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Christine: A Fife Fisher Girl

by Amelia E. Barr · English · Gutenberg #32085 · 514,789 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Christine: A Fife Fisher Girl

Author: Amelia E. Barr

Illustrator: Stockton Mulford


        
Release date: April 22, 2010 [eBook #32085]
                Most recently updated: January 6, 2021

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTINE: A FIFE FISHER GIRL ***




Produced by Katherine Ward and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/American Libraries.)









CHRISTINE




  By AMELIA E. BARR

    Christine
    Joan
    Profit and Loss
    Three Score and Ten
    The Measure of a Man
    The Winning of Lucia
    Playing with Fire
    All the Days of My Life


  D. APPLETON & COMPANY
  Publishers    New York


[Illustration: When she came to the top of the cliff, she turned and
gazed again at the sea. Page 6]




  CHRISTINE

  A FIFE FISHER GIRL

  BY
  AMELIA E. BARR

  AUTHOR OF "JOAN", "PROFIT AND LOSS", "THE MEASURE OF A MAN",
  "ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE", ETC.


  FRONTISPIECE BY STOCKTON MULFORD


  "_The sea is His, and He made it_"


  D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
  NEW YORK    LONDON
  1917

  COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY
  D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

  Printed in the United States of America




  I Inscribe This Book To

  Rutger Bleecker Jewett

  Because He is my Friend, And
  Expresses All That Jewel of a
  Monosyllable Requires And
  Because, Though a Landsman,
  He Loves the Sea And
  In His Dreams, He is a Sailor.

  Amelia E. Barr.
  _January 7th, 1917._




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                                         PAGE
       I. Fishers of Culraine                                        1
      II. Christine and the Domine                                  23
     III. Angus Ballister                                           38
      IV. The Fisherman's Fair                                      61
       V. Christine and Angus                                       86
      VI. A Child, Two Lovers, and a Wedding                       115
     VII. Neil and a Little Child                                  152
    VIII. An Unexpected Marriage                                   183
      IX. A Happy Bit of Writing                                   212
       X. Roberta Interferes                                       247
      XI. Christine Mistress of Ruleson Cottage                    280
     XII. Neil's Return Home                                       306
    XIII. The Right Mate and the Right Time                        339
     XIV. After Many Years                                         362




CHAPTER I

FISHERS OF CULRAINE

  The hollow oak our palace is
    Our heritage the sea.

  Howe'er it be it seems to me
    'Tis only noble to be good.
  Kind hearts are more than coronets
    And simple faith than Norman blood.


Friends, who have wandered with me through England, and Scotland, and
old New York, come now to Fife, and I will tell you the story of
Christina Ruleson, who lived in the little fishing village of
Culraine, seventy years ago. You will not find Culraine on the map,
though it is one of that chain of wonderful little towns and villages
which crown, as with a diadem, the forefront and the sea-front of the
ancient kingdom of Fife. Most of these towns have some song or story,
with which they glorify themselves, but Culraine--hidden in the clefts
of her sea-girt rocks--was _in_ the world, but not _of_ the world.
Her people lived between the sea and the sky, between their hard lives
on the sea, and their glorious hopes of a land where there would be
"no more sea."

Seventy years ago every man in Culraine was a fisherman, a mighty,
modest, blue-eyed Goliath, with a serious, inscrutable face; naturally
a silent man, and instinctively a very courteous one. He was exactly
like his great-grandfathers, he had the same fishing ground, the same
phenomena of tides and winds, the same boat of rude construction, and
the same implements for its management. His modes of thought were just
as stationary. It took the majesty of the Free Kirk Movement, and its
host of self-sacrificing clergy, to rouse again that passion of
religious faith, which made him the most thorough and determined of
the followers of John Knox.

The women of these fishermen were in many respects totally unlike the
men. They had a character of their own, and they occupied a far more
prominent position in the village than the men did. They were the
agents through whom all sales were effected, and all the money passed
through their hands. They were talkative, assertive, bustling, and a
marked contrast to their gravely silent husbands.

The Fife fisherman dresses very much like a sailor--though he never
looks like one--but the Fife fisher-wife had then a distinctly foreign
look. She delighted in the widest stripes, and the brightest colors.
Flaunting calicoes and many-colored kerchiefs were her steady fashion.
Her petticoats were very short, her feet trigly shod, and while
unmarried she wore a most picturesque headdress of white muslin or
linen, set a little backward over her always luxuriant hair. Even in
her girlhood she was the epitome of power and self-reliance, and the
husband who could prevent her in womanhood from making the bargains
and handling the money, must have been an extraordinarily clever man.

I find that in representing a certain class of humanity, I have
accurately described, mentally and physically, the father and mother
of my heroine; and it is only necessary to say further that James
Ruleson was a sternly devout man. He trusted God heartily at all
hazards, and submitted himself and all he loved to the Will of God,
with that complete self-abnegation which is perhaps one of the best
fruits of a passionate Calvinism.

For a fisherman he was doubtless well-provided, but no one but his
wife, Margot Ruleson, knew the exact sum of money lying to his credit
in the Bank of Scotland; and Margot kept such knowledge strictly
private. Ruleson owned his boat, and his cottage, and both were a
little better and larger than the ordinary boat and cottage; while
Margot was a woman who could turn a penny ten times over better than
any other woman in the cottages of Culraine. Ruleson also had been
blessed with six sons and one daughter, and with the exception of the
youngest, all the lads had served their time in their father's boat,
and even the one daughter was not excused a single duty that a
fisher-girl ought to do.

Culraine was not a pretty village, though its cottages were all alike
whitewashed outside, and roofed with heather. They had but two rooms
generally--a but and a ben, with no passage between. The majority were
among the sand hills, but many were built on the lofty, sea-lashed
rocks. James Ruleson's stood on a wide shelf, too high up for the
highest waves, though they often washed away the wall of the garden,
where it touched the sandy shore.

The house stood by itself. It had its own sea, and its own sky, and
its own garden, the latter sloping in narrow, giddy paths to the very
beach. Sure feet were needed among its vegetables, and its thickets of
gooseberry and currant bushes, and its straying tangles of blackberry
vines. Round the whole plot there was a low stone wall, covered with
wall-flowers, wild thyme, rosemary, and house-leek.

A few beds around the house held roses and lilies, and other floral
treasures, but these were so exclusively Margot's property, and
Margot's adoration, that I do not think she would like me even to
write about them. Sometimes she put a rosebud in the buttonhole of her
husband's Sunday coat, and sometimes Christina had a similar favor,
but Margot was intimate with her flowers. She knew every one by a
special name, and she counted them every morning. It really hurt her
to cut short their beautiful lives, and her eldest son Norman, after
long experience said: "If Mither cuts a flower, she'll ill to live
wi'. I wouldna tine her good temper for a bit rosebud. It's a poor
bargain."

One afternoon, early in the June of 1849, Christine Ruleson walked
slowly up the narrow, flowery path of this mountain garden. She was
heard before she was seen, for she was singing an east coast ballad,
telling all the world around her, that she

  --Cast her line in Largo bay,
    And fishes she caught nine;
  Three to boil, and three to fry,
    And three to bait the line.

So much she sang, and then she turned to the sea. The boat of a
solitary fisherman, and a lustrously white bird, were lying quietly on
the bay, close together, and a large ship with all her sails set was
dropping lazily along to the south. For a few moments she watched
them, and then continued her song.

She was tall and lovely, and browned and bloomed in the fresh salt
winds. Her hair had been loosened by the breeze, and had partially
escaped from her cap. She had a broad, white brow, and the dark blue
eyes that dwelt beneath it were full of soul--not a cloud in them,
only a soft, radiant light, shaded by eyelids deeply fringed, and
almost transparent--eyelids that were eloquent--full of secrets. Her
mouth was beautiful, her lips made for loving words--even little
children wanted to kiss her. And she lived the very life of the sea.
Like it she was subject to ebb and flow. Her love for it was perhaps
prenatal, it might even have driven her into her present incarnation.

When she came to the top of the cliff, she turned and gazed again at
the sea. The sunshine then fell all over her, and her dress came into
notice. It was simple enough, yet very effective--a white fluted cap,
lying well back on her bright, rippling hair, long gold rings in her
ears, and a vivid scarlet kerchief over her shoulders. Her skirt was
of wide blue and gray stripes, but it was hardly noticeable, for
whoever looked in Christine's face cared little about her dress. He
could never tell what she wore.

As she stood in the sunshine, a young man ran out of the house to meet
her--a passing handsome youth, with his heart in his eager face and
outstretched hands.

"Christine! Christine!" he cried. "Where at a' have you keepit
yourself? I hae been watching and waiting for you, these three hours
past."

"Cluny! You are crushing the bonnie flowers i' my hands, and I'm no
thanking you for that."

"And my puir heart! It is atween your twa hands, and it's crushing it
you are, day after day. Christine, it is most broke wi' the cruel grip
o' longing and loving--and not a word o' hope or love to help it haud
together."

"You should learn seasonable times, Cluny. It's few lasses that can be
bothered wi' lovers that come sae early. Women folk hae their hands
full o' wark o' some kind, then."

"Ay, full o' flowers. They canna even find time to gie the grip o'
their hand to the lad that loves them, maist to the death throe."

"I'm not wanting any lad to love me to the death throe, and I'm not
believing them, when they talk such-like nonsense. No indeed! The lad
I love must be full o' life and _forthput_. He must be able to guide
his boat, and throw and draw his nets single-handed--if needs be."

"I love you so! I love you so! I can do nothing else, Christine!"

"_Havers!_ Love sweetens life, but it's a long way from being life
itsel'. Many a man, and many a woman, loses their love, but they dinna
fling their life awa' because o' that misfortune--unless they have no
kindred to love, and no God to fear."

"You can't tell how it is, Christine. You never were i' love, I'm
thinking."

"I'm thankfu' to say I never was; and from all I see, and hear, I am
led to believe that being in love isna a superior state o' life. I'm
just hoping that what you ca' love isna of a catching quality."

"I wish it was! Maybe then, you might catch love from me. Oh
Christine, give me a hope, dear lass. I canna face life without it.
'Deed I can not."

"I might do such a thing. Whiles women-folk are left to themsel's, and
then it goes ill wi' them;" and she sighed and shook her head, as if
she feared such a possibility was within her own fate.

"What is it you mean? I'm seeking one word o' kindness from you,
Christine."

Then she looked at him, and she did not require speech. Cluny dared to
draw closer to her--to put his arm round her waist--to whisper such
alluring words of love and promise, that she smiled and gave him a
flower, and finally thought she might--perhaps--sometime--learn the
lesson he would teach her, for, "This warld is fu' o' maybe's, Cluny,"
she said, "and what's the good o' being young, if we dinna expect
miracles?"

"I'm looking for no miracle, Christine. I'm asking for what a man may
win by a woman's favor. I hae loved you, Christine, since I was a bit
laddie o' seven years auld. I'll love you till men carry me to the
kirk yard. I'd die for your love. I'd live, and suffer a' things for
it. Lassie! Dear, dear lassie, dinna fling love like mine awa'.
There's every gude in it."

She felt his heart throbbing in his words, but ere she could answer
them, her brother Neil called her three times, in a voice that
admitted of no delay. "Good-by, Cluny!" she said hurriedly. "You ken
Neil isna to be put off." Then she was gone, and Cluny, full of
bewildered loving and anxious feelings, rushed at headlong speed down
the steep and narrow garden path, to his grandmother's cottage on the
sands.

Neil stood by a little pine table covered with books and papers. He
was nearly twenty-one years old, and compared with his family was
small in stature, lightly built, and dark in complexion. His hair was
black, his eyes somberly gray, and full of calculation. His nose, lean
and sharp, indicated selfish adherence to the realities of life, and
the narrow nostrils positively accused him of timidity and caution.
His mouth was firm and discreet. Taken as a whole, his face was
handsome, though lean and thoughtful; but his manner was less
pleasant. It was that of a serious snob, who thinks there is a destiny
before him. He had been petted and spoiled all his life long, and his
speech and conduct were full of the unpleasant survivals of this
treatment. It spoiled him, and grated on Christine's temperament, like
grit in a fine salad.

He had never made a shilling in his life, he was the gentleman of the
family, elected by the family to that position. In his boyhood he had
been delicate, and quite unfit for the rough labor of the boats, but
as he had developed an extraordinary love for books and learning, the
minister had advised his dedication to the service of either the Law
or the Gospel. To this proposal the whole household cheerfully, even
proudly, agreed. To have an educated man among the Rulesons pleased
everyone. They spoke together of the great Scotch chancellors, and the
great Scotch clergy, and looked upon Neil Ruleson, by special choice
and election, as destined in the future to stand high among Scotland's
clergy or Scotland's lawyers.

For this end, during eleven years, all had given their share without
stint or holdback. That Neil had finally chosen to become a Lord of
the Law, and to sit on the Bench, rather than stand in the Pulpit, was
a great disappointment to his father, who had stubbornly hoped his son
would get the call no man can innocently refuse to answer. His mother
and brothers were satisfied. Norman Ruleson had once seen the Lords
ride in civic pomp and splendid attire to Edinburgh Parliament House,
and he was never weary of describing the majesty of the judges in
their wigs and gowns, and the ceremonials that attended every step of
the administration of justice.

"And the big salary coming to the judges!" Normany always added--"the
salary, and the visible honors arena to be lightlied, or made
little o'. Compared wi' a minister's stipend, a judge's salary is
stin-pen-dous! And they go wi' the best i' the land, and it isna
anything o' a wonder, when a judge is made a lord. There was Lord
Chancellor Campbell, born in Fife itsel', in the vera county town
o' Cupar. I have seen the house next the Bell Inn where he was
born, and his feyther was the minister o' Cupar. About the year
18----"

"You needna fash either us, or yoursel', Norman, wi' names and dates;
it will be time in plenty, when you can add our lad to the list."

Margot at this hour was inclined to side with her husband. Margot
believed in realities. She saw continually the honorable condition of
the Scotch clergy; Norman's story about the royal state and power of
the judges was like something read out of a book. However, now that
Neil was in his last year of study, and looking forward to the
certificate which would place him among men in such a desirable
condition, she would not darken his hopes, nor damp his ardor.

Neil's classes in the Maraschal college at Aberdeen were just closed,
but he was very busy preparing papers for their opening in September.
This was to be his final term, and he expected to deliver a
valedictory speech. The table in the best room, which he was permitted
to occupy as a study, was covered with notes, which he wished
copied--with books from which he was anxious to recite--with work of
many kinds, which was waiting for Christine's clear brain and fine
penmanship.

It had been waiting an hour and Neil was distinctly angry.

"Mother! Where at all is Christine?" he asked.

"She went to your brither Norman's cottage. His little lad isna as
weel as he should be."

"And my wark has to wait on a sick bairn. I'm not liking it. And I
have no doubt she is wasting my time with Cluny McPherson--no doubt at
all."

"Weel! That circumstance isna likely to be far out o' the way."

"It is very far out of _my_ way. I can tell you that, Mother."

"Weel, lad, there's no way always straight. It's right and left, and
up and down, wi' every way o' life."

"That is so, Mother, but my work is waiting, and it puts me out of the
right way, entirely!"

"Tut! tut! What are you complaining aboot? The lassie has been at your
beck and call the best pairt o' her life. And it's vera seldom she can
please you. If she gave you the whites o' her e'en, you would still
hae a grumble. It's Saturday afternoon. What's your will sae late i'
the week's wark?"

"Ought I not to be at my studies, late and early?"

"That stands to reason."

"Well then, I want Christine's help, and I am going to call her."

"You hae had her help ever sin' you learned your A B C's. She's twa
years younger than you are, but she's twa years ahead o' you in the
ordinary essentials. Do you think I didna tak' notice that when she
was hearing your tasks, she learned them the while you were stumbling
all the way through them. Dod! The lassie knew things if she only
looked in the face o' them twice o'er, and it took you mair than an
hour to get up to her--what you ca' history, and ge-o-graph-y she
learned as if they were just a bairn's bit rhyming, and she was as
quick wi' the slate and figures as you were slow. Are you forgetting
things like these?"

"It is not kind in you to be reminding me of them, Mother. It is not
like you."

"One o' my duties to a' my men-folk, is to keep them in mind o' the
little bits o' kindness they are apt to forget. Your feyther isna to
mind, he ne'er misses the least o' them. Your brother Norman is like
him, the rest o' you arena to lippen to--at a' times."

"I think I have helped Christine as much as she has helped me. She
knows that, she has often said so."

"I'll warrant! It was womanlike! She said it to mak' ye feel
comfortable, when you o'erworked her. Did ye ever say the like to
her?"

"I am going to call her. She is better with me than with Cluny
Macpherson--that I am sure of."

"You and her for it. Settle the matter as it suits ye, but I can tell
ye, I hae been parfectly annoyed, on several occasions, wi' your clear
selfishness--and that is the vera outcome o' all my thoughts on this
subject."

Then Neil went to the door, and called Christine thrice, and the power
of long habit was ill to restrain, so she left her lover hurriedly
and went to him.

"I have been watching and waiting--waiting for you, Christine, the
last three hours."

"Tak' tent o' what you say, Neil. It isna twa hours yet, since we had
dinner."

"You should have told me that you were intending to fritter and fool
your afternoon away."

"My mither bid me go and speir after Norman's little laddie. He had a
sair cold and fever, and----"

"Sit down. Are your hands clean? I want you to copy a very important
paper."

"What aboot?"

"Differences in the English and Scotch Law."

"I don't want to hae anything to do wi' the Law. I canna understand
it, and I'm no wanting to understand it."

"It is not necessary that you should understand it, but you know what
a peculiar writing comes from my pen. I can manage Latin or Greek, but
I cannot write plainly the usual English. Now, you write a clear, firm
hand, and I want you to copy my important papers. I believe I have
lost honors at college, just through my singular writing."

"I wouldn't wonder. It is mair like the marks the robin's wee feet
make on the snow, than the writing o' human hands. I wonder, too, if
the robin kens his ain footmarks, and if they mean anything to him.
Maybe they say, 'It's vera cold this morning--and the ground is
covered wi' snow--and I'm vera hungry--hae ye anything for me this
morning?' The sma footmarks o' the wee birds might mean all o' this,
and mair too, Neil."

"What nonsense you are talking! Run away and wash your hands. They are
stained and soiled with something."

"Wi' the wild thyme, and the rosemary, and the wall-flowers."

"And the rough, tarry hand of Cluny Macpherson. Be quick! I am in a
hurry."

"It is Saturday afternoon, Neil. Feyther and Eneas will be up from the
boats anon. I dinna care to write for you, the now. Mither said I was
to please mysel' what I did, and I'm in the mind to go and see Faith
Balcarry, and hae a long crack wi' her."

Neil looked at her in astonishment. There was a stubborn set to her
lovely mouth, he had never seen there before. It was a feminine
variety of an expression he understood well when he saw it on his
father's lips. Immediately he changed his tactics.

"Your eyes look luck on anything you write, Christine, and you know
how important these last papers are to me--and to all of us."

"Wouldna Monday suit them, just as weel?"

"No. There will be others for Monday. I am trusting to you, Christine.
You always have helped me. You are my Fail-Me-Never!"

She blushed and smiled with the pleasure this acknowledgment gave
her, but she did not relinquish her position. "I am vera sorry, Neil,"
she answered, "but I dinna see how I can break my promise to Faith
Balcarry. You ken weel what a friendless creature she is in this
world. How could I disappoint a lass whose cup is running o'er wi'
sorrow?"

"I will make a bargain with you, Christine. I will wait until Monday,
if you will promise me to keep Cluny Macpherson in his place. He has
no business making love to you, and I will make trouble for him if he
does so."

"What ails you at Cluny? He is in feyther's boat, and like to stay
there. Feyther trusts him, and Eneas never has a word out o' the way
with him, and you ken that Eneas is often gey ill to wark wi', and
vera demanding."

"Cluny Macpherson is all right in the boat, but he is much out of his
place holding your two hands, and making love to you. I saw him doing
it, not ten minutes ago."

"Cluny has made love to me a' his life lang. There is nae harm in his
love."

"There is no good in it. Just as soon as I am one of Her Majesty's
Councilors at Law, I shall take an office in the town, and rent a
small floor, and then I shall require you to keep house for me."

"You are running before you can creep, Neil. How are you going to pay
rents, and buy furnishings? Forbye, I couldna leave Mither her lane.
She hasna been hersel' this year past, and whiles she has sair
attacks that gie us all a fearsome day or twa."

"Mither has had those attacks for years."

"All the more reason for us to be feared o' them. Neil, I canna even
think o' my life, wanting Mither."

"But you love _me_! I am bound to bring all kinds o' good luck to our
family."

"Mither is good luck hersel'. There would be nae luck about the house,
if Mither went awa'."

"Well then, you will give Cluny up?"

"I canna say that I will do anything o' that kind. Every lass wants a
lover, and I have nane but Cluny."

"I have a grand one in view for you."

"Wha may the lad be?"

"My friend at the Maraschal. He is the young Master of Brewster and
Ballister, and as fine a young fellow as walks in shoe leather. The
old Ballister mansion you must have seen every Sabbath, as you went to
the kirk."

"Ay, I hae seen the roof and turrets o' it, among the thick woods; but
naebody has lived there, since I was born."

"You are right, but Ballister is going to open the place, and spend
gold in its plenishing and furnishing. It is a grand estate, and the
young master is worthy of it. I am his friend, and I mean to bring you
two together. You are bonnie, and he is rich; it would be a proper
match. I owe you something, Christine, and I'll pay my debt with a
husband worthy of you."

