monastic life of Christ's Hospital is not calculated to improve the spirits. It was only on entering my father's office that I began to be subdued to the formal being which I have since become. The portraits of my predecessors hang in the hall; they are exactly alike, both in features and in dress, except that the first two wore hair-powder. It was my father's pride that he clung to the style of dress which was prevalent when he was a young man, which he considered to be, in every way, superior to all modern inventions. I was only released from the absurd dress of the blue-coat boy to be put into garments equally provocative of remarks from impertinent boys. The family costume is, imprimis, a pair of knee-breeches with buckles; then a blue coat with metal buttons; and a large white cravat, spread out over the whole chest, and ornamented in the middle with a cornelian brooch. The same brooch appears in every one of the portraits. I have worn this dress all my life, with the exception of a short period, when I changed it to return to it shortly again.

If happiness consists in having many friends, I ought to have been a happy man. Old carvers, neighbors, pensioners of the company, every one down to the housekeeper, and Tom Lawton, my only clerk, spoke kindly of me. Theirs was no lip-service. I knew they liked me in their hearts. The world, too, had gone smoothly with me. I knew nothing of the struggles for bread, the hardships and wrongs which other men endure. They appeared to me even fabulous when I read them. The means of getting my living were put into my hands. The company seemed almost grateful to my father for bringing me up to the office. My income was two hundred pounds per annum, as well as the house to live in, and coals and candles, which was more than I needed for my support, though I always found means of disposing of the surplus, and never saved any thing. I was not, however, a happy man. I had always the feeling of a spirit subdued to a life to which it was not suited. I do not say that in another sphere I should have led a boisterous life. My mind was, perhaps, more prone to reflection than to action, although I felt that if I had been more in the world, if I had known more of life and change, I should have been a happier man. But from my earliest days the vanity of life, and the virtue of keeping aloof from temptation, were instilled into me. "A rolling stone gathers no moss," was the first proverb which I heard from my father's mouth. These principles, implanted early, took deep root, though, perhaps, in an unfavorable soil. Living also under the same roof with my father, I felt alarmed at every whispering of my own inclinations which was opposed to his wishes, and strove to subdue them, as if I were struggling with the evil portion of my nature. Thus, in course of time, I became what I am; not a misanthrope, thank God, but a timid and somewhat melancholy man. We had no mirth-making in our household, except at Christmas-time, when we feasted, in good earnest. My father loved at that time to display a rough hospitality. We had generally two or three nights of merry-making, at which were both young and old people – all carvers, or the children of carvers – and after his death I continued the custom. Often, as I sat with my happy friends about me, some sweet young woman would give me a sly hit upon my obdurate determination to die an old bachelor; little thinking that her heedless words could give me pain, though they cut me deeply, and set me looking at the fire with a thoughtful face. I might have married, perhaps, if I had found a partner; my income was not large, but many men run the risk of a family with less means to support one than I had; but, somehow, I found myself at forty-five years of age unmarried, slim, and prim – the very type of an old bachelor. It was not from indifference, for I was by nature sensitive and affectionate. For women I had a kind of reverence. I pictured them to myself all that is noble and good: yet, in their presence, I only looked upon them timidly, speaking little, but thinking of them, perhaps, long afterward when they were gone.

One result of my reputation for gravity was a number of executorships which had been imposed upon me by deceased friends. Any one would have thought that there was a conspiracy abroad to overwhelm me with proofs of confidence. My stock of mourning rings is considerable. The expression, "Nineteen guineas for his trouble," had to me an old familiar sound with it. At length I was obliged to hint to any old carver who waxed sickly, that my duties in that way were already as much as I could fulfill. There was, however, an old grocer of my acquaintance, named Cawthorne, who would make me executor of his will, in spite of my remonstrances, relieving my scruples by assuring me that he had named another friend for my colleague, who, it was understood, was to undertake, if we survived him, the greater part of his duties, including the guardianship of his daughter Lucy. We did survive him; and the other executor entered upon his office, seldom troubling me except when absolutely necessary. Thus he went on for some years. The daughter had become a fine young woman of nineteen, with blue eyes and fair hair, rippled like the sunlight upon waters touched by a light wind. I saw her often in the house when he was taken ill, and thought her very beautiful. I fancied, sometimes, how she would look robed in pure white, and holding in her hand an olive branch, as I had seen some angels carved in stone. I have met her ascending the stairs with a candle in her hand, the light striking upward, like a glory on her face, and she seemed to me not to mount from step to step, but slowly to ascend without a movement of the feet. My feeling with regard to her almost amounted to a superstitious awe; for I seldom spoke many words to her, and I think, at first, she thought me harsh and cold. At length her guardian died, and although I had known from the first that in that event his duty would devolve upon me, the fact seemed to take me by surprise. I could hardly believe that henceforth, for some time, she would look to me as her sole protector. However, in a short time, the affairs of my deceased colleague were set in order, and she came to reside with me in the old Hall.

