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Soon after sunrise the mist began to dissipate, and the surface of
the water to appear for miles around roughened as if by a smart
breeze, though there was not the slightest breath of wind at the time.
“How do you account for that appearance?” said I to one of the
fishermen. “Ah, lad, that is by no means so favourable a token as the
one you asked me to explain last night. I had as lief see the Bhodry-
more.” “Why, what does it betoken? and what is the Bhodry-more?”
“It betokens that the shoal have spawned, and will shortly leave the
frith; for when the fish are sick and weighty they never rise to the
surface in that way. But have you never heard of the Bhodry-more?”
I replied in the negative. “Well, but you shall.” “Nay,” said another of
the crew, “leave that for our return; do you not see the herrings
playing by thousands round our nets, and not one of the buoys
sinking in the water? There is not a single fish swimming so low as
the upper baulks of our drift. Shall we not shorten the buoy-ropes,
and take off the sinkers?” This did not meet the approbation of the
others, one of whom took up a stone, and flung it in the middle of the
shoal. The fish immediately disappeared from the surface for several
fathoms round. “Ah, there they go!” he exclaimed; “if they go but low
enough; four years ago I startled thirty barrels of light fish into my
drift just by throwing a stone among them.”
The whole frith at this time, so far as the eye could reach, appeared
crowded with herrings; and its surface was so broken by them as to
remind one of the pool of a waterfall. They leaped by millions a few
inches into the air, and sunk with a hollow plumping noise,
somewhat resembling the dull rippling sound of a sudden breeze;
while to the eye there was a continual twinkling, which, while it
mocked every effort that attempted to examine in detail, showed to
the less curious glance like a blue robe sprinkled with silver. But it is
not by such comparisons that so singular a scene is to be described
so as to be felt. It was one of those which, through the living myriads
of creation, testify of the infinite Creator.
About noon we hauled for the third and last time, and found nearly
eight barrels of fish. I observed when hauling that the natural heat of
the herring is scarcely less than that of quadrupeds or birds; that
when alive its sides are shaded by a beautiful crimson colour which it
loses when dead; and that when newly brought out of the water, it
utters a sharp faint cry somewhat resembling that of a mouse. We
had now twenty barrels on board. The easterly har, a sea-breeze so
called by fishermen, which in the Moray Frith, during the summer
months, and first month of autumn, commonly comes on after ten
o’clock A.M., and fails at four o’clock P.M., had now set in. We hoisted
our mast and sail, and were soon scudding right before it.
The story of the Bhodry-more, which I demanded of the skipper as
soon as we had trimmed our sail, proved interesting in no common
degree, and was linked with a great many others. The Bhodry-
more[24] is an active, mischievous fish of the whale species, which has
been known to attack and even founder boats. About eight years ago,
a very large one passed the town of Cromarty through the middle of
the bay, and was seen by many of the townsfolks leaping out of the
water in the manner of a salmon, fully to the height of a boat’s mast.
It appeared about thirty feet in length. This animal may almost be
regarded as the mermaid of modern times: for the fishermen deem it
to have fully as much of the demon as of the fish. There have been
instances of its pursuing a boat under sail for many miles, and even
of its leaping over it from side to side. It appears, however, that its
habits and appetites are unlike those of the shark; and that the
annoyance which it gives the fisherman is out of no desire of making
him its prey, but from its predilection for amusement. It seldom
meddles with a boat when at anchor, but pursues one under sail, as a
kitten would a rolling ball of yarn. The large physalus whale is
comparatively a dull, sluggish animal; occasionally, however, it
evinces a partiality for the amusements of the Bhodry-more. Our
skipper said, that when on the Caithness coast, a few years before, an
enormous fish of the species kept direct in the wake of his boat for
more than a mile, frequently rising so near the stern as to be within
reach of the boat-hook. He described the expression of its large
goggle eyes as at once frightful and amusing; and so graphic was his
narrative that I could almost paint the animal stretching out for
more than sixty feet behind the boat, with his black marble-looking
skin and cliff-like fins. He at length grew tired of its gambols, and
with a sharp fragment of rock struck it between the eyes. It sunk with
a sudden plunge, and did not rise for ten minutes after, when it
appeared a full mile a-stern. This narrative was but the first of I no
not know how many, of a similar cast, which presented to my
imagination the Bhodry-more whale and hun-fish in every possible
point of view. The latter, a voracious formidable animal of the shark
species, frequently makes great havoc among the tackle with which
cod and haddock are caught. Like the shark, it throws itself on its
back when in the act of seizing its prey. The fishermen frequently see
it lying motionless, its white belly glittering through the water, a few
fathoms from the boat’s side, employed in stripping off every fish
from their hooks as the line is drawn over it. This formidable animal
is from six to ten feet in length, and formed like the common shark.
24. Properly, perhaps, the musculous whale.
One of the boatmen’s stories, though somewhat in the
Munchausen style, I shall take the liberty of relating. Two Cromarty
men, many years ago, were employed on a fine calm day in angling
for coal-fish and rock-cod, with rods and hand-lines. Their little skiff
rode to a large oblong stone, which served for an anchor, nearly
opposite a rocky spire termed the chapel, three miles south of
Shandwick. Suddenly the stone was raised from the bottom with a
jerk, and the boat began to move. “What can this mean!” exclaimed
the elder of the men, pulling in his rod, “we have surely broken loose;
but who could have thought that there ran such a current here!” The
other, a young daring fellow, John Clark by name, remarked in reply,
that the apparent course of the skiff was directly contrary to that of
the current. The motion, which was at first gentle, increased to a
frightful velocity; the rope a-head was straitened until the very stem
cracked; and the sea rose upon either bows into a furrow that nearly
overtopped the gunwale. “Old man,” said the young fellow, “didst
thou ever see the like o’ that!” “Guid save us, boy,” said the other;
“cut, cut the swing.” “Na, na, bide a wee first, I manna skaith the
rape: didst thou ever see the like o’ that!”
In a few minutes, according to the story, they were dragged in this
manner nearly two miles, when the motion ceased as suddenly as it
had begun, and the skiff rode to the swing as before.
THE TWIN SISTERS.
By Alexander Balfour.
One of these men is genius to the other;
And so, of these which is the natural man,
And which the spirit? Who decyphers them?
Shakspeare.
By Henry Mackenzie.