"And how would I be worthy o' him? I hae neither learning nor siller.
You are talking foolishness, Neil."

"You are not without learning. In my company you must have picked up
much information. You could not hear my lessons and copy my exercises
without acquiring a knowledge of many things."

"Ay, a smattering o' this and that. You wouldna call that an
education, would you?"

"It is a better one than most girls get, that is, in the verities and
the essentials. The overcome is only in the ornamentals, or
accomplishments--piano-playing, singing, dancing, and maybe what you
call a smattering of the French tongue. There is a piano in Ballister,
and you would pick out a Scotch song in no time, for you sing like a
mavis. As for dancing, you foot it like a fairy, and a mouthful of
French words would be at your own desire or pleasure."

"I hae that mouthfu' already. Did you think I wrote book after book
full o' your French exercises, and heard you recite Ollendorf twice
through, and learned naething while I was doing it? Neil, I am awa' to
Faith, I canna possibly break my word to a lass in trouble."

"A moment, Christina----"

"I havna half a moment. I'll do your writing Monday, Neil."

"Christine! Christine!"

She was beyond his call, and before he got over his amazement, she was
out of sight. Then his first impulse was to go to his mother, but he
remembered that she had not been sympathetic when he had before spoken
of Christine and Cluny Macpherson.

"I will be wise, and take my own counsel," he thought, and he had
no fear of wanting his own sympathy; yet when he reviewed his
conversation with Christine, he was annoyed at its freedom.

"I ought not to have told her about Ballister," he thought, "she will
be watching for him at the kirk, and looking at the towers o'
Ballister House as if they were her own. And whatever made me say I
thought of her as my housekeeper? She would be the most imprudent
person. I would have the whole fishing-village at my house door, and
very likely at my fireside; and that would be a constant set-down for
me."

This train of thought was capable of much discreet consideration,
and he pursued it until he heard the stir of presence and conversation
in the large living room. Then he knew that his father and brother
were at home, to keep the preparation for the Sabbath. So he made
himself look as lawyer-like as possible, and joined the family.
Everyone, and everything, had a semi-Sabbath look. Ruleson was in a
blue flannel suit, so was Eneas, and Margot had put on a clean
cap, and thrown over her shoulders a small tartan shawl. The hearth
had been rid up, and the table was covered with a clean white
cloth. In the oven the meat and pudding were cooking, and there was a
not unpleasant sancta-serious air about the people, and the room.
You might have fancied that even the fishing nets hanging against the
wall knew it was Saturday night, and no fishing on hand.

Christine was not there. And as it was only on Saturday and Sunday
nights that James Ruleson could be the priest of his family, these
occasions were precious to him, and he was troubled if any of his
family were absent. Half an hour before Christine returned home, he
was worrying lest she forget the household rite, and when she came in
he asked her, for the future, to bide at home on Saturday and Sabbath
nights, saying he "didna feel all right," unless she was present.

"I was doing your will, Feyther, anent Faith Balcarry."

"Then you were doing right. How is the puir lassie?"

"There's little to be done for her. She hasna a hope left, and when I
spoke to her anent heaven, she said she knew nobody there, and the
thought o' the loneliness she would feel frightened her."

"You see, James," said Margot, "puir Faith never saw her father or
mother, and if all accounts be true, no great loss, and I dinna
believe the lassie ever knew anyone in this warld she would want to
see in heaven. Nae wonder she is sae sad and lonely."

"There is the great multitude of saints there."

"Gudeman, it is our ain folk we will be seeking, and speiring after,
in heaven. Without them, we shall be as lonely as puir Faith, who
knows no one either in this world, or the next, that she's caring to
see. I wouldn't wonder, James, if heaven might not feel lonely to
those who win there, but find no one they know to welcome them."

"We are told we shall be satisfied, Margot."

"I'm sure I hope sae! Come now, and we will hae a gude dinner and eat
it cheerfully."

After dinner there was a pleasant evening during which fishers and
fishers' wives came in, and chatted of the sea, and the boats, and the
herring fishing just at hand; but at ten o'clock the big Bible, bound
round with brass, covered with green baize, and undivested of the
Books of the Apocrypha, was laid before the master. As he was trying
to find the place he wanted, Margot stepped behind him, and looked
over his shoulder:

"Gudeman," she said softly, "you needna be harmering through thae
chapters o' proper names, in the Book o' Chronicles. The trouble is
overganging the profit. Read us one o' King David's psalms or
canticles, then we'll go to our sleep wi' a song in our hearts."

"Your will be it, Margot. Hae you any choice?"

"I was reading the seventy-first this afternoon, and I could gladly
hear it o'er again."

And O how blessed is that sleep into which we fall, hearing through
the darkness and silence, the happy soul recalling itself--"In thee, O
Lord, do I put my trust--Thou art my hope, O Lord God--my trust from
my youth--I will hope continually--and praise Thee--more and more--my
soul which Thou hast--redeemed! Which Thou hast redeemed!" With that
wonderful thought falling off into deep, sweet sleep--it might be into
that mysteriously conscious sleep, informed by prophesying dreams,
which is the walking of God through sleep.




CHAPTER II

CHRISTINE AND THE DOMINE

    I remember the black wharves and the boats,
    And the sea tides tossing free;
  And the fishermen with bearded lips,
  And the beauty and mystery of the ships,
    And the magic of the sea.

  The Domine is a good man. If you only meet him on the street, and
  he speaks to you, you go for the rest of the day with your head
  up.


One day leads to another, and even in the little, hidden-away village
of Culraine, no two days were exactly alike. Everyone was indeed
preparing for the great fishing season, and looking anxiously for its
arrival, but if all were looking for the same event, it had for its
outcome in every heart a different end, or desire. Thus, James Ruleson
hoped its earnings would complete the sum required to build a cottage
for his daughter's marriage portion, and Margot wanted the money,
though not for the same object. Norman had a big doctor's bill to pay,
and Eneas thought of a two weeks' holiday, and a trip to Edinburgh and
Glasgow; while Neil was anxious about an increase in his allowance.
He had his plea all ready--he wanted a new student's gown of scarlet
flannel, and some law books, which, he said, everyone knew were double
the price of any other books. It was his last session, and he did hope
that he would be let finish it creditably.

He talked to Christine constantly on the subject, and she promised to
stand up for the increase. "Though you ken, Neil," she added, "that
you hae had full thirty pounds a session, and that is a lot for
feyther to tak' out o' the sea; forbye Mither was aye sending you a
box full o' eggs and bacon, and fish and oatmeal, ne'er forgetting the
cake that men-folk all seem sae extra fond o'. And you yoursel' were
often speaking o' the lads who paid their fees and found their living
out o' thirty pounds a session. Isn't that sae?"

"I do not deny the fact, but let me tell you how they manage it. They
have a breakfast of porridge and milk, and then they are away for four
hours' Greek and Latin. Then they have two pennyworths of haddock and
a few potatoes for dinner, and back to the college again, for more
dead languages, and mathematics. They come back to their bit room in
some poor, cold house, and if they can manage it, have a cup of tea
and some oat cake, and they spend their evenings learning their
lessons for the next day, by the light of a tallow candle."

"They are brave, good lads, and I dinna wonder they win all, an' mair,
than what they worked for. The lads o' Maraschal College are fine
scholars, and the vera pith o' men. The hard wark and the frugality
are good for them, and, Neil, we are expecting you to be head and
front among them."

"Then I must have the books to help me there."

"That stands to reason; and if you'll gie me your auld gown, I'll buy
some flannel, and mak' you a new one, just like it."

"The college has its own tailor, Christine. I believe the gowns
are difficult to make. And what is more, I shall be obligated to have
a new kirk suit. You see I go out with Ballister a good deal--very
best families and all that--and I must have the clothes conforming
to the company. Ballister might--nae doubt would--lend me the
money--but----"

"What are you talking anent? Borrowing is sorrowing, aye and shaming,
likewise. I'm fairly astonished at you naming such a thing! If you are
put to a shift like that, Christine can let you hae the price o' a
suit o' clothing."

"O Christine, if you would do that, it would be a great favor, and a
great help to me. I'll pay you back, out of the first money I make.
The price o' the books I shall have to coax from Mother."

"You'll hae no obligation to trouble Mother. Ask your feyther for the
books you want. He would be the vera last to grudge them to you. Speak
to him straight, and bold, and you'll get the siller wi' a smile and a
good word."

"If _you_ would ask him for me."

"I will not!"

"Yes, you will, Christine. I have reasons for not doing so."

"You hae just one reason--simple cowardice. O Man! If you are a coward
anent asking a new suit o' clothes for yoursel', what kind o' a lawyer
will you mak' for ither folk?"

"You know how Father is about giving money."

"Ay, Feyther earns his money wi' his life in his hands. He wants to be
sure the thing sought is good and necessary. Feyther's right. Now my
money was maistly gi'en me, I can mair easily risk it."

"There is no risk in my promise to pay."

"You havna any sure contract wi' Good Fortune, Neil, and it will be
good and bad wi' you, as it is wi' ither folk."

"I do not approve of your remarks, Christine. When people are talking
of the fundamentals--and surely money is one of them--they ought to
avoid irritating words."

"You'll mak' an extraordinar lawyer, if you do that, but I'm no sure
that you will win your case, wanting them. I thought they were sort o'
necessitated; but crooked and straight is the law, and it is well
known that what it calls truth today, may be far from truth
tomorrow."

"What ails you today, Christine? Has the law injured you in any way?"

"Ay, it played us a' a trick. When you took up the books, and went to
the big school i' the toun to prepare for Aberdeen, we all o' us
thought it was King's College you were bound for, and then when you
were ready for Aberdeen, you turned your back on King's College, and
went to the Maraschal."

"King's College is for the theology students. The Maraschal is the law
school."

"I knew that. We a' know it. The Maraschal spelt a big disappointment
to feyther and mysel'."

"I have some work to finish, Christine, and I will be under an
obligation if you will leave me now. You are in an upsetting temper,
and I think you have fairly forgotten yourself."

"Well I'm awa, but mind you! When the fishing is on, I canna be at
your bidding. I'm telling you!"

"Just so."

"I'll hae no time for you, and your writing. I'll be helping Mither
wi' the fish, from the dawn to the dark."

"Would you do that?"

"Would I not?"

She was at the open door of the room as she spoke, and Neil said with
provoking indifference: "If you are seeing Father, you might speak to
him anent the books I am needing."

"I'll not do it! What are you feared for? You're parfectly unreasonable,
parfectly ridic-lus!" And she emphasized her assertions by her decided
manner of closing the door.

On going into the yard, she found her father standing there, and he
was looking gravely over the sea. "Feyther!" she said, and he drew her
close to his side, and looked into her lovely face with a smile.

"Are you watching for the fish, Feyther?"

"Ay, I am! They are long in coming this year."

"Every year they are long in coming. Perhaps we are impatient."

"Just sae. We are a' ready for them--watching for them--Cluny went to
Cupar Head to watch. He has a fine sea-sight. If they are within human
ken, he will spot them, nae doubt. What hae you been doing a' the day
lang?"

"I hae been writing for Neil. He is uncommon anxious about this
session, Feyther."

"He ought to be."

"He is requiring some expensive books, and he is feared to name them
to you; he thinks you hae been sae liberal wi' him already--if I was
you, Feyther, I would be asking him--quietly when you were by your twa
sel's--if he was requiring anything i' the way o' books."

"He has had a big sum for that purpose already, Christine."

"I know it, Feyther, but I'm not needing to tell you that a man must
hae the tools his wark is requiring, or he canna do it. If you set
Neil to mak' a table, you'd hae to gie him the saw, and the hammer,
and the full wherewithals, for the makin' o' a table; and when you are
for putting him among the Edinbro' Law Lords, you'll hae to gie him
the books that can teach him their secrets. Isn't that fair,
Feyther?"

"I'm not denying it."

"Weel then, you'll do the fatherly thing, and seeing the laddie is
feared to ask you for the books, you'll ask him, 'Are you wanting any
books for the finishing up, Neil?' You see it is just here, Feyther,
he could borrow the books----"

"Hang borrowing!"

"Just sae, you are quite right, Feyther. Neil says if he has to
borrow, he'll never get the book when he wants it, and that he would
never get leave to keep it as long as he needed. Now Neil be to hae
his ain books, Feyther, he will mak' good use o' them, and we must not
fail him at the last hour."

"Wha's talking o' failing him? Not his feyther, I'm sure! Do I expect
to catch herrings without the nets and accessories? And I ken that
I'll not mak' a lawyer o' Neil, without the Maraschal and the books it
calls for."

"You are the wisest and lovingest o' feythers. When you meet Neil, and
you twa are by yoursel's, put your hand on Neil's shoulder, and ask
Neil, 'Are you needing any books for your last lessons?'"

"I'll do as you say, dear lass. It is right I should."

"Nay, but he should ask you to do it. If it was mysel', I could ask
you for anything I ought to have, but Neil is vera shy, and he kens
weel how hard you wark for your money. He canna bear to speak o' his
necessities, sae I'm speaking the word for him."

"Thy word goes wi' me--always. I'll ne'er say nay to thy yea," and he
clasped her hand, and looked with a splendid smile of affection into
her beautiful face. An English father would have certainly kissed her,
but Scotch fathers rarely give this token of affection. Christine did
not expect it, unless it was her birthday, or New Year's morning.

It was near the middle of July, when the herring arrived. Then early
one day, Ruleson, watching the sea, smote his hands triumphantly, and
lifting his cap with a shout of welcome, cried--

"There's our boat! Cluny is sailing her! He's bringing the news! They
hae found the fish! Come awa' to the pier to meet them, Christine."

With hurrying steps they took the easier landward side of descent, but
when they reached the pier there was already a crowd of men and women
there, and the _Sea Gull_, James Ruleson's boat, was making for it.
She came in close-hauled to the wind, with a double reef in her sail.
She came rushing across the bay, with the water splashing her gunwale.
Christine kept her eyes upon the lad at the tiller, a handsome lad,
tanned to the temples. His cheeks were flushed, and the wind was in
his hair, and the sunlight in his eyes, and he was steering the big
herring boat into the harbor.

The men were soon staggering down to the boats with the nets, coiling
them up in apparently endless fashion, and as they were loaded they
were very hard to get into the boats, and harder still to get out.
Just as the sun began to set, the oars were dipped, and the boats
swept out of the harbor into the bay, and there they set their
red-barked sails, and stood out for the open sea.

Ruleson's boat led the way, because it was Ruleson's boat that had
found the fish, and Christine stood at the pier-edge cheering her
strong, brave father, and not forgetting a smile and a wave of her
hand for the handsome Cluny at the tiller. To her these two
represented the very topmost types of brave and honorable humanity.
The herring they were seeking were easily found, for it was the Grand
Shoal, and it altered the very look of the ocean, as it drove the
water before it in a kind of flushing ripple. Once, as the boats
approached them, the shoal sank for at least ten minutes, and then
rose in a body again, reflecting in the splendid sunset marvelous
colors and silvery sheen.

With a sweet happiness in her heart, Christine went slowly home. She
did not go into the village, she walked along the shore, over the wet
sands to the little gate, which opened upon their garden. On her way
she passed the life-boat. It was in full readiness for launching at a
moment's notice, and she went close to it, and patted it on the bow,
just as a farmer's daughter would pat the neck of a favorite horse.

"Ye hae saved the lives of men," she said. "God bless ye, boatie!" and
she said it again, and then stooped and looked at a little brass plate
screwed to the stern locker, on which were engraved these words:

  Put your trust in God,
    And do your best.

And as she climbed the garden, she thought of the lad who had left
Culraine thirty years ago, and gone to Glasgow to learn ship building,
and who had given this boat to his native village out of his first
savings. "And it has been a lucky boat," she said softly, "every year
it has saved lives," and then she remembered the well-known melody,
and sang joyously--

  "Weel may the keel row,
    And better may she speed,
  Weel may the keel row,
    That wins the bairnies' bread.

  "Weel may the keel row,
    Amid the stormy strife,
  Weel may the keel row
    That saves the sailor's life.

  "God bless the Life-Boat!
    In the stormy strife,
  Saving drowning men,
    On the seas o' Fife.

  "Weel may her keel row--"

Then with a merry, inward laugh she stopped, and said with pretended
displeasure: "Be quiet, Christine! You're makin' poetry again, and you
shouldna do the like o' that foolishness. Neil thinks it isna becoming
for women to mak' poetry--he says men lose their good sense when they
do it, and women! He hadna the words for their shortcomings in the
matter. He could only glower and shake his head, and look up at the
ceiling, which he remarked needed a coat o' clean lime and water.
Weel, I suppose Neil is right! There's many a thing not becomin' to
women, and nae doubt makin' poetry up is among them."

When she entered the cottage, she found the Domine, Dr. Magnus
Trenabie, drinking a cup of tea at the fireside. He had been to the
pier to see the boats sail, for all the men of his parish were near
and dear to him. He was an extraordinary man--a scholar who had taken
many degrees and honors, and not exhausted his mental powers in
getting them--a calm, sabbatic mystic, usually so quiet that his
simple presence had a sacramental efficacy--a man who never reasoned,
being full of faith; a man enlightened by his heart, not by his
brain.

Being spiritually of celestial race, he was lodged in a suitable body.
Its frame was Norse, its blood Celtic. He appeared to be a small man,
when he stood among the gigantic fishermen who obeyed him like little
children, but he was really of average height, graceful and slender.
His head was remarkably long and deep, his light hair straight and
fine. The expression of his face was usually calm and still, perhaps a
little cold, but there was every now and then a look of flame.
Spiritually, he had a great, tender soul quite happy to dwell in a
little house. Men and women loved him, he was the angel on the hearth
of every home in Culraine.

When Christine entered the cottage, the atmosphere of the sea was
around and about her. The salt air was in her clothing, the fresh wind
in her loosened hair, and she had a touch of its impetuosity in the
hurry of her feet, the toss of her manner, the ring of her voice.

"O Mither!" she cried, then seeing the Domine, she made a little
curtsey, and spoke to him first. "I was noticing you, Sir, among the
men on the pier. I thought you were going with them this night."

"They have hard work this night, Christine, and my heart tells me they
will be wanting to say little words they would not like me to hear."

"You could hae corrected them, Sir."

"I am not caring to correct them, tonight. Words often help work, and
tired fishers, casting their heavy nets overboard, don't do that work
without a few words that help them. The words are not sinful, but they
might not say them if I was present."

"I know, Sir," answered Margot. "I hae a few o' such words always
handy. When I'm hurried and flurried, I canna help them gettin'
outside my lips--but there's nae ill in them--they just keep me going.
I wad gie up, wanting them."

"When soldiers, Margot, are sent on a forlorn hope of capturing a
strong fort, they go up to it cheering. When our men launch the big
life-boat, how do they do it, Christine?"

"Cheering, Sir!"

"To be sure, and when weary men cast the big, heavy nets, they find
words to help them. I know a lad who always gets his nets overboard
with shouting the name of the girl he loves. He has a name for her
that nobody but himself can know, or he just shouts 'Dearie,' and with
one great heave, the nets are overboard." And as he said these words
he glanced at Christine, and her heart throbbed, and her eyes beamed,
for she knew that the lad was Cluny.

"I was seeing our life-boat, as I came home," she said, "and I was
feeling as if the boat could feel, and if she hadna been sae big, I
would hae put my arms round about her. I hope that wasna any kind o'
idolatry, Sir?"

"No, no, Christine. It is a feeling of our humanity, that is wide as
the world. Whatever appears to struggle and suffer, appears to have
life. See how a boat bares her breast to the storm, and in spite of
winds and waves, wins her way home, not losing a life that has been
committed to her. And nothing on earth can look more broken-hearted
than a stranded boat, that has lost all her men. Once I spent a few
weeks among the Hovellers--that is, among the sailors who man the
life-boats stationed along Godwin Sands; and they used to call their
boats 'darlings' and 'beauties' and praise them for behaving well."

"Why did they call the men Hovellers?" asked Margot. "That word seems
to pull down a sailor. I don't like it. No, I don't."

"I have been told, Margot, that it is from the Danish word,
_overlever_, which means a deliverer."

"I kent it wasna a decent Scotch word," she answered, a little
triumphantly; "no, nor even from the English. Hoveller! You couldna
find an uglier word for a life-saver, and if folk canna be satisfied
wi' their ain natural tongue, and must hae a foreign name, they might
choose a bonnie one. Hoveller! Hoveller indeed! It's downright wicked,
to ca' a sailor a hoveller."

The Domine smiled, and continued--"Every man and woman and child has
loved something inanimate. Your mother, Christine, loves her wedding
ring, your father loves his boat, you love your Bible, I love the
silver cup that holds the sacramental wine we drink 'in remembrance
of Him';" and he closed his eyes a moment, and was silent. Then he
gave his cup to Christine. "No more," he said, "it was a good drink.
Thanks be! Now our talk must come to an end. I leave blessing with
you."

They stood and watched him walk into the dusk in silence, and then
Margot said, "Where's Neil?"

"Feyther asked him to go wi' them for this night, and Neil didna like
to refuse. Feyther has been vera kind to him, anent his books an' the
like. He went to pleasure Feyther. It was as little as he could do."

"And he'll come hame sea-sick, and his clothes will be wet and
uncomfortable as himsel'."

"Weel, that's his way, Mither. I wish the night was o'er."

"Tak' patience. By God's leave the day will come."