She soon forgot her first antipathy, and we became good friends together. I took her over the old place, and showed her the library and the paintings, and every thing there that was quaint and curious. We had a garden at the back of the Hall, in which she sat at work on fine days. It was not large, but it was nevertheless a garden, and in the midst of London. It was planted with shrubs, and contained two or three large trees, as well as a rustic seat upon a grass-plot; though the grass was not very thriving, on account of the trees shutting out the sun and air. However, sitting here, the back of the Hall had a picturesque look, half covered with the great leaves of a fig-tree nailed against the wall, and with its worn stone steps guarded on each side by an aloe in a green tub. This was her favorite place. She worked or read there in the morning, and in the afternoon she taught two little nieces of the housekeeper to read and write. Sometimes, in the evening, I got an old book from the library, and read to her, and made her laugh at its quaintness. I remember one translation of a Spanish novel in folio, printed in the seventeenth century, which amused her very much. The translation occupied one half of the book, and the prefaces the other. There was the Translator's "Apology for his labor;" "A declaration for the better understanding of the book;" an address "To the learned Reader;" another "To the discreet and courteous Reader;" and another "To the vulgar Reader," with some others; and, finally, the Spanish novel itself was ushered in by a number of verses in English and Latin, laudatory of the book and the translator, by celebrated men of the period.

On Sunday we sat at church, in the same pew, and often I forgot my own devotions in listening to the earnest tones with which she said the prayers. I thought that she, of all that congregation, was best fitted to speak those words of Christian love. I was vexed to hear an old overseer of the parish, whom I knew to be a bad and worldly man, in the next pew, repeating the same words in a drawling tone; and I could almost have requested him to say them to himself.

Thus, ours was not a very cheerful way of life for a young maiden; but she seemed always happy and contented. For myself, although I was sorry for the death of my co-executor, I blessed the day when she came into the house; and I grieved that I had objected to become her guardian from the first, that she might have grown up from childhood with me, and learnt to look up to me as a father. Living with her daily, and noting all her thoughts and actions, sometimes even when she did not suspect that I observed her, I saw her purer than the purest of my own ideals. My feeling was almost an idolatry. If I had, at forty-five years of age, still any thoughts of marrying, I renounced them for her sake, and resolved to devote all my care to her, until such time as she should find a husband worthy of her.

By an ancient bequest to the Company, we distributed, on the day before Christmas-day, to twenty-four poor people, a loaf of bread, a small log of wood, or bavin, as we call it, and the sum of two shillings and ten-pence to each person. The recipients were all old, decrepit men and women. There was an ancient regulation, still unrepealed, that they should all attend on the following court-day, at noon precisely, to "return thanks for the same;" though that performance of mechanical gratitude had been allowed to fall into disuse by a more philosophical generation. The first Christmas after Lucy came there, she begged me to let her distribute these gifts, and I consented. I stood at my little desk at the end of the hall, with my face resting upon my hands, watching her, and listening to her talking to the old people. Next to the pleasure of hearing her speak to little children, I delighted to hear her talk with the very aged folks. There was something in the contrast of the two extremes of life – the young and beautiful maiden, and the bent and wrinkled old people – that pleased me. She heard all their oft-repeated complaints, their dreary accounts of their agues and rheumatics, and consoled them as well as she could; and, with some of the very old, she took their brown and sinewy hands in hers, and led them down the steps. I did not know what ailed me that day. I stood dreaming and musing, till I seemed to have lost that instinctive dexterity with which we perform the simple operations of our daily life. Some accounts lay before me which I was anxious to cast, but several times I essayed, and seemed incapable of doing so. As the simple words of our daily language, which issue from our lips simultaneously with the thought, become vague and indistinct if we muse upon their origin, and repeat them several times to ourselves; so by dwelling long upon the idea of the work before me, it seemed to have become confused, and difficult to realize. I handed them over to my clerk, Tom Lawton, who sat opposite to me.

