giving a glimpse of the beck crossed by its ramshackle wooden
foot-bridge--the view one has been prepared for by guide-books and
picture postcards. Lower down you enter the village street. Here the
smell of fish comes out to greet you, and one would forgive the place
this overflowing welcome if one were not so shocked at the dismal
aspect of the houses on either side of the way. Many are of
comparatively recent origin, others are quite new, and a few--a very
few--are old; but none have any architectural pretensions or any claims
to picturesqueness, and only a few have the neat and respectable look
one is accustomed to expect after seeing Robin Hood's Bay.

I hurried down on to the little fish-wharf--a wooden structure facing
the sea--hoping to find something more cheering in the view of the
little bay, with its bold cliffs, and the busy scene where the cobbles
were drawn up on the shingle. Here my spirits revived, and I began to
find excuses for the painters. The little wharf, in a bad state of
repair, like most things in the place, was occupied by groups of
stalwart fisherfolk, men and women.

The men were for the most part watching their womenfolk at work. They
were also to an astonishing extent mere spectators in the arduous work
of hauling the cobbles one by one on to the steep bank of shingle. A
tackle hooked to one of the baulks of timber forming the staith was
being hauled at by five women and two men! Two others were in a
listless fashion leaning their shoulders against the boat itself. With
the last 'Heave-ho!' at the shortened tackle the women laid hold of the
nets, and with casual male assistance laid them out on the shingle,
removed any fragments of fish, and generally prepared them for stowing
in the boat again.