CHAPTER III

ANGUS BALLISTER

  If Love comes, it comes; but no reasoning can put it there.

  Love gives a new meaning to Life.

  Her young heart blows
  Leaf by leaf, coming out like a rose.


The next morning the women of the village were early at the pier to
watch the boats come in. They were already in the offing, their
gunwales deep in the water, and rising heavily on the ascending waves;
so they knew that there had been good fishing. Margot was prominent
among them, but Christine had gone to the town to take orders from the
fish dealers; for Margot Ruleson's kippered herring were famous, and
eagerly sought for, as far as Edinburgh, and even Glasgow.

It was a business Christine liked, and in spite of her youth, she did
it well, having all her mother's bargaining ability, and a readiness
in computing values, that had been sharpened by her knowledge of
figures and profits. This morning she was unusually fortunate in all
her transactions, and brought home such large orders that they
staggered Margot.

"I'll ne'er be able to handle sae many fish," she said, with a happy
purposeful face, "but there's naething beats a trial, and I be to do
my best."

"And I'll help you, Mither. It must ne'er be said that we twa turned
good siller awa'."

"I'm feared you canna do that today, Christine. Neil hasna been to
speak wi', since he heard ye had gone to the toun; he wouldna' even
hear me when I ca'ed breakfast."

"Neil be to wait at this time. It willna hurt him. If Neil happens to
hae a wish, he instantly feels it to be a necessity, and then he
thinks the hale house should stop till his wish is gi'en him. I'm
going to the herring shed wi' yoursel'."

"Then there will be trouble, and no one so sorry for it as Christine!
I'm telling you!"

At this moment Neil opened the door, and looked at the two women.
"Mother," he said in a tone of injury and suffering, "can I have any
breakfast this morning?"

"Pray, wha's hindering you? Your feyther had his, an hour syne. Your
porridge is yet boiling in the pot, the kettle is simmering on the
hob, and the cheena still standing on the table. Why didna you lift
your ain porridge, and mak' yoursel' a cup o' tea? Christine and
mysel' had our breakfasts before it chappit six o'clock. You cam' hame
wi' your feyther, you should hae ta'en your breakfast with him."

"I was wet through, and covered with herring scales. I was in no
condition to take a meal, or to sit with my books and Christine all
morning, writing."

"I canna spare Christine this morning, Neil. That's a fact." His
provoking neatness and deliberation were irritating to Margot's sense
of work and hurry, and she added, "Get your breakfast as quick as you
can. I'm wanting the dishes out o' the way."

"I suppose I can get a mouthful for myself."

"Get a' you want," answered Margot; but Christine served him with his
plate of porridge and basin of new milk, and as he ate it, she toasted
a scone, and made him a cup of tea.

"Mother is cross this morning, Christine. It is annoying to me."

"It needna. There's a big take o' fish in, and every man and woman,
and every lad and lass, are in the herring sheds. Mither just run awa'
from them, to see what orders for kippers I had brought--and I hae
brought nine hundred mair than usual. I must rin awa' and help her
now."

"No, Christine! I want you most particularly, this morning."

"I'll be wi' you by three in the afternoon."

"Stay with me now. I'll be ready for you in half an hour."

"I can hae fifty fish ready for Mither in half an hour, and I be to go
to her at once. I'll be back, laddie, by three o'clock."

"I'm just distracted with the delay," but he stopped speaking, for he
saw that he was alone. So he took time thoroughly to enjoy his scone
and tea, and then, not being quite insensible to Christine's kindness,
he washed the dishes and put them away.

He had just finished this little duty, when there was a knock at the
outside door. He hesitated about opening it. He knew no villager would
knock at his father's door, so it must be a stranger, and as he was
not looking as professional and proper as he always desired to appear,
he was going softly away, when the door was opened, and a bare-footed
lad came forward, and gave him a letter.

He opened it, and looked at the signature--"Angus Ballister." A sudden
flush of pleasure made him appear almost handsome, and when he had
read the epistle he was still more delighted, for it ran thus:

  DEAR NEIL,

  I am going to spend the rest of vacation at Ballister Mansion, and
  I want you with me. I require your help in a particular business
  investigation. I will pay you for your time and knowledge, and
  your company will be a great pleasure to me. This afternoon I will
  call and see you, and if you are busy with the nets, I shall enjoy
  helping you.

  Your friend,

  ANGUS BALLISTER.

Neil was really much pleased with the message, and glad to hear of an
opportunity to make money, for though the young man was selfish, he
was not idle; and he instantly perceived that much lucrative business
could follow this early initiation into the Ballister affairs. He
quickly finished his arrangement of the dishes and the kitchen, and
then, putting on an old academic suit, made his room as scholarly and
characteristic as possible. And it is amazing what an _air_ books and
papers give to the most commonplace abode. Even the old inkhorn and
quill pens seemed to say to all who entered--"Tread with respect. This
is classic ground."

His predominating thought during this interval was, however, not of
himself, but of Christine. She had promised to come to him at three
o'clock. How would she come? He was anxious about her first
appearance. If he could in any way have reached her, he would have
sent his positive command to wear her best kirk clothes, but at this
great season neither chick nor child was to be seen or heard tell of,
and he concluded finally to leave what he could not change or direct
to those household influences which usually manage things fairly
well.

As the day went on, and Ballister did not arrive, he grew irritably
nervous. He could not study, and he found himself scolding both
Ballister and Christine for their delay. "Christine was so ta'en up
wi' the feesh, naething else was of any import to her. Here was a
Scottish gentleman coming, who might be the makin' o' him, and a
barrel o' herrin' stood in his way." He had actually fretted himself
into his Scotch form of speech, a thing no Gael ever entirely forgets
when really worried to the proper point.

When he had said his heart's say of Christine, he turned his
impatience on Ballister--his behavior was that o' the ordinary rich
young man, who has naething but himsel' to think o'. He, Neil Ruleson,
had lost a hale morning's wark, waiting on his lairdship. Weel, he'd
have to pay for it, in the long run. Neil Ruleson had no waste hours
in his life. Nae doubt Ballister had heard o' a fast horse, or a
fast----

Then Ballister knocked at the door, and Neil stepped into his
scholarly manner and speech, and answered Ballister's hearty greeting
in the best English style.

"I am glad to see you, Neil. I only came to Ballister two days ago,
and I have been thinking of you all the time." With these words the
youth threw his Glengary on the table, into the very center and front
of Neil's important papers. Then he lifted his chair, and placed it
before the open door, saying emphatically as he did so--

  Lands may be fair ayont the sea,
  But Scotland's hills and lochs for me!

O Neil! Love of your ain country is a wonderful thing. It makes a man
of you."

"Without it you would not be a man."

Ballister did not answer at once, but stood a moment with his hand on
the back of the deal, rush-bottomed chair, and his gaze fixed on the
sea and the crowd of fishing boats waiting in the harbor.

Without being strictly handsome, Ballister was very attractive. He had
the tall, Gaelic stature, and its reddish brown hair, also brown eyes,
boyish and yet earnest. His face was bright and well formed, his
conversation animated, his personality, in full effect, striking in
its young alertness.

"Listen to me, Neil," he said, as he sat down. "I came to my majority
last March, when my uncle and I were in Venice."

"Your uncle on your mother's side?"

"No, on the sword side, Uncle Ballister. He told me I was now my own
master, and that he would render into my hands the Brewster and
Ballister estates. I am sure that he has done well by them, but he
made me promise I would carefully go over all the papers relating to
his trusteeship, and especially those concerning the item of
interests. It seems that my father had a good deal of money out on
interest--I know nothing about interest. Do you, Neil?"

"I know everything that is to be known. In my profession it is a
question of importance."

"Just so. Now, I want to put all these papers, rents, leases,
improvements, interest accounts, and so forth, in your hands, Neil.
Come with me to Ballister, and give the mornings to my affairs. Find
out what is the usual claim for such service, and I will gladly pay
it."

"I know the amount professionally charged, but----"

"I will pay the professional amount. If we give the mornings to this
work, in the afternoons we will ride, and sail, fish or swim, or pay
visits--in the evenings there will be dinner, billiards, and
conversation. Are you willing?"

"I am delighted at the prospect. Let the arrangement stand, just so."

"You will be ready tomorrow?"

"The day after tomorrow."

"Good. I will----"

Then there was a tap at the door, and before Neil could answer it,
Christine did so. As she entered, Ballister stood up and looked at
her, and his eyes grew round with delighted amazement. She was in full
fisher costume--fluted cap on the back of her curly head, scarlet
kerchief on her neck, long gold rings in her ears, gold beads round
her throat, and a petticoat in broad blue and yellow stripes.

"Christine," said Neil, who, suddenly relieved of his great anxiety,
was unusually good-tempered. "Christine, this is my friend, Mr. Angus
Ballister. You must have heard me speak of him?"

"That's a fact. The man was your constant talk"--then turning to
Ballister--"I am weel pleased to see you, Sir;" and she made him a
little curtsey so full of independence that Ballister knew well she
was making it to herself--"and I'm wondering at you twa lads," she
said, "sitting here in the house, when you might be sitting i' the
garden, or on the rocks, and hae the scent o' the sea, or the flowers
about ye."

"Miss Ruleson is right," said Ballister, in his most enthusiastic
mood. "Let us go into the garden. Have you really a garden among these
rocks? How wonderful!"

How it came that Ballister and Christine took the lead, and that Neil
was in a manner left out, Neil could not tell; but it struck him as
very remarkable. He saw Christine and his friend walking together,
and he was walking behind them. Christine, also, was perfectly
unembarrassed, and apparently as much at home with Ballister as if he
had been some fisher-lad from the village.

Yet there was nothing strange in her easy manner and affable intimacy.
It was absolutely natural. She had never realized the conditions of
riches and poverty, as entailing a difference in courtesy or good
comradeship; for in the village of Culraine, there was no question of
an equality founded on money. A man or woman was rated by moral, and
perhaps a little by physical qualities--piety, honesty, courage,
industry, and strength, and knowledge of the sea and of the
fisherman's craft. Christine would have treated the great Duke of
Fife, or Her Majesty, Victoria, with exactly the same pleasant
familiarity.

She showed Ballister her mother's flower garden, that was something
beyond the usual, and she was delighted at Ballister's honest
admiration and praise of the lovely, rose-sweet plot. Both seemed to
have forgotten Neil's presence, and Neil was silent, blundering
about in his mind, looking for some subject which would give him
predominance.

Happily strolling in and out the narrow walks, and eating ripe
gooseberries from the bushes, they came to a little half-circle of
laburnum trees, drooping with the profusion of their golden blossoms.
There was a wooden bench under them, and as Christine sat down a few
petals fell into her lap.

"See!" she cried, "the trees are glad o' our company," and she laid
the petals in her palm, and added--"now we hae shaken hands."

"What nonsense you are talking, Christine," said Neil.

"Weel then, Professor, gie us a bit o' gude sense. Folks must talk in
some fashion."

And Neil could think of nothing but a skit against women, and in
apologetic mood and manner answered:

"I believe it is allowable, to talk foolishness, in reply to women's
foolishness."

"O Neil, that is cheap! Women hae as much gude sense as men hae, and
whiles they better them"--and then she sang, freely and clearly as a
bird, two lines of Robert Burns' opinion--

  "He tried His prentice hand on man,
    And then He made the lasses O!"

She still held the golden blossoms in her hand, and Ballister said:

"Give them to me. Do!"

"You are vera welcome to them, Sir. I dinna wonder you fancy them.
Laburnum trees are money-bringers, but they arena lucky for lovers. If
I hed a sweetheart, I wouldna sit under a laburnum tree wi' him, but
Feyther is sure o' his sweetheart, and he likes to come here, and
smoke his pipe. And Mither and I like the place for our bit secret
cracks. We dinna heed if the trees do hear us. They may tell the
birds, and the birds may tell ither birds, but what o' that? There's
few mortals wise enough to understand birds. Now, Neil, come awa wi'
your gude sense, I'll trouble you nae langer wi' my foolishness. And
good day to you, Sir!" she said. "I'm real glad you are my brother's
friend. I dinna think he will go out o' the way far, if you are wi'
him."

Ballister entreated her to remain, but with a smile she vanished among
the thick shrubbery. Ballister was disappointed, and somehow Neil was
not equal to the occasion. It was hard to find a subject Ballister
felt any interest in, and after a short interval he bade Neil good-bye
and said he would see him on the following day.

"No, on the day after tomorrow," corrected Neil. "That was the time
fixed, Angus. Tomorrow I will finish up my work for the university,
and I will be at your service, very happily and gratefully, on Friday
morning." Then Neil led him down the garden path to the sandy shore,
so he did not return to the cottage, but went away hungry for another
sight of Christine.

Neil was pleased, and displeased. He felt that it would have been
better for him if Christine had not interfered, but there was the
delayed writing to be finished, and he hurried up the steep pathway to
the cottage. Some straying vines caught his careless footsteps, and
threw him down, and though he was not hurt, the circumstance annoyed
him. As soon as he entered the cottage, he was met by Christine, and
her first remark added to his discomfort:

"Whate'er hae you been doing to yoursel', Neil Ruleson? Your coat is
torn, and your face scratched. Surely you werna fighting wi' your
friend."

"You know better, Christine. I was thrown by those nasty blackberry
vines. I intend to cut them all down. They catch everyone that passes
them, and they are in everyone's way. They ought to be cleared out,
and I will attend to them tomorrow morning, if I have to get up at
four o'clock to do it."

"You willna touch the vines. Feyther likes their fruit, and Mither is
planning to preserve part o' it. And I, mysel', am vera fond o' vines.
The wee wrens, and the robin redbreasts, look to the vines for food
and shelter, and you'll not dare to hurt their feelings, for

  "The Robin, wi' the red breast,
    The Robin, and the wren,
  If you do them any wrong,
    You'll never thrive again."

"Stop, Christine, I have a great deal to think of, and to ask your
help in."

"Weel, Neil, I was ready for you at three o'clock, and then you werna
ready for me."

"Tell me why you dressed yourself up so much? Did you know Ballister
was coming?"

"Not I! Did you think I dressed mysel' up for Angus Ballister?"

"I was wondering. It is very seldom you wear your gold necklace, and
other things, for just home folk."

"Weel, I wasn't wearing them for just hame folk. Jennie Tweedie is to
be married tonight, and Mither had promised her I should come and help
them lay the table for the supper, and the like o' that. Sae I was
dressed for Jennie Tweedie's bridal. I wasna thinking of either you,
or your fine friend."

"I thought perhaps you had heard he was coming. Your fisher dress is
very suitable to you. No doubt you look handsome in it. You likely
thought its novelty would--would--make him fall in love with you."

"I thought naething o' that sort. Novelty! Where would the novelty be?
The lad is Fife. If he was sae unnoticing as never to get acquaint wi'
a Culraine fisher-wife, he lived maist o' his boyhood in Edinburgh.
Weel, he couldna escape seeing the Newhaven fisherwomen there, nor
escape hearing their wonderful cry o' 'Caller herrin'!' And if he had
ony feeling in his heart, if he once heard that cry, sae sweet, sae
heartachy, and sae winning, he couldna help looking for the woman who
was crying it; and then he couldna help seeing a fisher-wife, or
lassie. I warn you not to think o' me, Christine Ruleson, planning and
dressing mysel' for any man. You could spane my love awa' wi' a very
few o' such remarks."

"I meant nothing to wrong you, Christine. All girls dress to please
the men."

"Men think sae. They are vera mich mista'en. Girls dress to outdress
each ither. If you hae any writing to do, I want to gie you an hour's
wark. I'll hae to leave the rest until morning."

Then Neil told her the whole of the proposal Angus had made him. He
pointed out its benefits, both for the present and the future, and
Christine listened thoughtfully to all he said. She saw even further
than Neil did, the benefits, and she was the first to name the subject
nearest to Neil's anxieties.

"You see, Neil," she said, "if you go to Ballister, you be to hae the
proper dress for every occasion. The best suit ye hae now will be
nane too good for you to wark, and to play in. You must hae a new suit
for ordinary wear, forbye a full dress suit. I'll tell you what to
do--David Finlay, wha dresses a' the men gentry round about here, is
an old, old friend o' Feyther's. They herded together, and went to
school and kirk togither, and Feyther and him have helped each ither
across hard places, a' their life long."

"I don't want any favors from David Finlay."

"Hae a little patience, lad. I'm not asking you to tak' favors from
anyone. I, mysel', will find the money for you; but I canna tell you
how men ought to dress, nor what they require in thae little odds and
ends, which are so important."

"Odds and ends! What do you mean?"

"Neckties, gloves, handkerchiefs, hats, and a proper pocket book for
your money. I saw Ballister take his from his pocket, to put the
laburnum leaves in, and I had a glint o' the bank bills in it, and I
ken weel it is more genteel-like than a purse. I call things like
these 'odds and ends.'"

"Such things cost a deal of money, Christine."

"I was coming to that, Neil. I hae nearly ninety-six pounds in the
bank. It hes been gathering there, ever since my grandfeyther put five
pounds in for me at my baptisement--as a nest egg, ye ken--and all I
hae earned, and all that Feyther or Mither hae gien me, has helped it
gather; and on my last birthday, when Feyther gave me a pound, and
Mither ten shillings, I had ninety-six pounds. Now, Neil, dear lad,
you can hae the use o' it all, if so be you need it. Just let Dave
Finlay tell you what to get, and get it, and pay him for it--you can
pay me back, when money comes easy to you."

"Thank you, Christine! You have always been my good angel. I will pay
you out o' my first earnings. I'll give you good interest, and a
regular I. O. U. which will be----"

"What are you saying, Neil? Interest! Interest! Interest on love? And
do you dare to talk to me anent your I. O. U. If I canna trust your
love, and your honor, I'll hae neither interest nor paper from you.
Tak my offer wi' just the word between us, you are vera welcome to the
use o' the money. There's nae sign o' my marrying yet, and I'll not be
likely to want it until my plenishing and napery is to buy. You'll go
to Finlay, I hope?"

"I certainly will. He shall give me just what is right."

"Now then, my time is up. I will be ready to do your copying at five
o'clock in the morning. Then, after breakfast, you can go to the town,
but you won't win into the Bank before ten, and maist likely Finlay
will be just as late. Leave out the best linen you hae, and I'll
attend to it, wi' my ain hands."

"Oh, Christine, how sweet and good you are! I'm afraid I am not worthy
o' your love!"

"Vera likely you are not. Few brothers love their sisters as they
ought to. It willna be lang before you'll do like the lave o' them,
and put some strange lass before me."

"There's nae lass living that can ever be to me what you hae been, and
are. You hae been mother and sister baith, to me."

"Dear lad, I love thee with a' my heart. All that is mine, is thine,
for thy use and help, and between thee and me the word and the bond
are the same thing."

Christine was much pleased because Neil unconsciously had fallen into
his Scotch dialect. She knew then that his words were spontaneous, not
of consideration, but of feeling from his very heart.

In a week the change contemplated had been fully accomplished. Neil
had become accustomed to the luxury of his new home, and was making
notable progress in the work which had brought him there.

Twice during the week Margot had been made royally happy by large
baskets of wonderful flowers and fruit, from the Ballister gardens.
They were brought by the Ballister gardener, and came with Neil's love
and name, but Margot had some secret thoughts of her own. She
suspected they were the result of a deeper and sweeter reason than a
mere admiration for her wonderful little garden among the rocks; but
she kept such thoughts silent in her heart. One thing she knew well,
that if Christine were twitted on the subject, she would hate Angus
Ballister, and utterly refuse to see him. So she referred to the gifts
as entirely from Neil, and affected a little anxiety about their
influence on Ballister.

"I hope that young man isna thinking," she said, "that his baskets o'
flowers and fruit is pay enough for Neil's service."

"Mither, he promised to pay Neil."

"To be sure. But I didna hear o' any fixed sum. Some rich people hae a
way o' giving sma' favors, and forgetting standing siller."

"He seemed a nice young man, Mither, and he did admire your garden. I
am sure he has told Neil to send the flowers because you loved
flowers. When folk love anything, they like others who love as they
do. Mebbe they who love flowers hae the same kind and order o' souls.
You ken if a man loves dogs, he is friendly at once wi' a stranger who
loves dogs; and there's the Domine, who is just silly anent auld
coins--copper, siller or gold--he cares not, if they're only auld
enough. Nannie Grant, wha keeps his house, told Katie Tweedie that he
took a beggar man into his parlor, and ate his dinner with him, just
because he had a siller bit o' Julius Cæsar in his pouch, and wouldna
part wi' it, even when he was wanting bread."

"Weel then, the Domine doubtless wanted the penny."

"Vera likely, but he wouldna tak it frae the puir soul, wha thought
sae much o' it; and Nannie was saying that he went away wi' a guid
many Victoria pennies i' his pouch."

"The Domine is a queer man."

"Ay, but a vera guid man."

"If he had a wife, he would be a' right."

"And just as likely a' wrang. Wha can tell?"

"Weel, that's an open question. What about your ain marriage?"

"I'll marry when I find a man who loves the things I love."

"Weel, the change for Neil, and for the a' of us has been--in a way--a
gude thing. I'll say that."

Margot was right. Even if we take change in its widest sense, it is a
great and healthy manifestation, and it is only through changes that
the best lives are made perfect. For every phase of life requires its
own environment, in order to fulfill perfectly its intention and if it
does not get it, then the intent, or the issue, loses much of its
efficiency. "Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not
God," is a truth relative to the greatest nations, as well as to the
humblest individual.

