Christine: A Fife Fisher Girl

CHAPTER I

FISHERS OF CULRAINE

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

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.

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.