Poor Tom Lawton! I thought I saw him looking anxiously at me, several times, when I raised my eyes. No being upon earth ever loved me more than he. It is true, I had done him some acts of kindness, but I had often done as much for others, who had forgotten it since; whereas his gratitude became a real affection for me, which never failed to show itself each day that he was with me. He was a fine young man, and a great favorite with the housekeeper, who said "she liked him because he was so good to his mother, just as she thought her poor son would have been if he had lived." Tom was fond of reading, and sometimes wrote verses, of which he made copies for his friends in a neat hand. He was a shrewd fellow in some things, but in others he was as simple as a child. His temper was the sweetest in the world – the children knew that. No diving into his coat-pocket ever ruffled him; no amount of pulling his hair could ever induce him to cry out.

Tom was to spend his Christmas Eve with us, and to make "toast and ale," as was our custom; so, when the gifts were all distributed, he left me, and ran home to dress himself smartly for the occasion. I stood at my desk, still musing, till the evening closed upon the short and wintry afternoon. Lucy came and called me, saying the tea was on the table.

"We thought you were fallen asleep," said she. "Mr. Lawton is come."

We sat round a large fire in the old wainscoted sitting-room, while Lucy made the tea – and would have made the toast, too; but Tom said he would sooner burn his eyes out than suffer her to do so. The housekeeper came up, and afterward came an old carver and his daughter. We sat till after midnight. The old carver told some anecdotes of people whom my father knew; and Tom told a ghost story, which kept them all in breathless terror, till it turned out, at last, to be a dream. But I was restless, and spoke little. Once, indeed, I answered the old carver sharply. He had patted Lucy on the head, and said he supposed she would be soon getting married, and leaving us old people. I could not endure the thought of her leaving us; though I knew that she would do so, probably, one day. She had never looked to me more interesting than she did that evening. A little child, worn out with playing, had fallen asleep, with its head upon her lap; and, as she was speaking to us, her hand was entangled in its hair. I gazed at her, and caught up every word she spoke; and when she stopped, my restlessness returned. I strove in vain to take part in their mirth. I wanted to be alone.

When I sat that night in my little bedroom, I was thinking still of Lucy. I heard her voice still sounding in my ear; and, when I shut my eyes, I pictured her still before me, with her dear kind face, and her little golden locket hung upon her neck. I fell asleep and dreamed of her. I woke, and waited for the daylight, thinking of her still. So we passed all the Christmas holidays. Sometimes it was a happy feeling which possessed me; and sometimes I almost wished that I had never seen her. I was always restless and anxious; I knew not for what. I became a different man to that which I had been before I knew her.

When, at last, I concealed from myself no longer that I loved her fondly, deeply – deeper, I believe, than ever man has loved – I became alarmed. I knew what people would say, if it came to be known. She had some property, and I had nothing; but what was worse, I was forty-five years of age, and she was only twenty. I was, moreover, her guardian; and she had been consigned to my care by her dying father, in confidence, that if she came under my protection, I would act toward her as he himself would have acted, if he had lived, not dreaming that I should encourage other thoughts than those of a protector and a friend. I knew that I should have been jealous, angry, with any one who evinced a liking for her; and yet I asked myself whether it was right that I should discourage any man who might make her happy; who, perhaps, would love her nearly as much as I did, and be more suited for her, by reason of his youth and habits; not like mine, sedate and monkish. Even if I eventually gained her affections, would not the world say that I had exerted the undue influence of my authority over her; or that I had kept her shut up from society; so that, in her ignorance of life, she mistook a feeling of respect for a stronger sentiment? And, again, if all these things were set aside, was it not wrong that I should take a young and beautiful girl and shut her up in that old place forever – checking the natural gayety of youth, and bringing her by slow degrees to my old ways? I saw the selfishness of all my thoughts, and resolved to strive to banish them forever.