Neil was benefited in every way by the social uplift of a residence in
a gentleman's home, and the active, curious temperament of Angus
stimulated him. Angus was interested in every new thing, in every new
idea, in every new book. The world was so large, and so busy, and he
wanted to know all about its goings on. So when Neil's business was
over for the day, Angus was eagerly waiting to tell him of something
new or strange which he had just read, or heard tell of, and though
Neil did not realize the fact, he was actually receiving, in these
lively discussions with his friend, the very best training for his
future forensic and oratorical efforts.

Indeed he was greatly pleased with himself. He had not dreamed of
being the possessor of so much skill in managing an opposite opinion;
nor yet of the ready wit, which appeared to flow naturally with his
national dialect. But all this clever discussion and disputing was
excellent practice, and Neil knew well that his visit to Ballister had
been a change full of benefits to him.

One of the results of Neil's investigations was the discovery that Dr.
Magnus Trenabie had been presented to the church of Culraine by the
father of Angus, and that his salary had never been more than fifty
pounds a year, with the likelihood that it had often been much less.
Angus was angry and annoyed.

"I give my gamekeeper a larger salary," he said. "It is a shame!
The doctor's salary must be doubled at once. If there are any
technicalities about it, look to them as quickly as possible. Did my
father worship in that old church?"

"He did, and I have heard my father tell very frequently, how the old
man stood by the church when the great Free Kirk secession happened.
He says that at that burning time everyone left Dr. Trenabie's church
but Ballister and ten o' his tenants, and that the doctor took no
notice of their desertion, but just preached to your father and the
ten faithful. He was never heard to blame the lost flock, and he never
went into the wilderness after them. Your father would not hear of his
doing so.

"Magnus," he would say, "tak' time, and bide a wee. The puir wanderers
will get hungry and weary in their Free Kirk conventicles, and as the
night comes on, they'll come hame. Nae fear o' them!"

"Did they come home?"

"Every one of them but three stubborn old men. They died out of its
communion, and the old Master pitied them, and told their friends he
was feared that it would go a bit hard wi' them. He said, they had
leaped the fence, and he shook his head, and looked down and doubtful
anent the outcome, since naebody could tell what ill weeds were in a
strange pasture."

After this discovery Angus went to the old church, where his father
had worshiped, and there he saw Christine, and there he fell freshly
in love with her every Sabbath day. It did not appear likely that love
had much opportunity, in those few minutes in the kirk yard after the
service, when Neil and Angus waited for Margot and Christine, to
exchange the ordinary greetings and inquiries. James Ruleson, being
leading elder, always remained a few minutes after the congregation
had left, in order to count the collection and give it to the Domine,
and in those few minutes Love found his opportunity.

While Neil talked with his mother of their family affairs, Angus
talked with Christine. His eyes rained Love's influence, his voice was
like a caress, the touch of his hand seemed to Christine to draw her
in some invisible way closer to him. She never remembered the words he
said, she only knew their inarticulate meaning was love, always love.
When it was time for Ruleson to appear, Margot turned to Angus and
thanked him for some special gift or kindness that had come to the
cottage that week, and Angus always laughed, and pointing to Neil,
said:

"Neil is the culprit, Mrs. Ruleson. It is Neil's doing, I assure you."
And of course this statement might be, in several ways, the truth. At
any rate, the old proverb which advises us "never to look a gift horse
in the mouth," is a good one. For the motive of the gift is more than
the gift itself.

These gifts were all simple enough, but they were such as delighted
Margot's childlike heart--an armful of dahlias or carnations--a basket
of nectarines or apricots--two or three dozen fresh eggs--a pot of
butter--a pair of guinea fowls, then rare in poultry yards, or a brood
of young turkeys to feed and fatten for the New Year's festival. About
these fowls, Neil wrote her elaborate directions. And Margot was more
delighted with these simple gifts than many have been with a great
estate. And Christine knew, and Angus knew that she knew, and it was a
subtle tie between them, made of meeting glances and clasping hands.




CHAPTER IV

THE FISHERMAN'S FAIR

  The winds go up and down upon the sea,
    And some they lightly clasp, entreating kindly,
  And waft them to the port where they would be:
    And other ships they buffet long and blindly.
  The cloud comes down on the great sinking deep,
  And on the shore, the watchers stand and weep.


So the busy fishing season passed away, and was a very fortunate one,
until it was nearly over. Then there were several days of foggy,
dismal weather, and one night when the nets were down a sudden violent
storm drove from the north, and the boats, being at that time mostly
open boats, shipped water at every sea. The greatest hurry and
confusion followed, and they were finally compelled to cut the nets
adrift, glad indeed to lose all, if they could only make the first
shelter. And mothers and wives, standing helpless at the little
windows of their cottages, watched the storm, while the men they loved
were fighting the furious tempest in the black night.

"God help my men!" prayed Margot. She was weeping like a child, but
yet in her anguish full of faith in God's mercy, and looking
trustfully to Him to send her men home again. "I'll ne'er fret for
the nets," she said, "they'll hav' to go, nae doubt o' that. Let them
go! But oh, Feyther i' heaven, send hame my men folk!"

Ah! Women who spend such nights may well call caller herrin' "the
lives o' men"!

In the misty daylight, the men and the boats came into harbor, but the
nets in every boat--each net about eight hundred and fifty yards
long--were totally lost. However, the herring season was practically
over. Indeed, the men were at the point of exhaustion, for the total
take had been very large, and there is scarcely any human labor more
severe on the physical endurance, than the fishing for caller
herrin'.

It was just at this time that Neil Ruleson had to leave Culraine for
Aberdeen. He was to finish his course at the Maraschal College this
year, and never before had he gone there so well provided, and
never before had he felt so poor. For though he had received the
unlooked-for sum of two hundred pounds for his services, he felt
it to be unequal to his ambitious requirements, six weeks at
Ballister House having taught him to regard many little comforts as
absolute necessities.

"I am very nearly a lawyer now," he reflected, "a professional man,
and I must try and look like it, and live like it. The bare room and
unfashionable clothing of the past must be changed to more respectable
quarters, and more appropriate garments." Of course he knew that
Christine would not permit him to injure his future fine prospects,
but he had promised to repay the ninety pounds he had borrowed from
her out of his first earnings, and he felt that the money was now due,
and that he ought to pay it. But if he did so, he must simplify all
his plans, and he had taken so much pleasure and pains in arranging
the surroundings of his last session, that he was exceedingly loth to
surrender even the least important of them.

While he was packing his trunk, and deliberating on this subject, the
great storm came, and his father barely saved the boat and the lives
of the men in her. The nets were gone, and his mother asked him
plainly if he could not help his father to replace them.

"I will do so gladly, Mother," he answered, "when I have paid my
college fees, and the like, I will see what I can spare--there is
Christine's money!" he continued, in a troubled, thoughtful
manner--and Margot answered,

"Ay, to be sure. If Christine hadna loaned you her money, it would hae
been at her feyther's will and want, this moment, but if you are going
to keep your word, and pay Christine out o' your first earnings,
there's nae need to talk wi' you. Christine will help your feyther and
proud and glad to do the same."

"You see, Mother, it is nearly the end of things with me at Aberdeen,
and it would be hard if my future was scrimped at its beginning. That
is what Ballister thinks. 'Neil,' he said to me, 'you will have to
speak before the public--lawyers and people of full standing--and you
must have the dress that is proper and fitting.'"

"Weel, your feyther will hae to get new nets--if he is to mak' bread
for the lave o' us."

"The herring season is over now, and there is no immediate expense
regarding it."

"You are much mista'en, and ye ken it fine! The barrels in which the
fish are packed are to pay for, and the women who packed them are not
fully paid. The coopers who closed the barrels, and the Fishery
Office, hae yet to send in their bills."

"The Fishery Office! What have we to do with the Fishery Office? It is
a government affair."

"Mebbe sae. But the barrels canna be shipped until an officer frae the
Fishery Office puts the crown brand on every barrel. Do you think the
man does that for naething?"

"I never heard of such a thing."

"Weel, it has to be done, whether Neil Ruleson has heard o' the thing
or not."

"What for?"

"The crown isna branded on any barrel unless the fish in it are fine,
fresh, and unbroken. But as soon as the barrels get the crown, they
can be shipped to foreign ports, mostly to Stettin."

"Why Stettin?"

"I don't know. Ask your feyther. You are just making a put-aff wi'
your questions. Answer me the one question I asked yoursel'--What can
ye do to help your feyther? Answer me that."

"Father will not use nets until the next herring season--a whole year
away--in the winter, he always does line fishing. With your help,
Christine can weave new nets before they are needed."

"I see weel that you dinna intend to pay your debt to Christine, nor
yet to help your feyther."

"Father has not asked me for help. Everyone knows that father is well
fore-handed."

"O lad, the dear auld man barely saved the boat and the lives she
carried! He has been roughly handled by winds and waves, and may hae
to keep his bed awhile, and your brither Eneas is that hurt and
bruised, he will ne'er go fishing again, while your brither Norman has
a broken arm, an' a wife that has gane into hystericals about the lost
nets. You'd think it was her man she was screaming for. And Fae and
Tamsen waited too lang, and went o'er the boat wi' their nets, an'
there's ithers that hae broken limbs, or joints out o' place, or
trouble o' some sort."

"I'm very sorry, Mother. If I could do any good to the general ill, I
would do it, but if I ruined all my future life I do not see that I
could help anyone. I must be just, before I am generous."

"To be sure. I hope you'll try to be just, for I am vera certain
you'll ne'er be generous; and if you are just, you'll pay your sister
back her ninety pounds."

"I will have a conversation with Christine, at once. Where is she?"

"The Domine sent for her early, she has been helping him wi' the hurt
folk, all day long. What hae you been doing?"

"I went down to the pier, to look after the boat. I knew father would
be anxious about it. Then I had to go into the town. I was expecting
an important letter, and the doctor was needing some medicines, and I
brought them home with me. In one way, or another, the miserable day
has gone. I hope Father is not much hurt."

"It's hard to hurt your feyther. His head keeps steady, and a steady
head keeps the body as it should be--but he's strained, and kind o'
shocked. The Domine gied him a powder, and he's sleeping like a baby.
He'll be a' right in a day or twa."

"I would like to sit by him tonight, and do all I can, Mother."

"You may well do that, Neil; but first go and bring your sister hame.
I wouldn't wonder if you might find her in Fae's cottage. His puir,
silly wife let the baby fa', when she heard that her man and his boat
was lost; and I heard tell Christine had ta'en the bairn in charge. It
would be just like her. Weel, it's growing to candle lighting, and
I'll put a crusie fu' o' oil in feyther's room, and that will light
you through the night."

Neil found his sister sitting with Judith Macpherson and her grandson,
Cluny. Cluny was not seriously hurt, but no man comes out of a
life-and-death fight with the sea, and feels physically the better for
it. Such tragic encounters do finally lift the soul into the region of
Fearlessness, or into the still higher condition of Trustfulness, but
such an education--like that of Godliness--requires line upon line,
precept upon precept.

James Ruleson had been perfectly calm, even when for a few minutes it
seemed as if men, as well as nets, must go to death and destruction;
but James had been meeting the God "whose path is on the Great
Waters," for more than forty years, and had seen there, not only His
wonders, but His mercies, and he had learned to say with David,
"Though He slay me, yet will I put my trust in Him."

Judith Macpherson was of a different spirit. She was a passionate
old woman, and the sea had taken her husband and five sons, and her
only daughter. Accordingly she hated the sea. That some day it would
be "no more" was her triumphant consolation. She delighted in
preaching to it this sentence of annihilation. If Judith was seen
standing on the cliffs, with her arms uplifted, and her white head
thrown backward, the village knew she was reminding its proud waves of
their doom of utter destruction. The passionate flaming language
of her denunciations will not bear transcribing, but the oldest
sailors said it was "awesome and no' to be listened to, or spoken
o'." That afternoon she had been seen on the sands, in one of her
frenzies of hatred, and when Neil entered her cottage, she was still
rocking herself to and fro, and muttering threats and curses.

She had attended skillfully and tenderly to Cluny's bruises and
nervous excitement, but he was frightened and depressed by her mood,
and he begged Christine to stay wi' him an hour or twa. And Christine
had been willing. Judith was always kind to her, and the handsome lad
with his boyish adoration was at least a settled feature of her life.
This night she let him tell her all his plans for their happy future,
and did not feel any pressure of duty to deny his hopes. He had just
come out of the very jaws of Death. What could she do, but let him
dream his dream and have his say?

However, in all troubles, either personal or public, it is a great
thing to be still, and to whisper to the soul--"This, too, will pass!"
It is behind us today, tomorrow it will be still farther away. In a
week we shall not talk of it, in a month it will have passed from
Life, and belong only to Memory. There is scarcely any sorrow that may
not be greatly helped and soothed by this reflection. For God does not
willingly afflict the children of men, and it is He Himself, that has
appointed Time to be the consoler of Sorrow.

By the end of October, the village was in its normal mood and
condition. All the expenses of the fishing season had been paid, and
the profits satisfactorily ascertained and divided. Great quantities
of cord had been procured, and the women and the older men were busily
making nets for the next season, while the younger men were ready for
the winter's line-fishing. There was an air of content and even of
happiness over the small community. It was realized that, in spite of
the storm, the season had been good, and the Domine had reminded them
on the last Sabbath, that they had not yet rendered thanks to God, nor
even visibly told each other how good God had been to them.

For it was the custom of Culraine to keep a day of thanks and
rejoicing when the herring had been secured, and to send word to all
the near-by fishers to come and rejoice with them. They began now to
prepare for this festival, and in this preparation were greatly
assisted by gifts from Ballister House. Neil had gone back to the
Maraschal, but Angus was still at Ballister. He had been royally
generous to the village in its distress, had supplied the Domine with
necessary drugs and materials, and had seen to it that the injured had
those little luxuries of food which tempt the convalescent. He was
still more eager to help the fishers in their thanksgiving, Margot
Ruleson being the authorized distributor of all his gifts, as she was
also the director of all concerning the affair.

This _foy_, or fair, was to be kept on the thirty-first of October,
embracing particularly the Hallowe'en night so dear to the peasantry
of Scotland. The Domine had selected this date, possibly because he
wished to prevent its usual superstitious observance. But though some
old men and women doubtless lighted their Hallowe'en fires, and baked
their Hallowe'en cake, with the usual magical ceremonies, the large
majority were far too busy preparing for an actual and present
pleasure, to trouble themselves about prophesying spells and charms.

The day was opened by a short address to the people assembled in the
old kirk. About thirty minutes covered the simple ceremony. First the
Domine stood up, and the people stood up with him, and all together
they recited aloud the jubilant thirty-fourth psalm. Then the Domine
said,

"Sit down, friends, and take heed to what I say. I have no sermon for
you today. I have no sins to charge you with, and to beg you to
forsake. I have just one message. It is three words long. 'God is
Love!' Whatever you hear, whatever you do, no matter what happens to
you, remember that God is Love! You are heritage-born to the sea, but
the way of the Lord is through the Great Waters. God must see you in
your struggles, and God must love the patient, brave, sailormen.
Christ showed you special favors. He might have chosen carpenters, but
he chose fishermen. And for seeing God's wonders on the deep sea, you
may be the sons and heirs of the prophet Jonas. Also,

  "The church is like unto a ship:
  The Scriptures are the enclosing net
  And men the fishers are!

Well, then, as often as you come unto a sermon, consider how God by
his preachers trawleth for your souls. Friends, in all times of your
joy and your sorrow, you have the key to God's council chamber, and to
God's mercy chamber. It is just 'Our Father,' and the few blessed
words that follow it. There is little need for long talk. This is the
day you have set for thanksgiving. Rejoice therein! God is as well
pleased with your happiness, as he was and is with your good, brave
work. The hard winter days wear on. Make this day a memory to brighten
them. Amen."

There was a considerable number of visitors from fishing villages as
far south as Largo, going from house to house, talking over old
seasons with old comrades, and there were the sound of violins
everywhere, and the laughter of children, in their Sunday clothes,
playing in the streets. Even sorrowful Faith Balcarry was in a new
dress, and was at least helping others to be happy. Indeed, it was
Faith who suddenly burst into the Hall when the decorations were
nearly finished, and cried, "Surely you'll show the flags o' the lads'
boaties! They'll feel hurt if you slight their bits o' canvas! It is
most like slighting themsel's." She had her arms full of these bits of
canvas, and the men decorating the Fishers' Hall seized them
triumphantly, and told Faith they were just what they wanted; and so
made Faith for once in her sad life a person helpful and of
importance. Then in twenty minutes the red and blue and white ensigns
were beautifully disposed among the green of larch and laurel, and the
glory of marigolds and St. Michael's daisies, and of holly oaks of
every brilliant color.

When the sun was setting Angus looked in. Everyone but Christine and
Faith had finished his work and gone away. Faith was brushing up the
scattered leaves from the floor, Christine was standing on the top
step of the ladder, setting her father's flag in a halo of marigolds.
He watched her without speaking until she turned, then the swift glory
of her smile, and the joy of her surprise was a revelation. He had not
dreamed before that she was so beautiful. He said he was hungry, and
he hoped Christine would not send him all the way to Ballister for
something to eat. Then what could Christine do but ask him to dinner?
And she had already asked Faith. So he walked between Christine and
Faith up to Ruleson's cottage. And the walk through the village was so
exhilarating, he must have forgotten he was hungry, even if he was
really so. There was music everywhere, there were groups of beautiful
women, already dressed in their gayest gowns and finest ornaments,
there were equal groups of handsome young fishermen, in their finest
tweed suits, with flowing neckties of every resplendent color--there
was such a sense of pleasure and content in the air, that everyone
felt as if he were breathing happiness.

And Margot's welcome was in itself a tonic, if anybody had needed one.
Her table was already set, she was "only waiting for folks to find out
they wanted their dinner--the dinner itsel' was waitin' and nane the
better o' it."

Ruleson came in as she was speaking, and he welcomed the Master of
Ballister with true Scotch hospitality. They fell into an easy
conversation on politics, and Margot told Christine and Faith to mak'
themsel's fit for company, and to be quick anent the business, or she
wadna keep three folk waiting on a couple o' lasses.

In half an hour both girls came down, dressed in white. Christine had
loaned Faith a white frock, and a string of blue beads, and a broad
blue sash. She had arranged her hair prettily, and made the girl feel
that her appearance was of consequence. And light came into Faith's
eyes, and color to her cheeks, and for once she was happy, whether she
knew it or not.

Christine had intended to wear a new pink silk frock, with all its
pretty accessories, but a beautiful natural politeness forbade it.
Faith was so abnormally sensitive, she knew she would spoil the girl's
evening if she outdressed her. So she also put on a white muslin gown,
made in the modest fashion of the early Victorian era. Some lace and
white satin ribbons softened it, and she had in her ears her long gold
rings, and round her throat her gold beads, and amidst her beautiful
hair large amber combs, that looked as if they had imprisoned the
sunshine.

Margot was a good cook, and the dinner was an excellent one,
prolonged--as Margot thought--beyond all reasonable length, by a
discussion, between Ruleson and Angus, of the conservative policy.
Ruleson smoked his pipe after dinner, and kept up the threep, and the
girls put out of sight the used china, and the meat and pastries left,
and Margot put on her usual Sabbath attire--a light-gray silk dress, a
large white collar, and a borderless cap of lace over her dark hair.
The indispensable bit of color was, in her case, supplied by a vivid
scarlet shawl of Chinese crêpe, one of those heavily embroidered
shawls of dazzling color, which seem in these latter days to have
disappeared.

It was getting near to seven o'clock, when they entered the hall and
found it already full and happy. They had not thought it necessary to
wait in whispering silence, until the music came and opened the
entertainment. They possessed among themselves many good story
tellers, and they were heartily laughing in chorus at some comic
incident which a fisherman was relating, when the Ruleson party
arrived.

Then there was one long, loud, unanimous cry for Christine Ruleson,
for Christine was preëminent as a vive-voce story teller, a rare art
even among the nations of Europe. She nodded and smiled, and without
any affectation of reluctance, but with a sweet readiness to give
pleasure, went at once to the platform, and as easily, and as
naturally as if she were telling it at her home fireside, she raised
her hand for attention, and said:

       *       *       *       *       *

"_The Wreck of the Grosvenor_

"The _Grosvenor_, an East Indiaman, homeward bound, went to pieces on
the coast of Caffraria. There were a hundred and thirty-five souls on
board, and they resolved to cross the trackless desert to the Dutch
settlements at the Cape of Good Hope. A solitary child was among the
passengers, a boy of seven years old, who had no relation on board,
and when he saw the party beginning to move away, he cried after some
member of it, who had been kind to him. The child's cry went to every
heart. They accepted him as a sacred charge.

"By turns they carried him through the deep sand and the long grass.
They pushed him across broad rivers on a little raft. They shared with
him such fish as they found to eat. Beset by lions, by savages, by
hunger and death in ghastly forms, they never--O Father in heaven! Thy
name be blessed for it! they never forgot the child. The captain and
his faithful coxswain sat down together to die, the rest go on for
their lives--but they take the child with them. The carpenter, his
chief friend, dies from eating, in his hunger, poisonous berries; the
steward assumed the sacred guardianship of the boy. He carried him in
his arms, when he himself was weak and suffering. He fed him, when he
was griped with hunger. He laid his little white face against his
sun-burned breast. He soothed him in all his suffering.

"Then there came a time when both were ill, and they begged their
wretched companions--now very few in number--to wait for them one day.
They waited two days. On the morning of the third day, they moved
softly about preparing to resume their journey. The child was sleeping
by the fire, and they would not wake him until the last moment. The
moment comes, the fire is dying--the child is dead!

"His faithful friend staggers on for a few days, then lies down in the
desert and dies. What shall be said to these two men, who through all
extremities loved and guarded this Little Child?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Christine had noticed the Domine rise, and she pointedly addressed
this question to him, and he understood her wish, and lifting up his
hands and his voice, he cried out triumphantly:

"They shall be raised up with the words--'Inasmuch as ye have done it
unto the least of these, ye have done it unto Me!' These good men," he
continued, "were men of the sea, Mariners of England,

  "That guard our native seas,
  Whose flag has braved a thousand years,
  The battle and the breeze!"

The Domine might have continued, but there was a sudden thrill of
enchanting violins, the door was flung open, and the magical notes of
a foursome reel filled the room, and set the feet of all tapping the
floor, and made all faces radiant with anticipation. The good man then
realized that it was not his hour, and he sat down, and watched the
proceedings for a few minutes. Then he saw James Ruleson take his
wife's hand, and watched their first steps in the joyous reel, and he
was satisfied. If the dancing was under Ruleson's control, he knew all
would be done decently and in order, and he went away so quietly that
his absence was not noticed for some time.

Now, if the dancing that followed was like some of our dancing of
today, I should pass it with slight notice, or it might be, with
earnest disapproval, but it was not. It was real dancing. It was not
waltzing, nor tangoing, and it was as far as possible from the
undressed posturing called classical dancing. Everyone was modestly
clothed, and had his shoes and stockings on. And naturally, and as a
matter of course, they obeyed the principle of real dancing, which is
articulation; that is, the foot strikes the ground with every accented
note of the music. This is how Goldsmith in "The Vicar of Wakefield"
shows us Olivia dancing--"her foot being as pat to the music, as its
echo."

All good dancing is beautiful, and it never requires immodesty, is
indeed spoiled by any movement in this direction. However, as my
fisher company danced modestly and gracefully, rendering naturally the
artistic demands of the music, there is no necessity to pursue the
subject. As the night wore on, the dancing became more enthusiastic,
and graceful gestures were flung in, and little inspiring cries flung
out, and often when the fiddles stopped, the happy feet went on for
several bars without the aid of music.

Thus alternately telling stories, singing, and dancing, they passed
the happy hours, mingling something of heart, and brain, and body, in
all they did; and the midnight found them unwearied and good-tempered.
Angus had behaved beautifully. Having made himself "Hail! Well met!"
with the company, he forgot for the time that he was Master of
Ballister, and entered into the happy spirit of the occasion with all
the natural gayety of youth.

As he had dined with Faith Balcarry, he danced with her several times;
and no one could tell the pride and pleasure in the girl's heart. Then
Christine introduced to her a young fisherman from Largo town, and he
liked Faith's slender form, and childlike face, and fell truly in love
with the lonely girl, and after this night no one ever heard Faith
complain that she had no one to love, and that no one loved her. This
incident alone made Christine very happy, for her heart said to her
that it was well worth while.

Cluny was the only dissatisfied person present, but then nothing would
have satisfied Cluny but Christine's undivided attention. She told him
he was "unreasonable and selfish," and he went home with his
grandmother, in a pet, and did not return.

"He's weel enough awa'," said Christine to Faith. "If he couldna leave
his bad temper at hame, he hadna ony right to bring it here."

Of course it was not possible for Christine to avoid all dancing with
Angus, but he was reasonable and obedient, and danced cheerfully with
all the partners she selected, and in return she promised to walk home
in his company. He told her it was "a miraculous favor," and indeed he
thought so. For never had she looked so bewilderingly lovely. Her
beauty appeared to fill the room, and the calm, confident authority
with which she ordered and decided events, touched him with admiring
astonishment. What she would become, when _he_ gave her the
opportunity, he could not imagine.

At nine o'clock there was a sideboard supper from a long table at one
side of the hall, loaded with cold meats, pastry, and cake. Every
young man took what his partner desired, and carried it to her. Then
when the women were served, the men helped themselves, and stood
eating and talking with the merry, chattering groups for a pleasant
half-hour, which gave to the last dances and songs even more than
their early enthusiasm. Angus waited on Christine and Faith, and
Faith's admirer had quite a flush of vanity, in supposing himself to
have cut the Master of Ballister out. He flattered himself thus, and
Faith let him think so, and Christine shook her head, and called him
"plucky and gay," epithets young men never object to, especially if
they know they are neither the one nor the other.

At twelve o'clock Ruleson spoke to the musicians, and the violins
dropped from the merry reel of "Clydeside Lasses" into the haunting
melody of "Caller Herrin'," and old and young stood up to sing it.
Margot started the "cry" in her clear, clarion-like voice; but young
and old joined in the imperishable song, in which the "cry" is
vocalized:

[Illustration: Music and Lyrics:

Who'll buy cal-ler her-rin'? They're twa a pen-ny twa a pen-ny, Who'll
buy cal-ler her-rin'? They're new come fra Loch fine. Come friends
sup-port the fish-er's trade. Wha still in yer'll earns his bread. While
'round our coast aft tem-pest tost. He drags for cal-ler her-rin'.
They're bon-nie fish, and dain-ty fa-ring. Buy my cal-ler her-rin'.
They're new come frae Loch-flae. Who'll buy my cal-ler her-rin'. There's
nought wi' them will stand com-par-ing. E'en they hae like dia-monds.
Their sides like sil-ver shine. Cal-ler her-rin', Cal-ler her-rin']

At one o'clock the Fishers' Hall was dark and still, and the echo of a
tender little laugh or song from some couple, who had taken the
longest way round for the nearest way home, was all that remained of
the mirth and melody of the evening. Angus and Christine sauntered
slowly through the village. The young man was then passionately
importunate in the protestations of his love. He wooed Christine with
all the honeyed words that men have used to the Beloved Woman, since
the creation. And Christine listened and was happy.

At length, however, he was obliged to tell her news he had delayed as
long as it was possible.

"Christine," he said. "Dear Christine, I am going with my Uncle
Ballister to the United States. We intend to see both the northern and
southern states, and in California shall doubtless find the ways and
means to cross over to China and Japan, and at Hongkong get passage
for India, and then----"

"And then whar next?"

"Through Europe to England. I dare say the journey will take us a
whole year."

"Mair likely twa or even three years. Whatna for are you going?"

"Because my uncle is going, and he is set on having me with him."

"I wouldn't wonder. Maybe he is going just for your sake. Weel I hope
you'll hae a brawly fine time, and come hame the better for it."

"I cannot tell how I am to do without seeing you, for a whole year."

"Folk get used to doing without, vera easy, if the want isn't siller.
Love isna a necessity."

"O, but it is! Dear Christine, it is the great necessity."

"Weel, I'm not believing it."

Then they were at the foot of the hill on which Ruleson's house stood,
and Christine said, "Your carriage is waiting for you, Angus, and you
be to bid me good night, here. I would rather rin up the hill by
mysel', and nae doubt the puir horses are weary standin' sae lang. Sae
good night, and good-by, laddie!"

"I shall not leave you, Christine, until I have seen you safely
home."

"I am at hame here. This is Ruleson's hill, and feyther and mither are
waiting up for me."

A few imperative words from Angus put a stop to the dispute, and he
climbed the hill with her. He went as slowly as possible, and told her
at every step how beautiful she was, and how entirely he loved her.
But Christine was not responsive, and in spite of his eloquent
tenderness, they felt the chill of their first disagreement. When they
came in sight of the house, they saw that it was dimly lit, and
Christine stood still, and once more bade him good-by.

Angus clasped both her hands in his. "My love! My love!" he said. "If
I spoke cross, forgive me."

"I hae naething to forgive. I owe you for mair pleasure and happiness,
than I can ever return."

"Give me one kiss of love and forgiveness, Christine. Then I will know
you love Angus"--and he tried gently to draw her closer to him. "Just
one kiss, darling."

"Na! Na," she answered. "That canna be. I'm a fisher-lass, and we hae
a law we dinna break--we keep our lips virgin pure, for the lad we
mean to marry."

"You are very hard and cruel. You send me away almost broken-hearted.
May I write to you?"

"If you'll tell me about a' the wonderfuls you see, I'll be gey glad
to hear from you."

"Then farewell, my love! Do not forget me!"

"It's not likely I'll forget you," and her voice trembled, as she
whispered "Farewell!" and gave him her hand. He stooped, and kissed
it. Then he turned away.

She watched him till in the dim distance she saw him raise his hat and
then disappear. Still she stood, until the roll of the carriage wheels
gradually became inaudible. Then she knew that she was weeping, and
she wiped her eyes, and turned them upon the light in the cottage
burning for her. And she thought tenderly of her lover, and whispered
to her heart--"If he had only come back! I might hae given him a kiss.
Puir laddie! Puir, dear laddie! His uncle has heard tell o' the
fisher-lassie, and he's ta'en him awa' from Christine--but he's his
ain master--sae it's his ain fault! Christine is o'er gude for anyone
who can be wiled awa' by man, or woman, or pleasure, or gold. I'll be
first, or I'll be naething at a'!"

She found her father alone, and wide awake. "Where is Mither?" she
asked.

"I got her to go to bed. She was weary and full o' pain. Keep a close
watch on your mither, Christine. The trouble in her heart grows warse,
I fear. Wha was wi' you in your hame-comin'?"

"Angus Ballister."

"Weel, then?"

"It is the last time he will be wi' me."

"Is that sae? It is just as weel."

"He is awa' wi' his Uncle Ballister, for a year or mair."

"Is he thinking you'll wait, while he looks o'er the women-folk in the
rest o' the warld?"

"It seems sae."

"You liked him weel enough?"

"Whiles--weel enough for a lover on trial. But what would a lass do
wi' a husband wha could leave her for a year on his ain partic'lar
pleasure."

"I kent you wad act wiselike, when the time came to act. There's nae
men sae true as fishermen. They hae ane dear woman to love, and she's
the only woman in the warld for them. Now Cluny----"

"We willna speak o' Cluny, Feyther. Both you and Mither, specially
Mither, are far out o' your usual health. What for did God gie you a
daughter, if it wasna to be a comfort and help to you, when you
needed it? I'm no carin' to marry any man."

"Please God, you arena fretting anent Angus?"

"What for would I fret? He was a grand lover while he lasted. But when
a man is feared to honor his love with his name, a lass has a right to
despise him."

"Just sae! But you mustna fret yoursel' sick after him."

"Me! Not likely!"

"He was bonnie enou', and he had siller--plenty o' siller!"

"I'm no' thinkin' o' the siller, Feyther! Na, na, siller isn't in the
matter, but--

  "When your lover rins over the sea,
    He may never come back again;
  But this, or that, will na matter to me,
    For my heart! My heart is my ain!"

"Then a's weel, lassie. I'll just creep into Neil's bed, for I dinna
want to wake your mither for either this, or that, or ony ither thing.
Good night, dearie! You're a brave lassie! God bless you!"




CHAPTER V

CHRISTINE AND ANGUS

  They did not separate, as if nothing had happened.
  A sorrow we have looked in the face, can harm us no more.


Perhaps Christine was not so brave as her father thought, but she had
considered the likelihood of such a situation, and had decided that
there was no dealing with it, except in a spirit of practical life.
She knew, also, that in the long run sentiment would have to give way
to common sense, and the more intimate she became with the character
of Angus Ballister, the more certain she felt that his love for her
would have to measure itself against the pride and will of his uncle,
and the tyranny of social estimates and customs.

She was therefore not astonished that Angus had left both himself and
her untrammeled by promises. He was a young man who never went to meet
finalities, especially if there was anything unpleasant or serious in
them; and marriage was a finality full of serious consequences, even
if all its circumstances were socially proper. And what would Society
say, if Angus Ballister made a fisher-girl his wife!

"I wasna wise to hae this, or that, to do wi' the lad," she
whispered, and then after a few moments' reflection, she added, "nor
was I altogether selfish i' the matter. Neil relied on me making a
friend o' him, and Mither told me she knew my guid sense wad keep the
lad in his proper place. Weel, I hae done what was expected o' me, and
what's the end o' the matter, Christine? Ye hae a sair heart, lass,
an' if ye arena in love wi' a lad that can ne'er mak' you his wife, ye
are precariously near to it." Then she was silent, while lacing her
shoes, but when this duty was well finished, she continued, "The lad
has gien me many happy hours, and Christine will never be the one to
say, or even think, wrang o' him; we were baith in the fault--if it be
a fault--as equally in the fault, as the fiddle and the fiddlestick
are in the music. Weel, then what's to do? Duty stands high above
pleasure, an' I must gie my heart to duty, an' my hands to duty, even
if I tread pleasure underfoot in the highway in the doin' o' it."

As she made these resolutions, some strong instinctive feeling induced
her to dress herself in clean clothing from head to feet, and then add
bright touches of color, and the glint of golden ornaments to her
attire. "I hae taken a new mistress this morning," she said, as she
clasped her gold beads around her white throat--"and I'll show folk
that I'm not fretting mysel' anent the auld one." And in some
unreasoning, occult way, this fresh, bright clothing strengthened
her.

Indeed, Margot was a little astonished when she saw her daughter. Her
husband had told her in a few words just how matters now lay between
Ballister and Christine, and she was fully prepared with sympathy and
counsels for the distracted, or angry, girl she expected to meet. So
Christine's beaming face, cheerful voice, and exceptional dress
astonished her. "Lassie!" she exclaimed. "Whatna for hae you dressed
yoursel' sae early in the day?"

"I thought o' going into the toun, Mither. I require some worsted for
my knitting. I'm clean out o' all sizes."

"I was wanting you to go to the manse this morning. I am feared for
the pain in my breast, dearie, and the powders the Domine gies me for
it are gane. I dinna like to be without them."

"I'll go for them, Mither, this morning, as soon as I think the Domine
is out o' his study."

"Then I'll be contented. How are you feeling yoursel', Christine?"

"Fine, Mither!"

"'Twas a grand ploy last night. That lad, Angus Ballister, danced with
a' and sundry, and sang, and ate wi' the best, and the worst o' us. I
was hearing he was going awa' for a year or mair."

"Ay, to foreign parts. Rich young men think they arena educated unless
they get a touch o' France or Italy, and even America isna out o'
their way. You wad think a Scotch university wad be the complement o'
a Scotch gentleman!"

"Did he bid you good-by? Or is he coming here today?"

"He isna likely to ever come here again."

"What for no? He's been fain and glad to come up here. What's changed
him?"

"He isna changed. He has to go wi' his uncle."

"What did he say about marrying you? He ought to hae asked your
feyther for ye?"

"For me?"

"Ay, for you."

"Don't say such words, Mither. There was no talk of marriage between
us. What would Angus do with a girl like me for a wife?"

"You are gude enou' for any man."

"We are friends. We arena lovers. The lad has been friendly with the
hale village. You mustna think wrang o' him."

"I do think vera wrang o' him. He is just one kind o' a scoundrel."

"You hurt me, Mither. Angus is my friend. I'll think nae wrang o' him.
If he was wrang, I was wrang, and you should hae told me I was
wrang."

"I was feared o' hurting Neil's chances wi' him."

"Sae we baith had a second motive."

"Ay, few folk are moved by a single one."

"Angus came, and he went, he liked me, and I liked him, but neither o'
us will fret o'er the parting. It had to be, or it wouldn't hae been.
Them above order such things. They sort affairs better than we
could."

"I don't understand what you're up to, but I think you are acting vera
unwomanly."

"Na, na, Mither! I'll not play 'maiden all forlorn' for anyone. If
Angus can live without me, there isna a woman i' the world that can
live without Angus as weel as Christine Ruleson can. Tuts! I hae you,
Mither, and my dear feyther, and my six big brothers, and surely their
love is enough for any soul through this life; forbye, there is the
love beyond all, and higher than all, and truer than all--the love of
the Father and the Son."

"I see ye hae made up your mind to stand by Ballister. Vera weel! Do
sae! As long as he keeps himsel' in foreign pairts, he'll ne'er fret
me; but if he comes hame, he'll hae to keep a few hundred miles atween
us."

"Nonsense! We'll a' be glad to see him hame."

"Your way be it. Get your eating done wi', and then awa' to the manse,
and get me thae powders. I'm restless and feared if I have none i' the
house."

"I'll be awa' in ten minutes now. Ye ken the Domine doesna care for
seeing folk till after ten o'clock. He says he hes ither company i'
the first hours o' daybreak."

"Like enou', but he'll be fain to hear about the doings last night,
and he'll be pleased concerning Faith getting a sweetheart. I doubt if
she deserves the same."

"Mither! Dinna say that. The puir lassie!"

"Puir lassie indeed! Her feyther left her forty pounds a year, till
she married, and then the principal to do as she willed wi'. I dinna
approve o' women fretting and fearing anent naething."

"But if they hae the fret and fear, what are they to do wi' it,
Mither?"

"Fight it. Fighting is better than fearing. Weel, tak' care o'
yoursel' and mind every word that you say."

"I'm going by the cliffs on the sea road."

"That will keep you langer."

"Ay, but I'll no require to mind my words. I'll meet naebody on that
road to talk wi'."

"I would not say that much."

A suspicion at once had entered Margot's heart. "I wonder," she mused,
as she watched Christine out of sight--"I wonder if she is trysted wi'
Angus Ballister on the cliff road. Na, na, she would hae told me,
whether or no, she would hae told me."

The solitude of the sea, and of the lonely road, was good for
Christine. She was not weeping, but she had a bitter aching sense of
something lost. She thought of her love lying dead outside her heart's
shut door, and she could not help pitying both love and herself. "He
was like sunshine on my life," she sighed. "It is dark night now. All
is over. Good-by forever, Angus! Oh, Love, Love!" she cried aloud to
the sea. "Oh, you dear old troubler o' the warld! I shall never feel
young again. Weel, weel, Christine, I'll not hae ye going to meet
trouble, it isna worth the compliment. Angus may forget me, and find
some ither lass to love--weel, then, if it be so, let it be so. I'll
find the right kind o' strength for every hour o' need, and the
outcome is sure to be right. God is love. Surely that is a' I need.
I'll just leave my heartache here, the sea can carry it awa', and the
winds blow it far off"--and she began forthwith a tender little song,
that died down every few bars, but was always lifted again, until it
swelled out clear and strong, as she came in sight of the small, white
manse, standing bravely near the edge of a cliff rising sheerly seven
hundred feet above the ocean. The little old, old kirk, with its
lonely acres full of sailors' graves, was close to it, and Christine
saw that the door stood wide open, though it was yet early morning.

"It'll be a wedding, a stranger wedding," she thought. "Hame folk
wouldna be sae thoughtless, as to get wed in the morning--na, na, it
will be some stranger."

These speculations were interrupted by the Domine's calling her, and
as soon as she heard his voice, she saw him standing at the open door.
"Christine!" he cried. "Come in! Come in! I want you, lassie, very
much. I was just wishing for you."

"I am glad that I answered your wish, Sir. I would aye like to do
that, if it be His will."

"Come straight to my study, dear. You are a very godsend this
morning."

He went hurriedly into the house, and turned towards his study, and
Christine followed him. And before she crossed the threshold of the
room, she saw Angus and his Uncle Ballister, sitting at a table on
which there were books and papers.

Angus rose to meet her at once. He did it as an involuntary act. He
did not take a moment's counsel or consideration, but sprang to his
feet with the joyful cry of a delighted boy. And Christine's face
reflected the cry in a wonderful, wonderful smile. Then Angus was at
her side, he clasped her hands, he called her by her name in a tone of
love and music, he drew her closer to his side. And the elder man
smiled and looked at the Domine, who remembered then the little
ceremony he had forgotten.

So he took Christine by the hand, and led her to the stranger, and
in that moment a great change came into the countenance and manner
of the girl, while a peculiar light of satisfaction--almost of
amusement--gleamed in her splendid eyes.

"Colonel Ballister," said the Domine, "I present to you Miss Christine
Ruleson, the friend of your nephew, the beloved of the whole village
of Culraine."

"I am happy to make Miss Ruleson's acquaintance," he replied and
Christine said,

"It is a great pleasure to meet you, Sir. When you know Angus, you
wish to know the man who made Angus well worth the love he wins."

The Domine and Angus looked at the beautiful girl in utter amazement.
She spoke perfect English, in the neat, precise, pleasant manner and
intonation of the Aberdeen educated class. But something in
Christine's manner compelled their silence. She willed it, and they
obeyed her will.

"Sit down at the table with us, Christine," said the Domine. "We want
your advice;" and she had the good manners to sit down, without
affectations or apologies.

"Colonel, will you tell your own tale? There's none can do it like
you."

"It is thus, and so, Miss Ruleson. Two nights ago as I sat thinking of
Angus in Culraine, I remembered my own boyhood days in the village. I
thought of the boats, and the sailors, and the happy hours out at sea
with the nets, or the lines. I remembered how the sailors' wives
petted me, and as I grew older teased me, and sang to me. And I said
to my soul, 'We have been ungratefully neglectful, Soul, and we will
go at once, and see if any of the old playfellows are still alive.' So
here I am, and though I find by the Domine's kirk list that only three
of my day are now in Culraine, I want to do some good thing for the
place. The question is, what. Angus thinks, as my memories are all of
playtime, I might buy land for a football field, or links for a golf
club. What do you say to this idea, Miss Ruleson?"

"I can say naething in its favor, Sir. Fishers are hard-worked men;
they do not require to play hard, and call it amusement. I have heard
my father say that ball games quickly turn to gambling games. A game
of any sort would leave all the women out. Their men are little at
home, and it would be a heartache to them, if they took to spending
that little in a ball field, or on the golf links."

"Their wives might go with them, Christine," said Angus.

"They would require to leave many home duties, if they did so. It
would not be right--our women would not do it. Once I was at St.
Andrews, and I wanted to go to the golf links with my father, but the
good woman with whom we were visiting said: 'James Ruleson, go to the
links if so be you want to go, but you'll no daur to tak' this young
lassie there. The language on the links is just awfu'. It isna fit for
a decent lass to hear. No, Sir, golf links would be of no use to the
women, and their value is very uncertain to men.'"

"Women's presence would doubtless make men more careful in their
language," said Angus.

"Weel, Angus, it would be doing what my Mither ca's 'letting the price
o'er-gang the profit.'"

"Miss Ruleson's objections are good and valid, and we admit them,"
said the Colonel; "perhaps she will now give us some idea we can
work out"--and when he looked at her for response, he caught his
breath at the beauty and sweetness of the face before him. "What are
you thinking of?" he asked, almost with an air of humility, for the
visible presence of goodness and beauty could hardly have affected
him more. And Christine answered softly: "I was thinking of the
little children." And the three men felt ashamed, and were silent.
"I was thinking of the little children," she continued, "how they
have neither schoolhouse, nor playhouse. They must go to the town,
if they go to school; and there is the bad weather, and sickness,
and busy mothers, and want of clothing and books, and shoes, and
slates, and the like. Our boys and girls get at the Sunday School
all the learning they have. The poor children. They have hard times
in a fishing-village."

"You have given us the best of advice, Miss Ruleson, and we will
gladly follow it," said the Colonel. "I am sure you are right. I will
build a good schoolhouse in Culraine. I will begin it at once. It
shall be well supplied with books and maps, and I will pay a good
teacher."

"Not a man teacher, Sir. They have small patience with little
children. They will use the taws on baby hands, that cannot make a 'k'
or a 'z' at first sight. Give them a woman teacher, who will not be
afraid of the bairnies snuggling into her arms, and telling her all
their little troubles."

"Domine," said the Colonel, "we have received our orders. What say
you?"

"I say a school, by all means, Sir. To the children of Culraine it
will be a dispensation."

"First, we must have land for it."

"I was thinking, as you spoke, of James Ruleson's land. It lies at
the foot of his hill, and would be the very best location for a
schoolhouse."

"Then we will see James Ruleson."

"Father is line-fishing now. He will not be home until five o'clock,"
said Christine.

"If possible, we will see him after five. Come, Domine, let us have a
look through the old kirk."

"I saw it standing open," said Christine, "and I was thinking there
might be a strange wedding there today."

"No, no, Christine. It was opened for the Colonel, though there are no
Ballister effigies in it. If it was an old English kirk, there would
be knights and crusaders, and soldiers lying there, in stone state. We
do not like images in our kirks. The second command stands clean
against it. Come with us, Christine, and when we return I will give
you the medicine your mother requires."

So the Domine and the Colonel led the way, and Angus and Christine
followed. And when they reached the kirkyard, Angus said, "Stand here
a moment, you dear, dear girl, and tell me how you could talk to my
uncle in the high English of Aberdeen. It was beautiful! How did you
acquire it?"

"Through long years of practice, Angus. I heard all Neil's lessons,
and I always spoke the English, when I was with Neil. He didna like me
to speak Scotch, because he was feared of spoiling his English. It was
our home secret, for it would have been a great offense, if I had
used English in the village. You can see that."

"Yes, of course."

"They dinna mind the Domine speaking English, yet if he particularly
wants them to do anything, he is maist sure to drop into the most
familiar Scotch."

"Neil must have had great influence over you, Christine," and Angus
said the words disagreeably. He was feeling jealous of any influences
but his own controlling Christine.

"Ay, I always did what he told me to do. Step softly, Angus. The
Domine is talking."

When they reached the Domine's side, they found him turning the leaves
of a very old Bible. "You see, Colonel," he said, "my father gave me
The Book when I first came here. My ancestors have preached from it
since A.D. 1616. It came to me through a long succession of good men.
It has been my close, personal friend ever since. The finest Bible in
Scotland could not take its place. There are pages in it that have
been luminous to me. I have seen the glory shining out of the black
letters. There are pages in it so sensitive to me that I feel a
special spiritual emanation from them. I will be glad of a new cushion
for The Book, for the one on which it now lies is worn and shabby, and
that ought not to be."

"Then I cannot give you a new Bible, even for the church."

"Impossible! I could not preach from a new Bible. Colonel, it is not
a book, it is a friend. We have secrets together. I have promises from
it, that are yet owing me. It holds our confidences for thirty years.
Sometimes I think it really speaks to me. Sometimes a glory seems to
shine over the page I am reading, and my soul is so happy, that my
tongue speaks aloud joyfully the shining words that have been given
me."

"I would not separate you from such a Bible, Sir."

"I shall be grateful if you give me a new cushion for it. Nothing is
too good for The Book."

Then they stood looking thoughtfully over the bare place. It had an
old, past look. It was plain and moldy, and needed repairing in every
way. The Colonel made a note of what was required in the nave of the
kirk, and then glanced upward. The gallery appeared to be in still
worse condition, but in front of it there was a wonderfully beautiful
model of a full-rigged ship.

"Ah!" exclaimed the Colonel, "a ship instead of a clock! Is that
right, Sir?"

"Quite. I put it there. It was made by a sailor lad born in Culraine,
who came here to die. Long, painful, hopeless days were soothed by the
fashioning of that miniature ship. All the village watched its
progress, all felt an interest in the dying lad. He finished it on the
eve of his death. Young and old came to bid him good-by, and to see
his white, trembling hands dress the topmost spar, and fly the blue
Peter. 'I am just about to sail,' he said, 'sae I'll up wi' the blue
Peter. That means I'm ready to go. Let her carry it till I'm safely
hame.' I put a new Peter on the top-mast last year," said the Domine,
and his eyes filled with tears, as he looked steadfastly at the
emblem.

"We seem to expect a clock in the front of the gallery, Sir. Can a
ship take its place?"

"Nothing, nothing, could be more appropriate. The favorite image of
the church in all ages has been a ship, or a boat. The first preaching
was connected with a ship, for while Noah builded the ark, he preached
repentance. The holiest object of the Jewish tabernacle was the ark,
made like a boat. All Christ's known life is associated with boats.
The favorite image of the early persecuted church was a boat beaten by
the winds and waves, and our own churches preserve everywhere this
world-wide idea, by calling the body of the church the nave, from
navis, a ship."

"That is very interesting information, Sir," said Angus.

"You are going to Venice, Ballister; you will find many of the oldest
churches in Venice built in the shape of a ship; and near Lisbon there
is a chapel of marble, with pillars like masts, and its sails and
cordage carved on the walls. Is not this life a voyage to the eternal
shores, and what could typify our safety better than a ship with
Christ for the captain of our salvation? You see, I will still be
preaching. I make no excuse."

"None is necessary. We are glad to listen."

"Come now, Christine, and I will give you medicine for your mother.
Gentlemen, in a few minutes I will return here."

When they were alone the Domine said: "Christine, you did wisely, and
your speech was correct and beautiful, but I would advise you to keep
your English for special occasions."

"Sir, not even my father and mother know I can drop the Scotch. When
the time comes to tell them, I----"

"Yes, yes. And the villagers? It might be an offense."

"You are right, Sir."

"You speak as if you had learned to speak at the Maraschal."

"Yes, sir. I learned it from Neil. We always talked it together, for
Neil hated the dialect, and I made a bargain wi' him. I promised to
talk as he taught me, if he would keep the circumstance from everyone.
He said he would, and he has stood by his promise. Sae have I, but I
hae been talking English nearly five years now."

"You wonderful woman! Then this morning you gave yourself away."

"I wanted to do it--I couldna resist the want. And it was only to you,
and the twa Ballisters. Nane o' you three will go blabbing. Anyway,
when Neil leaves the Maraschal, he will care little how I talk. He'll
hae finer folk than Christine, to crack and claver wi'."

"He will not find finer folk easily. Now run home as quickly as you
can, and prepare your father and mother for the Ballister visit. I
will come with him, and ask your mother to have a cup of tea by the
fire for us."

"Will Angus be wi' ye, Sir?"

"No, he will not."

"Why?"

"Because I am going to send him to the factor's, and also to Lawyer
Semple's. You need not be looking for him. Try and leave well alone.
It is hard to make well better, and it is very easy to make it worse.
If you hurry a little, I think you may be home by twelve o'clock."

So Christine hurried a little, and reached home by the noon hour. Her
dinner was ready, and her father very unexpectedly was sitting by the
fireside.

"Feyther," she said, "I hope you arena sick," and then she smiled at
the inquiry, for his broad, rosy face was the very picture of robust
health.

"Sick! Na, na, lassie! I'm weel enou', but Norman was feeling badly.
His arm hurts him sairly, and I was noticing that the fish had gane to
deep waters. We'll hae a storm before long."

Then Christine served the dinner waiting for her, and while they were
eating, she told the great news of a school for Culraine. Ruleson was
quickly enthusiastic. Margot, out of pure contradiction, deplored the
innovation.

The walk to the toun, she said, was gude for the childer. If they were
too tired to learn after it, it showed that learning was beyond their
capabilities, and that they would be better making themsel's usefu' at
hame. And what were women with large families to do without their big
lads to bring water to wash wi', and their half-grown lasses to tak'
care o' the babies, and help wi' the cooking and cleaning?

"But, Margot," said Ruleson, "think o' the outcome for the
childer----Think o'----"

"Ye dinna require to tell me the outcome. As soon as the childer get
what they ca' an education, they hurry awa' to some big city, or
foreign country, and that's the end o' them. Settle a school here, and
I'll tell you the plain result--in a few years we'll hae neither lads
nor boats, and the lasses now growing up will hae to go to Largo, or
to some unkent place for husbands. Gie our lads books, and you'll
ne'er get them into the boats. That's a fact! I'm tellin' you!"

Between Margot and Christine the argument continued all afternoon, but
Ruleson went to the foot of the hill, and looked at the land proposed
for the site of the future school. He was glad that it was his land,
and he was so much of a natural poet that he could see the white
building, and the boys and girls trooping in and out of its wide
doors. And the vision of the children playing together there was so
clear to his imagination, that he carefully stepped off the acres he
supposed would give them sufficient room for their games; and then
shutting his eyes that he might see better, he decided that it was too
small, and so stepped off another acre.

"I'll ne'er scrimp the childer, God bless them!" he thought, "for it
will be a happy day to James Ruleson, when he sees them runnin' to
these acres wi' books and balls in their hands."

Then he went home, and Margot said something about his Sunday claes,
but James did not heed her. He put on a clean shirt, and a suit of
blue flannel. His shirt was open at the throat, his feet were in boots
that reached nearly to his knees. But he had a grandly satisfied look,
and the beautiful courtesy of men who as a rule think only good of
their neighbors, and do only good to them.

Margot, like Christine, was in her fisher-costume, with little
accentuations in Christine's case; but Margot was the very mate for
the splendid man she called "her man." Scotch, from head to feet,
douce and domestic, yet cleverer than James, though obedient to him--a
good woman, fit for the work of this world, and not forgetful
concerning a better one.

Keeping in mind the Domine's directions about a cup of tea, Christine
laid the table with their best linen and china, and though no
difference was made in the food provided, Christine saw that it was
well cooked. After all, it was quite an event for James Ruleson, and
in the outcome of it he expected to realize one of the greatest
pleasures that could come to him.

About five o'clock the Domine and Ballister arrived. They entered a
room full of the feeling of home. It was clean, and white as a snow
drift, and there was a bright fire blazing on the hearth. The covered
table with its knives and forks and spoons, and its gilt rimmed
teacups, was in itself a symbol of hospitality. The Domine looked at
it, and then said, "Margot, you are baking sea trout. I told you never
to do that again, when I was coming, unless you intended asking me to
help in the eating of it."

"Today, they were cooked special for you, Sir, and I hope you will hae
the good will to pleasure me in the eating o' them."

"Certainly, Margot, certainly! I could not resist your invitation."

Hearing these words, Ruleson rose, and said, "Colonel, if you will
join the Domine at the meal God has gi'en us, James Ruleson will
gladly break bread with you."

After these preliminaries, Christine served the meal, and then waited
on her parents and their guests. They ate the fish with great
enjoyment. It was to the Colonel a gastronomical discovery. No
anchovy, no sauces of any kind, just the delicate fish, baked with a
few slices of Ayrshire ham, and served with potatoes boiled in their
jackets so skillfully that the jackets dropped from them when
touched. It was a dish pure and simple, and captivated every palate.
Nothing more was needed that Christine's quiet service and the
animated conversation did not supply. As to Margot, she was kept busy
filling small cups with that superexcellent tea we get in Scotland,
and find it next to impossible to get anywhere else.

After the fish was fully eaten, Christine--almost without notice--cleared
the table, and brought on a rice pudding, and a large pitcher of
cream. The men ate the whole of it. Perhaps they did so unconsciously,
for they were talking about the school in an enthusiastic manner, while
it was disappearing. Then James Ruleson lit his pipe, and the Colonel
his cigar, and they sat down at the fireside. The Domine, with a smile
of perfect happiness, sat between them, and every remnant of dinner
silently disappeared.

During the hour following the Domine drafted the principal items to be
discussed and provided for, and it was further resolved to call a
village meeting in the Fishers' Hall, for the next evening. Then the
Colonel's carriage was waiting, and he rose, but really with some
reluctance. He cast his eyes over the comfortable room, and looked
with admiration on the good man who called it home, on the bright,
cheery woman, whose love made it worth the name, and on the girl who
filled it with her beauty; and he said to Margot, "Mrs. Ruleson, I
have eaten today the very best of dinners. I enjoyed every mouthful
of it."

"Indeed, the dinner was good, Colonel; and we were proud and glad o'
your company."

"And you will meet us in the Hall tomorrow night, and bring all the
women you can with you?"

"I'll do my best, Sir, but our women are a dour lot. They lay out
their ain way, and then mak' the taking o' it a point o' duty."

And all the way to Ballister House the Colonel wondered about his
dinner--no flowers on the table, no napkins, no finger bowls, no
courses, no condiments or pickles, no wine, not even a thimbleful of
whiskey, nothing but excellently cooked fresh fish and potatoes, a
good cup of tea with it, and then a rice pudding and plenty of cream.
"Wonderful!" he ejaculated. "Upon my word, things are more evenly
balanced than we think. I know noblemen and millionaires that are far
from being as happy, or as well fed, as Ruleson's family."

The next morning the bellman went through the village calling men and
women together at half-past seven, in the Fishers' Hall; and there was
great excitement about the matter. Even the boys and girls here took a
noisy part in the discussion, for and against, the argument in this
class being overwhelmingly in favor of the school.

Among the adults, opinion was also divided. There were lazy mothers
who could not do without their girls' help, and greedy fathers who
expected their little lads to make, or at least save them a few
shillings a week; and Christine feared the gift would be ungraciously
taken. Ruleson had a long talk with big Peter Brodie, and Peter told
him not to fash himsel' anent a lot o' ignorant women and men folk. If
they were such fools, as not to ken a blessing when it was put into
their vera hands, they ought to be made to understand the fact; and
with a peculiar smile he intimated that he would take great
satisfaction in gieing them as many lessons as they required.

The meeting was, however, crowded, and when the Colonel and the Domine
stepped on the platform, the audience were just in the mood to give
them a rousing cheer. It opened the Domine's mouth, and he said:

"Friends, I have great and good news for you. Colonel Ballister is
going to build us a school of our own. We shall want some of you as
Trustees, and others will have to form an executive board. We are
going to have a women's board as well. The men's board will look after
the management of the school. The women's board will look after the
bairns, and see that they get fair play in every respect. A women's
board will be a new thing, but Culraine is not afraid of new ways, if
they be better ways." Then he went into particulars, which we need not
do, and concluded by telling them that James Ruleson had given land
both for the school and the playground, and that it was hoped James'
approval would stand for many, and much. "We will now take the vote
of both men and women for, or against, the school."

Then a man in the center of the crowded hall stood up. It was Peter
Brodie.

"Gentlemen," he said, "a vote is outside necessity. We dinna vote as
to whether we want sunshine, or fish, or bread. We are sure o' the
matter. The school is mental bread and meat and sunshine to our lads
and lasses. We thank God for it. There would be a deal o' trouble i'
getting and counting names, and the like o' that. Let us vote,
gentlemen, as our forefathers voted for the Solemn League and
Covenant, by just lifting their right hands above their heads. The
Domine could gie us the word, and if after it there is man or woman
with baith hands down, Peter Brodie will be asking the reason why."

This speech was received with acclamation, and when the tumult had
subsided, the Domine called for the silent vote of approval, that had
ratified their immortal compact with their kirk. He described in
picturesque words that wonderful scene in the Greyfriars' kirkyard,
when sixty thousand right hands rose as promptly as one hand for the
True Religion, and he told them that after the kirk, their first duty
was the school. Then he stood still a moment, and there was a profound
silence. After it came the word:

"Stand!"

Men and women rose as by one impulse.

"Those who are in favor of a school in Culraine, and grateful to God
and man for it, let them lift up their right hands above their
heads."

Every right hand was lifted. There was not a protesting hand, and
Peter Brodie observed that if there had been one, it ought to be cut
off, and cast into the fire, with a' the lave o' useless members.

The meeting was then practically over, but many remained. The room was
warm and lighted, and it seemed unreasonable not to have a song and
story, and dance out of it. Christine was entreated to remain, but she
said her mither wasna feeling well, and she be to gae hame wi' her. In
truth she was much depressed because Angus had not come with his
uncle. She did not like to ask why, and her heart was full of unhappy
surmises. But she put the trouble aside while with her mother, and
gave herself willingly to the discussion of Peter Brodie's ill-bred
and forwardsome behavior.

"I perfectly thought shame of his interference," said Margot.
"Mercifully he spoke some kind o' Scotch, for I hae heard him--special
when he was angry--rave in his native Gaelic, and then he got his ain
way, for nae decent man or woman could answer his unpronounceable
words. They were just a vain babblement."

"Jean Pollok was a' for the school tonight; this morning she was
raving against it."

"That was to be looked for. There is as much two-facedness in some
women, as there's meat in an egg."

"But for all disputing, Mither, everyone seemed to think the school
would be a good thing."

"It is this, and that, and what not, and how it will end nobody knows.
Some folks are ill to please, even when they get their ain way."

"You could hardly make Mary Leslie keep her sitting. She wanted to
stand up, and ask the Domine how she was to cook and wash and clean
and sew and nurse her baby, without the help o' her girls, Jess and
Flora. She said there was eleven in her family, and she wanted to know
how it was to be managed. It was hard to keep her still."

"It was vera barefaced o' her. But she put up her hand wi' the rest."

"Ay, Mither. She was feared for Peter Brodie quarreling with her man.
That's Peter's way o' managing women; he mak's their husbands
responsible for a' they say, and do; he says, 'the husbands ought to
hae brought up their wives better.' He has done it, you know, Mither,
several times."

Margot laughed. "Ay," she said, "for Tamson's wife. Naebody blamed
him. Anne Tamson has a parfectly unruly tongue, and her husband,
Watty, got the licking for what she said anent Frazer and his wife. I
wouldna fear the man mysel', and the maist o' our women could gie him
as much--and mair--than he sends."

So they talked until the cottage was reached, and the day was over.
Christine went gladly to her room. A crusie was burning on the table,
and she removed her gown and uncoiled her long, brown hair. Then all
was still, and she let herself think, and her decision was, "if Angus
had wanted to come, he would have done so.

"It isna my place," she continued, "to tak' care on the subject. I'll
no mak' mysel' and ithers miserable anent him, forbye Angus Ballister
is clear outside me, and my life."

Then she rose and took a large copy book from a drawer, and sitting
down at the table, took pen and ink and wrote:

  November second. I was a little troubled all day about Angus. He
  didna come, and he didna send, and there was neither sign nor
  sight o' him. Weel, my warld went on wanting the lad, and the
  school talk filled the day, and at night I went wi' Mither to the
  meeting about it. From this hour I begin to forget Angus. I will
  ask God to keep my heart from all love's care and sorrow.

Then she put the book away, turned out the light and lay down. But the
old mysterious, hungering sound of the sea had an angry sough in it;
and she went to sleep fearing it, and thinking of it as a deep
starless darkness, hanging over the dreamlike figures of dead sailors
and fishers. At midnight she awoke, the storm her father had predicted
was roaring over the great waters. She went to her little window and
looked out--darkness, wildness, desolation--and she hasted and put
plenty of peats on the fire, and carried her mother an extra quilt.

"I hae made up the fire, Mither dear," she said, "and if ye want to
get up, you'll be warm, and I'll come and sit by you."

"Will I waken your feyther?"

"Whatna for? There's naething to fear. Norman and Eneas are doubtless
at hame. Most o' our men are. Few would start after the dance. They
would see the storm coming."

"Will it be a bad storm?"

"I think it will. But the sea is His, and He made it. If there is a
storm He is guiding it. Ye ken how often we sing 'He plants His
footsteps on the sea, and rides upon the storm.'" And so, sweet-eyed
and fearless, she went away, but left peace and blessing behind her.

In the living room, she laid more peats on the fire. Then she went to
her own room. Some words had been singing in her heart as she moved
about, and she took the big copy book out of the drawer, and stooping
to the crusie burning on the table, she wrote them down:

  The night is black, the winds are wild,
    The waves are taking their own will,
  Dear Jesus, sleeping like a child,
    Awake! and bid the storm be still.

She read the words over with a smile. "They might be worse," she
thought, "but Christine! You hae been writing poetry. You'll hae to
stop that nonsense! Weel, it wasna my fault. It came o' itsel', and I
dinna feel as if I had done anything much out o' the way--and I was
maist asleep, if that is ony kind o' an excuse. I----"




CHAPTER VI

A CHILD, TWO LOVERS, AND A WEDDING

                     Because I am,
  Thy clay that weeps, thy dust that cares,
  Contract my hour that I may climb and find relief.

  Love, thou knowest, is full of jealousy.
  Love's reasons are without reason.


The summer had been full of interest and excitement, but it was over.
There was the infallible sense of ended summer, even at noonday; and
the dahlias and hollyhocks, dripping in the morning mist, seemed to be
weeping for it. If it had been clear cold weather, the fishers would
have been busy and happy, but it was gloomy, with black skies over the
black sea, and bitter north winds that lashed the waves into fury. The
open boats hardly dared to venture out, and the fish lay low, and were
shy of bait.

James Ruleson, generally accompanied by Cluny Macpherson, was out
every day that a boat could live on the sea, and Margot and Christine
often stood together at their door or window, and watched them with
anxious hearts, casting their lines in the lonely, leaden-colored sea.
The boat would be one minute on the ridge of the billow, the next
minute in the trough of the sea, with a wall of water on either hand
of them. And through all, and over all, the plaintive pipe of the
gulls and snipe, the creaking of the boat's cordage, the boom of the
breakers on the shore, the sense and the presence of danger.

And Christine knew that Cluny was in that danger for her sake. He had
told her on the day after the storm, as she sat sympathetically by his
side, that he was only waiting for her "yes or no." He said when she
gave him either one or the other, he would go to the Henderson
steamboats, in one case to work for their future happiness and home,
in the other to get beyond the power of her beauty, so that he might
forget her.

Forget her! Those two words kept Christine uncertain and unhappy. She
could not bear to think of Cluny's forgetting her. Cluny had been part
of all her nineteen years of life. Why must men be so one or the
other? she asked fretfully. Why force her to an uncertain decision?
Why was she so uncertain? Then she boldly faced the question and asked
herself--"Is Angus Ballister the reason?" Perhaps so, though she was
equally uncertain about Angus. She feared the almost insurmountable
difficulties between them. Caste, family, social usage and tradition,
physical deficiencies in education and in all the incidentals of
polite life, not to speak of what many would consider the greatest of
all shortcomings, her poverty. How could two lives so dissimilar as
Angus Ballister's and Christine Ruleson's become one?

She asked her mother this question one day, and Margot stopped beating
her oat cakes and answered, "Weel, there's a' kinds o' men, Christine,
and I'll no say it is a thing impossible; but I hae come to the
conclusion that in the case o' Angus and yoursel' you wouldna
compluter if you lived together a' the rest o' this life."

"Why, Mither?"

"Because you are--the baity o' you--so weel satisfied wi' your present
mak' up. That's a'. And it is a' that is needfu' to keep you baith
from going forwarder. There's a lump a' rank cowardice in it, too."

"Mother, do you think I am a coward?"

"All women are frightened by what is said o' them, or even likely to
be said o' them. And nae wonder. Women are far harder judged than men
are. You would think the Ten Commands were not made for men. Yet if a
woman breaks one o' them, God's sake! what a sinner she is!"

"I don't see what you are meaning, Mither."

"It's plain enou'. Men are not set down below notice, if they break
the twa first a' their lives lang, if so be they pay their deficit to
God in gold to the kirk. How many men do you know, Christine, who
never break the third command? How many men honor the fourth? As to
the fifth, Scots are maistly ready to tak' care o' their ain folk.
The sixth, seventh and eighth belong to the criminal class, and ye'll
allow its maistly made up o' bad men. Concerning the ninth command,
men are warse than women, but men call their ill-natured talk
politics, or het'rodoxy, or some ither grand name; and I'll allow that
as soon as they begin to covet their neighbor's house and wife and
horses and cattle, they set to wark, and mak' money and build a bigger
house than he hes, and get a bonnier wife, and finer-blooded horses
and cattle--and I'm not saying whether they do well or ill--there is
sae much depending on the outcome o' prosperity o' that kind. But tak'
men as a whole, they leave the Ten Commands on the shoulders o' their
wives."

"And do the women obey them, Mither?"

"Middling well. They do love God, and they do go to kirk. They don't
swear, and as a general thing they honor their fathers and mothers.
They don't, as a rule, murder or steal or tak' some ither woman's
husband awa' from her. I'm no clear about women and the ninth and
tenth command. They are apt to long for whatever is good and
beautiful--and I don't blame them."

"I wish I was better educated, Mother. I would be able to decide
between Angus and Cluny."

"Not you. The key of your life is in your heart, not in your brain."

"It is a pity."

"That is, as may be. In the long run, your feelings will decide, and
they are likely to be mair sensible than your reasons. And where love
is the because o' your inquiry, I'll warrant a bit o' good sense is
best o' all advisers."

"What is gude sense? How can a girl get it?"

"Gude sense is the outcome o' all our senses. As regards Ballister,
ca' to your decision a bit o' wholesome pride. Ye ken what I mean."

"Weel, weel, Angus is far awa', and Cluny is only waiting the word I
canna say, and what will I do when I hae nae lover at a', at a'?"

"When you haven't what you love, you must love what you hae. And I
fear there is a heart fu' o' cares ready for us to sort. Geordie
Sinclair was telling your father that Neil is flinging a big net i'
Aberdeen--dining wi' rich folk o' all kinds, and rinning as close
friend wi' a lad ca'ed Rath. He was saying, also, that Rath has lying
siller, plenty, o' it, and that he is studying law in the same classes
as Neil, at the Maraschal."

"I dinna see why we should fret oursel's anent Neil dining wi' rich
folk. He was aye talkin' o' his intention to do the same. The mair
rich friends he has, the better; it isna puir folk that go to law.
Neil is casting his net vera prudently, nae doubt. I'll warrant it
will be takin' for him even while he sleeps. Worry is just wasted on
Neil."

"I'm thinking that way mysel', but feyther is feared he will be
spending money he shouldna spend."

"He is lawyer enou' to ken the outcome o' that way. Neil will be on
the safe side--every day, and always! There's nae need to fash
oursel's anent Neil!"

"Weel then, your feyther is sairly heart-hurt anent Allan's youngest
laddie. Last New Year when he went to Glasgow to see Allan, he thought
things were far wrang, and he has worried himsel' on the matter ever
since. It is a dreadful thing to say, but the bairn is vera delicate,
and his mother isna kind to him. She is a big strong woman, ne'er sick
hersel', and without feeling for a bairn that is never well, and often
vera sick. Feyther said his heart was sair for the little fellow,
lyin' wakefu' lang nights wi' pain and fear, and naebody in the house
carin'. Yesterday feyther hed a letter frae your brither Allan, and he
was fu' o' grief, and begging feyther to go and see the bairn, and if
possible tak' him to Culraine, and try if we could do anything to help
him to health and happiness."

"Will she let feyther hae him?"

"She's as uncertain as the wind, but the lad is named James after his
grandfeyther, and he'll ask for him, on that plea."

"O Mither, get feyther to go at once! I'll tak' a' the trouble o' the
child! Only to think o' it! Only to think o' it! A mither no carin'
for her suffering child!"

"She doesna ken what suffering is, hersel'. She ne'er tak's cold and
she doesna see why ither folks should. She is never fearsome, or
nervous, she never feels the dark to be full o' what terrifies her
vera soul, and she canna understand her bairn's terror. She treats him
vera much as she treats his brithers, but they are big, rugged lads,
that naething hurts or frights. All right for them, but she is slowly
killin' little James, and you couldna mak' her see it."

"Feyther ought not to lose an hour."

"He'll hae to be vera cautious i' the matter. Allan's wife isna easily
managed. Proud and strong in her health and youth, she is fairly
scounfu' o' the weak and sick, but I think your feyther can manage
her. I'll get him awa' tomorrow, if so be it's possible."

Then there was such pressure of the two women brought to bear upon the
grandfather's heart, that he was eager for the morning to come, and
before it was yet light he was away to the town, to catch the earliest
train to Edinburgh, from which place he could get quick transit to
Glasgow.

"Now, Mither, we hae done a' we can, at the present, for Allan's
little lad," said Christine. "Do you think feyther will write to us?"

"I'm sure he will not. He wad rayther do a hard day's work than write
a letter. What are you going to do wi' your day, dearie?"

"I am going to write to Neil."

"Do. You might remind him that his feyther and mither are yet living
in Culraine."

"That news isna worth while. If he wants to write, he'll write. If he
doesna want to write, we arena begging letters. I'm thinking mair o'
little James than I am o' Neil. You dinna like his mither, I'm
thinking?"

"You're thinking right. Allan picked her up in some unkent place, and
when a man lives between sailing and docking, he hasna time to ken
what he's doing. Forbye, Christine, new relations dinna get into their
place easy. They mind me o' that new dress my sister sent me frae
Liverpool. It wanted a lot o' taking-in, and o' letting-out. It's just
that way wi' new relations. Allan's wife required plentiful taking-in,
and the mair letting-out there was, the mair unfittable she became."
Then Margot rubbed the end of her nose with an air of scorn, and said
decidedly, "She wasna a comprehensible woman. I couldna be fashed wi'
her. It isna the bringing o' bairns to the birth, that hurts the heart
and spoils the life o' a mither, it's the way lads and lasses marry
themsel's that mak's her wish she had neither lad nor lass to her
name."

"Mither, that isna like you."

"Allan was just twenty-three when he married the woman, without word
or wittens to any o' us. It was a bad day's wark, and he hes never
been able to mend it. For there's nae takin'-in or lettin'-out wi' his
wife. She is sure she is parfect, and what will you do, what can you
do, wi' a parfect woman? I hope and pray that I'll never fall into
that state; parfection isna suitable for this warld."

"It ought to be a grand virtue, Mither."

"It's the warst o' all the vices. We hae three or four specimens o' it
in the village o' Culraine, and they are the maist unenlightened
people we hae to tak' care o'. But when parfection is born o'
ignorance, it is unconquerable. The Domine said sae, and that only God
could manage a parfect man or woman."

"When little James comes, wouldn't it be well to hae the Domine look
him over? He can tell us what's the matter wi' the laddie, and what we
ought to do for him."

"That is a sensible observe, Christine. There will be nae harm in
doing what it calls for."

"Now I'll awa', and write to Neil. Hae ye ony special message for him,
Mither?"

"You might say I would like to ken something anent thae Raths. They
arena Fifemen, nor Shetlanders, Highland Scots, nor Lowland Scots; and
I'm thinking they may be Irish, and if sae, I'm hopin' they hae the
true faith."

"Mither dear, I wouldna fash wi' the Raths. They are simply naething
to us, and if we set Neil on 'praising and proving,' he'll write pages
anent them."

"Sae he will. You might name the ninety pound he's owing you."

"It wouldna be advisable. Neil will pay when it's fully convenient to
himsel'. I'm not expecting a farthing until it is sae."

"I can think o' nae ither thing. It seems vera superfluous to tell
Neil to be good, and to do good. He has the gift o' admiring himsel'.
Tell him he can be thankful, for it isna every man that has the same
capability."

"I'll read you my letter, Mither, when I hae written it."

"You'd better not. You'll say lots I wouldna say, and naething I would
say, and the amends and contradictions would require another letter o'
explanations. I'm going to look through my ain lads' outgrown breeks
and jackets. I'll warrant wee James will come to us next door to
naked."

"I didna know that you had saved the lads' auld claes."

"Did you think I wad throw them awa'? All our lads grew quick, they
ne'er wore out a suit, and I put their wee breeks and coaties awa'. I
thought they might come in for their ain bairns, and lo and behold!
Allan's little lad is, like as not, to come into his feyther's Sunday
raiment."

"Did you save their shirts and such like?"

"Why wouldn't I? But vera few linen things are left. They were too
easy to wear and tear, to be long-lived, but I fancy I can find a
sleeping gown for the bairn, and maybe a shirt or twa. But stockings
are beyond mention. They got them into unmendable holes, and left them
in the boats, or the fish sheds, and I fairly wore my knitting
needles awa' knitting for lads wha wouldna use their feet ony way but
skin-bare."

So the grandmother went to find what clothes she could for a little
lad of eight years old, and Christine sat down to answer Neil's last
letter. To herself she called it an "overflowing screed." Indeed it
was full of the great Reginald Rath, his fine family, his comfortable
wealth, his sister, Roberta, and her highly respectable house in the
Monteith Row o'erby the Green of Glasgow City. Christine told him in
reply that she was glad he had found a friend so conformable to all
his wishes. She asked him if he had heard lately from Angus Ballister,
and casually mentioned that the Domine had received ten days ago a
letter from the Colonel about the school building, and that Angus had
sent her some bonnie pictures of the city of Rome. She also informed
him that his nephew was coming to Culraine, and that she herself was
going to take the charge of him, and so might not have time to write
as often as she had done.

In the afternoon Faith came from the village to help with the nets
a-mending, and she brought the village gossip with her, and among the
news of all kinds, the date of her own marriage. She was going to wed
the Largo man on Christmas Day, and she had forgotten her loneliness
and melancholy, and laughed and joked pleasantly, as she went over her
plans with Christine. Margot watched her, and listened to her with
great interest, and when at sunset the lassie went down the hill, she
said to Christine: "Wonders never cease. Faith Balcarry was moping
melancholy, she is now as merry as a cricket. She was sick and going
to die, she's now well and going to marry. She had nane to love her,
and nane she loved. Her whole talk now is o' the Largo man, and the
wonderfu' love he has for her, and the untelling love she has for him.
Weel! Weel! I hae learned ane thing this afternoon."

"What hae you learned, Mither?"

"I hae learned, that when a lass is dying wi' a sair affliction, that
there is parfect salvation in a lad."

It was the evening of the third day ere James Ruleson returned home.
He had met no difficulties with Mrs. Allan Ruleson that were not
easily removed by the gift of a sovereign. And he found the little
lad quietly but anxiously waiting for him. "My feyther whispered
to me that you would come," he said softly, as he snuggled into
James' capacious breast. "I was watching for you, I thought I could
hear your footsteps, after twelve o'clock today they were coming
nearer, and nearer--when you chappit at the door, I knew it was
you--Grandfeyther!" And James held the child tighter and closer in
his arms, and softly stroked the white, thin face that was pressed
against his heart.

"I'm going to tak' you hame to your grandmither, and your aunt
Christine," James whispered to the boy. "You are going to get well
and strong, and big, and learn how to read and write and play,
yoursel', like ither bairns."

"How soon? How soon?"

"Tomorrow."

"I thought God didna know about me. Such long, long days and nights."

"You puir little lad! God knew all the time. It is o'er by now."

"Will it come again?"

"Never! Never again!"

The next day they left Glasgow about the noon hour. The child had no
clothing but an old suit of his elder brother, and it was cold winter
weather. But James made no remark, until he had the boy in the train
for Edinburgh. Then he comforted him with all the kind words he could
say, and after a good supper, they both went early to bed in a small
Edinburgh hostelry.

In the morning, soon after nine o'clock, James took his grandson to a
ready-made tailor's shop, and there he clothed him from head to feet
in a blue cloth suit. From the little white shirt to the little blue
cloth cap on his long fair hair, everything was fit and good, and the
child looked as if he had been touched by a miracle. He was now a
beautiful boy, spiritually frail and fair, almost angelic. Ruleson
looked at him, then he looked at the pile of ragged clothes that had
fallen from his little shrunken form, and he kicked them with his big
feet to the other end of the shop. A thick, warm overcoat, and new
shoes and stockings, were added to the outfit, and then they were
ready for their home train.

As they walked slowly down Prina's Street, they met a regiment of
Highland soldiers, accompanied by a fine military band. The boy was
enthralled, he could not speak his delight, but he looked into his
grandfather's face with eyes painfully eloquent. It was evident that
he had life to learn, not gradually, as the usual infant learns it;
but that its good and evil would assail him through all his senses in
their full force. And Ruleson understood, partially, how abnormally
large and important very trivial events might appear to him.

Soon after four o'clock they arrived at their destination, and found a
train omnibus about to go their way. Ruleson lifted his grandson into
it, and the vehicle set them down at the foot of his own hill; then he
carried the boy up to the cottage in his arms. The door was closed,
but there was the shining of fire and candlelight through the windows.
Yet their arrival was unnoticed, until Ruleson entered and stood the
little child in the middle of the room. With a cry of welcome Margot
and Christine rose. Ruleson pointed to the child standing in their
midst. The next moment Christine was removing his coat and cap, and
when Margot turned to him, his beauty and the pathos of his thin,
white face went straight to her heart. She took him in her arms and
said, "Bonnie wee laddie, do ye ken that I am your grandmither?"

"Ay, grandmither," he answered, "I ken. And I hae a grandfeyther too.
I am vera happy. Dinna send me awa', for ony sake."

Then the women set him in a big chair, and admired and loved him from
head to feet--his fair hair, his wonderful eyes, his little hands so
white and thin--his wee feet in their neat, well-fitting shoes--his
dress so good and so becoming--this new bairn of theirs was altogether
an unusual one in Culraine.

Ruleson quickly made himself comfortable in his usual house dress.
Christine began to set the table for their evening meal, and Margot
buttered the hot scones and infused the tea. This meal had a certain
air of festivity about it, and the guest of honor was the little child
sitting at Ruleson's right hand.

They had scarcely begun the meal, when there was a knock at the door,
and to Margot's cheerful "Come in, friend," Dr. Trenabie entered.

"Blessing on this house!" he said reverently, and then he walked
straight to the child, and looked earnestly into his face. The boy
looked steadily back at him, and as he did so he smiled, and held up
his arms. Then the Domine stooped and kissed him, and the thin, weak
arms clasped him round the neck.

It was a tender, silent moment. The man's eyes were misty with tears,
and his voice had a new tone in it as he said, "Ruleson, this little
lad is mine, as well as yours. I have been spoken to. Through him we
shall all be greatly blessed, and we shall yet see a grand preacher
come out of the boats and the fisherman's cottage."

There was a few moments' silence, and then Margot said, "Take your
sitting, Sir, and a cup o' tea will do you mair gude than doing
without it."

"I'll sit down gladly." Then they talked of the child's extreme
weakness and nervousness, and the Domine said that with plenty of
fresh milk, and fresh fish, and with all the fresh air he could
breathe, and all the sleep he could shut his eyes for, the little one
would soon be well. "Then Christine," he said, "must give him his
first lessons. After they have been learned, it will be joy of Magnus
Trenabie to see him safe through school and college. Give me so much
interest in the boy, Ruleson, for he is called and chosen, and we have
in our hands the making of a Man of God."

Later in the evening, when the school affairs had been discussed and
the boy and Christine had disappeared, the Domine was told the few sad
incidents which made up the whole life of little James Ruleson. There
was a strong tendency on his grandfather's part to make excuses for
the mother of the neglected boy. "You see, Domine," he said, "she has
never been sick, and her ither children are as rugged as hersel'. She
couldna understand James. She didna ken what to do wi' him, or for
him."

"I know, Ruleson, but physical pride is as real a sin as spiritual
pride, and is the cause of much suffering and unhappiness. My own
father was one of those bronze men, who thought weakness to be
cowardice, and sickness to be mostly imagination. His children were
all weak and sensitive, but he insisted on our roughing it. Fagging
and hazing were good for us, he enjoyed them. Bodily strain and mental
cram were healthy hardening processes. I had a little sister, she was
weak and fearful, he insisted on her taking the cold water cure.
Nerves were all nonsense! 'Look at me!' he would say proudly, 'I get
up early, I work all day, I know nothing about headaches, or
neuralgia, or nerves'--In the world he passed for a genial, hearty
man."

"We hae plenty o' such unfeeling fellows," said Ruleson. "I dinna
fret, when they hae a hard spell o' rheumatism. Not I!"

"It is not mere flesh and blood, Ruleson, that moves the earth on its
axis. It is men whose intelligent brows wear the constant plait of
tension, whose manner reveals a debility beneath which we know that
suffering lurks, and who have an unconscious plaintiveness about them.
Such men have fits of languor, but let the occasion come and they
command their intellect and their hands just as easily as a workman
commands his tools. The mother of this boy of ours was a physical
tyrant in her home, and she never suspected that she had under her
control and keeping a spirit touched and prepared for the finest
issues of life. Oh, Ruleson,

  "Sad it is to be weak,
    And sadder to be wrong,
  But if the strong God's statutes break,
    'Tis saddest to be strong."

The child became rapidly an integral part of the household. No one
thought of him as a transient guest, no one wanted him in that light,
and he unconsciously made many changes. Margot often spoke to
Christine of them: "Were you noticing your feyther this afternoon,
Christine?" she asked one day, when little James had been two weeks
with them. "Were you noticing him?"

"How, Mither, or whatna for?"

"Weel, as soon as he was inside the house, the laddie had his hand,
and when he sat down he was on his knee, and showing him the book, and
saying his letters to him--without missing ane o' them, and granddad
listening, and praising him, and telling him it was wonderfu', an' the
like o' that."

"Weel, then, it is wonderfu'! He learns as if he was supping new milk.
He'll be ready for the school when the school is ready for him. And
he's nae trouble in ony way. The house would be gey dull wanting
him."

"That's truth itsel'. I like to hear his soft footsteps, and I would
miss his crooning voice going o'er his lessons. You mustna gie him too
lang, or too many lessons. I hae heard learning tasks were bad for
sickly weans."

"Perhaps that was the cause o' his mither neglecting him anent his
books, and such things?"

"Not it! His mither is a lazy, unfeeling hizzy! I'd like to hae the
sorting o' her--fine!"

"Maybe he was too sick to be bothered wi' books and lessons."

"Maybe he wad niver hae been sick at a', if he had been gi'en a few
books and lessons. Griselda Ruleson had better keep out o' my
presence. If she ventures into it, the words arena to seek, that I'll
gie her."

One cold afternoon Christine was hearing the boy's lessons when Cluny
Macpherson called. He looked annoyed at the child's presence and said,
"I saw your mither in the village, sae I thought I wad hae a chance to
speak a few words to you, wi' nane by, but oursel's."

"You needna mind wee James."

"Send him awa'. I want you, and nane but you."

James was sent away, and then Christine said, "You hae got your will,
Cluny. Now what hae you to say to me, that the little one couldna
listen to?"

"I want to know, Christine, when you will marry me. I hae been waiting
months for that word, and I can wait nae langer. I'm goin' awa'
tomorrow."

"Your waiting isna over, Cluny. Indeed no! I'm not thinking o'
marriage, nor o' anything like it. I canna think o' it. Mither isna
fit for any hard wark, even the making o' a bed is mair than she ought
to do. I'm not thinking o' marriage. Not I!"

"It is time you were. Maist o' our girls marry when they are nineteen
years auld."

"I'm not nineteen yet. I don't want to marry. I hae my wark and my
duty right here, i' this house--wark that God has set me, and I'll not
desert it for wark I set mysel', to please mysel'."

"That's the way wi' women. They bring up God and their duty to screen
their neglect o' duty. Hae ye nae duty towards me?"

"Not that I know of."

"Will you let a lad gie ye his life-lang love, and feel nae duty anent
it?"

"I dinna ask you for your love. I hae told you, mair than once, that I
dinna want any man's love."

"Tuts! That is out o' all nature and custom. Ye be to marry some
man."

"I havna seen the man yet."

"I'm thinking it will be Angus Ballister. I'll mak' him black and blue
from head to foot, if he comes near Culraine again."

"You talk foolishness. The Ballisters own twenty houses or mair, in
Culraine."

"Houses! Twa rooms, a but and a ben, and a heather roof. What are they
bothering us the now for? They hae let Culraine well alane for
years--it is only sin' you and your beauty cam' to the forefront,
that they hae remembered us. The factor, to gather their rents, was a'
we saw o' them, till your brither brought that dandified lad here, and
then the auld man had to come--on the report o' your beauty, nae
doubt."

There was a fishing net which required mending, hanging against the
wall, and Christine, standing in front of it, went on weaving the
broken meshes together. She did not answer the jealous, impetuous
young man, and all at once he became conscious of her silence.

"Why don't you speak to me, Christine? Oh lassie, canna you pity a lad
sae miserable as I am, and a' for the love I hae for you. I'm sorry!
I'm sorry! I'm broken-hearted, if I hae angered you! My dear! My dear
love! Will ye na speak ane word to me?"

Then she turned to him a face full of pity and anger, yet strangely
beautiful. "Cluny," she said, "I'll talk to you, if you'll speak o'
yoursel' and let be a' ither folk."

"How can I? I'm sick wi' the fear that you love, that you intend to
marry Ballister. Tell me straight, and be done wi' it, if that is what
you intend to do."

"You havna any right to ask me such a question. I never gave you any
right to do sae."

"You hae let me love ye wi' a' my heart and soul for fifteen years. Is
that naething?"

"Ithers hae loved me, as weel as you."

"They hev not. Nane on this earth lo'es you as I lo'e you. Nane!"

The man was beyond himself in uttering these words. It was a Cluny
transfigured by a great love. The loftier Inner Man spoke for his
mortal brother, and Christine looked at him and was astonished. He
appeared to be taller, he was wonderfully handsome, his attitude of
entreaty in some way ennobled him, and his voice had a strange tone of
winning command in it, as he stretched out his arms and said:

"Come to me, Christine. I love you so! I love you so! You cannot say
me 'nay' this afternoon. It is perhaps the last time. My dearie, I am
going away tomorrow--it might be forever."

"Cluny! Cluny! You distress me! What do you wish me to say, or do?"

"Tell me the truth about Ballister. Are you going to marry him?"

"I am not."

"Perhaps not this year--but next year?"

"I am never going to marry him in any year."

"Will you marry Cluny Macpherson?"

"It is not unlikely."

"When? Be merciful, dearie."

"There are several things in the way o' my marrying anyone just yet."

"Ay, there's that new bairn i' the house. Whatna for is he here?"

"He is my brither Allan's son. He is sick, we are going to mak' him
weel."

"Ay, and you'll wear a' your love on the little brat, and send a man
that lo'es you to death awa' hungry."

"Cluny, I love no man better than I love you. Will not that satisfy
you?"

"Na. It's a mouthfu', that's a'. And it leaves me hungrier than ever;"
and he smiled and clasped her hands so fondly, that she sat down
beside him, and let him draw her close to his heart.

"Dearest woman on earth," he whispered, "when will you be my ain? My
very ain! My wife!"

"When the right time comes, laddie. I love none better than you. I'm
not likely to love anyone better. When the right time comes----"

"What do you ca' the right time?"

"When I can marry without neglecting any duty that God has left in my
hands to perform, or look after. I canna say mair. There are many
things to consider. Mither could not be left yet, and I am not going
to leave her for any man--and I hae promised to tak' a' the care and
charge o' Allan's little lad, but it's Mither I am thinking mainly
on."

"How soon will she be well?"

"In God's good time."

"Christine, surely I hae trysted you this very hour. Give me ane, just
ane kiss, dearie. I'll get through years, if need be, wi' a kiss and a
promise, and work will be easy to do, and siller be easy to save, if
Christine be at the end o' them."

Then he kissed her, and Christine did not deny him, but when he took
from his vest pocket a pretty gold ring holding an emerald stone, she
shook her head.

"It's your birthstone, dearie," he said, "and it will guard you, and
bring you luck, and, mind you o' me beside. Tak' it, frae Cluny, do!"

"Na, na, Cluny! I hae often heard my mither say, 'I hae plenty now,
but the first thing I owned was my wedding ring.'"

"I thought it would mind you o' Cluny, and the promise ye hae just
made him."

"If I mak' a promise, Cluny, I'll be requiring no reminder o' the
same."

"Will you gie me a lock o' your bonnie brown hair, to wear next my
heart?"

"I'll hae no charms made out o' my hair. Tak' my word, just as I gave
it. As far as I know, I'll stand by my word, when the right time
comes."

"If you would just say a word anent the time. I mean as to the
probabilities."

"I won't. I can't, Cluny. I havna the ordering o' events. You'll be
back and forth doubtless. Where are you going?"

"To the Mediterranean service, on ane o' the Henderson boats. I'll be
making siller on thae boats."

"Dinna mak' it for me. It is you, your ain sel' I'll marry, and I
wouldna mind if we started wi' the wedding ring, as Mither did. Folks
may happen live on love, but they canna live without it."

"I would hae chosen you, Christine, from out o' a warld fu' o' women,
but I like to think o' you as mine by predestination, as well as
choice."

"I didna think your Calvinism went that far, Cluny. They'll be haeing
a kirk session on your views, if you publicly say the like. Ye be to
ta' care o' the elders, laddie."

They could talk now cheerfully and hopefully, and Cluny went away from
Christine that night like a new man, for

  There is no pleasure like the pain
  Of being loved, and loving.

Then every day seemed to be happier than the last. The child was
sunshine in the house, whatever the weather might be. His thin, soft
voice, his light step, above all, his shy little laugh, went to their
hearts like music. He had only learned to laugh since he came to
Culraine. Margot remembered the first time she had heard him laugh.
She said he had been almost afraid, and that he had looked inquiringly
into her face, as if he had done something he should not have done.

So the weeks and the months wore away, and the winter came, but the
weather was sunny and not very cold, and in early December Ruleson
wrapped his grandson up in one of his own pilot coats, and took him to
the boat, and carried him to the fishing ground, and showed him how to
cast and draw the line. And Jamie took naturally to the sea, and loved
it, and won Ruleson's heart over again, whenever he begged to go with
him.

Then Christmas and New Year were approaching, and there were many
other pleasures and interests. Faith's marriage was drawing near, and
she was frequently at Ruleson's, for the girl relied on Christine's
help and advice in all matters concerning the new life to which she
was going. This year also, Christmas was made memorable by a box full
of gifts which came all the way from Rome, with the compliments and
good will of the Ballisters and which contained many remembrances for
the villagers. For Ruleson himself there was a fine barometer, to
Margot a brooch and earrings of white cameo, and to Christine some
lovely lace, and a set of scarlet coral combs, beads, and earrings. To
Christine's care there was also intrusted a box full of Roman ribbons,
scarves, and neckties, their wonderful hues making them specially
welcome gifts to people so fond of brilliant colors.

From these gay treasures a scarf and sash were selected for the bride,
and the rest were sent on Christmas Eve to the young girls of the
village. Many other pretty trifles were among the gifts--fans and sets
of Roman pearls, and laces for the neck and head, and pretty veils,
and fancy handkerchiefs, and in a long letter Angus directed
Christine to do her will with all he sent. He only wished to repay to
the village the happy hours he had spent in it the past summer.

This letter was not lover-like, but it was friendly, and sad. He said
so much might have been, and yet nothing he longed for had happened.
He recalled tender little episodes, and declared they were the only
memories he valued. The whole tone of the letter was the tone of a
disappointed and hopeless man, to whom life had lost all its salt and
savor. Christine read it carefully. She was determined not to deceive
herself, and in a wakeful watch of the night, she went over it, and
understood.

"There isna ony truth in it," she said to herself, "and I needna gie a
thought to the lad's fine words. He is writing anent a made-up sorrow.
I'll warrant he is the gayest o' the gay, and that the memory o'
Christine is a little bit o' weariness to him. Weel, he has gi'en what
he could buy--that's his way, and he will mak' in his way a deal o'
pleasure among the young lasses." And the next day the bits of
brilliant silk were sorted and assigned, and then sent to the parties
chosen, with the Ballister compliments. The affair made quite a stir
in the cottages, and Angus would have been quite satisfied, if he
could have heard the many complimentary things that the prettiest
girls in Culraine said of him.

Two days before Christmas Day, Neil made his family a short visit. He
was looking very well, was handsomely dressed, and had all the
appearance and air of a man thoroughly satisfied with himself and his
prospects. He only stayed a short afternoon, for his friend Reginald
was waiting for him at the hotel, and he made a great deal of his
friend Reginald.

"You should hae brought him along wi' you," said Margot, and Neil
looked at Christine and answered--"I lost one friend, with bringing
him here, and I am not a man who requires two lessons on any
subject."

"Your friend had naething but kindness here, Neil," answered
Christine, "and he isna o' your opinion." And then she told him of the
Christmas presents sent from Rome.

"Exactly so! That is what I complain of. All these gifts to you and
the villagers, were really taken from me. I have not been remembered.
Last Christmas I was first of all. A woman between two men always
makes loss and trouble. I ought to have known that."

"Weel, Neil," said Margot, "there's other kindnesses you can think
o'er."

"I have not had a single New Year's gift this year--yet. I suppose
Reginald will not forget me. I have my little offering to him ready;"
and he took a small box from his pocket, and showed them a rather
pretty pair of sleeve buttons. "Yes, they are pretty," he commented,
"rather more than I could afford, but Reginald will return the
compliment. I dare say it will be the only one I shall receive."

"You ought not to forget, Neil," said Margot, in a not very amiable
tone, "you ought to remember, that you had your New Year's gifts at
Midsummer."

"Oh, I never forget that! I could not, if I would," he answered with
an air of injury, and Christine to avert open disagreement, asked,
"Where will you stay in Glasgow, Neil?"

"I shall stay with Reginald, at his sister's house. She lives in
highly respectable style, at number twelve, Monteith Row. The row is a
fine row o' stone houses, facing the famous Glasgow Green, and the
Clyde river. She is a great beauty, and I expect to be the honored
guest of the occasion."

"Will you hae time to hunt up your brithers in Glasgow? Some o' them
will nae doubt be in port, and you might call at Allan's house, and
tell them that little Jamie is doing fine."

"I do not expect I shall have a moment to spare. If I have, I will
make inquiries. I think, however, Miss Rath is going to make rather a
gay time in my honor, and I shall feel obligated to observe all its
occasions."

"How old is Miss Rath?" asked Christine.

"I have never asked her age. I suppose she is over twenty, as she
controls her own property."

"Happen you may lose your heart to her."

"O! I am not a man to lose anything so important."

"Weel, weel, you're nae wiser than the lave o' men, Neil."

"I think I am, Christine. At least, I have that reputation."

"Will you hae a cup o' tea, Neil?"

It was Christine who asked him, and he answered, "No. I had just
finished a good lunch, when I came here, and Reginald said he should
wait dinner for me. He orders very liberally, I must say," and he took
out a new gold watch, and looked at the time.

His mother saw it at once, and glanced at Christine, who instantly
followed an exclamation of wonder, by asking, "Whoever gave ye the
bonnie timepiece, Neil?"

"I gave it to myself, Christine. I have been coaching Reginald, and
two or three other students, and it's rather a paying business. I
shall do a great deal in that way after the New Year. Well, I think I
must be going."

"Your feyther will be hame within an hour. He'll hae our wonderfu'
bairn wi' him. You will surely stay and see them."

"You mean Allan's son?"

"Ay," answered Christine, "he's a beauty, and he is sae clever, we'll
be needing a school, and the set o' teachers in it, to keep the lad
within the proper scope o' knowledge. He's a maist remarkable boy!"

"I used to fill that position," said Neil.

"Not you," said Margot. "You were a puir weakling, every way. It took
everyone's love and labor to bring you through. I'm not sure now, if
you were worth it. It was scrimp and toil through long years for a'
the Rulesons."

"I am not ungrateful, Mother, and I shall no doubt win a high
degree."

"We hae nae doubt you will, Neil. Dinna go as soon as you come.
Feyther will be here anon."

"I cannot keep Reginald waiting. I will try and see father as I
return."

So he went, and mother and sister looked at each other, and were
silent. Margot opened and shut a drawer in the dresser, pushed the
chair in which Neil had sat violently into its place, and then lifted
a broom and flung it down with a force that is best explained by the
word 'temper.' She felt unable to speak, and finally burst into
passionate weeping, mingled with angry words.

"Oh, Mither! Mither! dinna tak' on that way. It's nae new thing. It's
just what we expectit. You hae looked it in the face many a time. Oh,
I'm sae glad his feyther wasna here!"

"His feyther ought to hae been here."

"Na! na! We dinna want feyther to think a' his love and labor was
thrown awa'. It wad fairly break his heart. We must just keep the
mistake to oursel's. We can forgie, and still lo'e the puir lad, but
feyther wad go to extremes, both wi' Neil and himsel'. We can thole
his selfishness. We aye knew it was there. We hae held our tongues
sae far. We must gae on being silent. I wouldna hae feyther know for
onything. Let him hae his dream, Mither!"

"My heart feels like to break, lassie."

"Mine too, Mither. But we needna gie feyther a heart-break. We'll just
keep the visit quiet."

"Your way be it, Christine."

_Women do such things!_

At this moment Ruleson's voice was heard. He was coming up the hill
with Jamie's hand in his own. "They'll be inside in a minute,
Mither--a smile frae you is worth gold now," and she stooped and
kissed her mother. This unusual token of love and care went to
Margot's heart with a bound.

"You dear lassie," she said. "I'll do as you say," and that moment
she was called upon to make good her words. Ruleson was at the
hearthstone, and Jamie was at her knees, telling her what a splendid
time they had had, and how many big fish they had caught.

"Did you bring ane o' the haddocks hame with you, James?" she asked,
and Ruleson answered, "I found Tamsen's boy at the pier, waiting to
buy all my catch, and I thought ye wad hae something better for us."

"There's naething better than a fresh haddock. You canna cook them
wrang, if you try; but I'll find something good for good fishermen
like you and Jamie." And she spread the table with good things, and
Ruleson said softly, as if to himself--"Thou satisfieth my mouth with
good things, my cup runneth over." And Christine and her mother had
come very close to each other and Margot had forgotten her heart-break
in Christine's kiss, and almost forgotten Neil's visit. At any rate
she was quite happy to hide it from her husband. "He's like a' men,"
she reflected, "he doesna spit oot his anger like I do, and be rid o'
it. He buries it in his heart, and he buries it alive, and it doesna
gie him a moment's peace. Christine is right, and I'm glad I held my
tongue, even frae good words."

When all the Ballister Christmas presents had been distributed the New
Year's festival was at hand, and the village was all agog about
Faith's marriage. The arrangements had been slightly changed, and
after all she was to be married from Ruleson's house. Early in the
morning she came up there with her simple bride garments in a leather
trap, which she carried in her hand. She wanted Christine to dress
her. She said, Christine had brought her all her good fortune, and she
be to send her away, and then good would go with her.

So Christine dressed the timid little woman, and really made her look
lovely, and at ten o'clock her Largo lover, called Willie Anderson,
came there also. He had a couple of friends with him, and Ruleson
himself took the place of Faith's father, and gave her his arm, as
they all walked together, very doucely and religiously, to the
Domine's house.

The Domine had been advised of the visit, and the large Bible lay open
on the table. Standing before it the young couple received the
Domine's charge, and then in the presence of their witnesses, pledged
themselves to life-long love and devotion. The Domine entered the
contract in his Kirk Book, and the witnesses signed it. Then the
simple ceremony was over. The Domine blessed the bride, and she turned
with a blushing, happy face to her husband.

"My ain! My wife!" he said, and gave her his arm, and Christine with
her father and Anderson's two friends followed. All were very silent.
The bride and bridegroom were too happy to talk, and their friends
understood and sympathized with the feeling.

The day was fine and clear, and the walk back to Ruleson's was still
and sweet, and in spite of its silence, very pleasant; and they had no
sooner opened Ruleson's door, than their senses were refreshed by the
sight of the festal table, and the odor of delicious foods. For Margot
had made a wedding dinner after her own heart. One of her precious
turkeys had been sacrificed, and there was that wealth of pudding and
cakes and pastry which no man loves and appreciates more than the
fisherman. It was an excellent dinner, well cooked, and well enjoyed,
and happily prolonged with pleasant conversation, until Christine
reminded them they were probably keeping the crowd asked to the
Fishers' Hall waiting.

In a pleasant haste they left all in James' care, and went in a body
to the hall. There was quite a large company there, very well employed
in practicing the steps of a new strathspey, and others in exhibiting
their special bits of splendor. The whole room was flashing with Roman
colors, and Judith Macpherson's Protestantism was angered by it. She
said with her usual striking eloquence, that, in her opinion, they
were nothing but emblems of popery. They came frae Rome. Why not? If
we had elders in the kirk, worth the name o' elders, they wad ca' a
session anent such a shamefu' exhibition o' the pope's vera signs and
symbols. Indeed, she told Ruleson that she would stand up in the kirk
on the next Sabbath day, if he, or someone, didna tak' the proper
steps in the matter, and "I'll tell you, James Ruleson, I'm minded to
go my ways to the manse right now, and bring the Domine himsel' here,
to see the wicked testimonies."

Then the bridal dance began, and Ruleson drew Judith aside, and told
her he would himself speak anent the colors, if she thought they were
sinfu'.

"Sinfu'!" she screamed. "Why Ruleson, man, they come frae the pope,
and thae men they ca' socialists. I hae heard tell o' the tricolor,
and of a' the misery and sin that cam' frae it in France. Isna France
i' the pope's dominions?"

"Oh no, Judith, they arena the same countries."

"James Ruleson, they may be different countries, but that tricolor sin
is the same everywhere, even if it get into a godly place like
Culraine. You must put a stop to our lasses wearing the pope's colors,
James Ruleson. That's a fact!"

James promised to do so. In reality he would have promised anything
she asked, rather than have her go to the manse and disturb the
Domine. He was only too grateful to observe that the wearers of the
sinful colors were not disturbed by Judith's suspicions, and that the
sailormen and fishermen were apparently most in love with the girls
who wore the greatest quantity of the offensive emblems.

At three o'clock the dance was over, the greetings were all said and
Willie Anderson anxious to carry off his bride on the tide top. "The
waters are fu' at four o'clock," he said to Ruleson, "and I want to
lift anchor and spread sails at the same moment. Then we'll hae wind
and tide wi' us, and we'll win hame on the tide top. That would be a
lucky thing, you ken, Ruleson."

"The ways o' a good man are a' lucky, Anderson, for they are ordered
of the Lord, but a man must hae his way on his wedding day--maybe
he'll ne'er get it again!"

So Ruleson said a few words to the chattering groups, and they
instantly formed into line. The violins went first, then the bride and
bridegroom. Then Ruleson and Margot, Christine and her brother
Norman, and the rest as fancy led them in the selection of partners.

Willie Anderson's brand-new boat lay at the pier, and he had rigged up
a little gangway trimmed with ivy between it and the shore. Every boat
in harbor was flying its flag, except Anderso

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