Amelia E. Barr

“ Although they are much of the same size and pattern, an observing eye would have picked out the Binnie cottage as distinctive and prepossessing. Its outside walls were as white as lime could make them; its small windows brightened with geraniums and a white muslin curtain; and the litter of ropes and nets and drying fish which encumbered the majority of thatches, was pleasantly absent. Standing on a little level, thirty feet above the shingle, it faced the open sea, and was constantly filled with the confused tones of its sighing surges, and penetrated by its pulsating, tremendous vitality. ”

“ Tell Christina.”
“Sophy is dead—dead and gone for me. Oh Sophy, Sophy, Sophy!”
“Andrew, tell me a straight tale. You are not a woman to let any sorrow get the mastery over you.”
“Sophy has gone from me. She has played me false—and after all these years, deceived and left me.”
“Then there is still the Faithful One. His love is from everlasting, to everlasting. He changeth not.”
“Ay; I know,” he said drearily. But he straightened himself and unfastened the button at his throat, and stood up on his feet, planting them far apart, as if he felt the earth like the reeling deck of a ship. ”

“ However, Christina could not willingly dwell long on sorrowful subjects. She was always inclined to subdue trouble swiftly, or else to shake it away from her. For she lived by intuition, rather than by reason; and intuition is born of, and fed by, home affection and devout religion. Something too of that insight which changes faith into knowledge, and which is the birthright of primitive natures, was hers, and she divined, she knew not how, that Sophy would be true to her promise, and not say a word which would lead Andrew to doubt her. ”

“ Mother! The day isn’t long enough for the joy and the blessing of it.”
“What do you mean, my lass? What is it in your face? What have you seen? Who has spoken a word to you?” and Janet rose up quickly, and put her hands on Christina’s shoulders; for the girl was swaying and trembling, and ready to break out into a passion of sobbing.
“I have seen, Mother, the salvation of the Lord! I have found Andrew’s lost money! I have proved that poor Jamie is innocent! We aren’t poor any longer. There is no need to borrow, or mortgage, or to run in debt. Oh, Mother! Mother! ”

“ She thought it was the calm of nature,—the high tide breaking gently on the shingle with a low murmur, the soft warmth, the full moonshine, the sound of the fishermen’s voices calling faintly on the horizon,—and still more, the sense of divine care and knowledge, and the sweet conviction that One, mighty to help and to save, was her Father and her Friend. For a little space she walked abreast of angels. So many things take place in the soul that are not revealed, and it is always when we are wrestling alone, that the comforting ones come. ”

“ I will go and tell Sophy everything.”
“Then she will smile in your face, she will put her hand in your hand; maybe, she will give you a kiss, for she will be thinking in her heart, how brave and how clever my Andrew is.’ And he will be taking me to London and making me a lady!’ and such thoughts breed love, Andrew. You are well enough, and few men handsomer or better—unless it be Jamie Logan—but it isn’t altogether the man; it is what the man can do.” ”

“ He did not answer Jamie’s greeting, but said dourly:—
“You promised to take my place in the boat to-night, Jamie Logan; then what for are you here, at this hour? I see one thing, and that is, you cannot be trusted to.”
“I deserve a reproof, Andrew, for I have earned it,” answered Jamie; and there was an air of candid regret in his manner which struck Christina, but which was not obvious to Andrew as he added, “I’ll not lie to you, anent the matter.”
“You needn’t. Nothing in life is worth a lie.” ”

“ Christina’s love encompassed both her brother and her lover, and Janet’s womanly tact turned every shadow into sunshine, and disarmed all suspicious or doubtful words. Also, the fishing season was an unusually good one; every man was of price, and few men were better worth their price than Jamie Logan. So an air of prosperity and happiness filled each little cottage, and Andrew Binnie was certainly saving money—a condition of affairs that always made him easy to live with. ”

“ One may think what one dare not say; for words, once spoken, cannot be wiped out with a sponge—and more’s the pity!”
Christina had also reached a crisis in her own life,—a crisis so important, that it quite excused the apparent readiness with which she dismissed Sophy’s strange confidence. For the feeling between Jamie Logan and herself had grown to expression, and she was well aware that what had hitherto been in a large measure secret and private to themselves, had this night become evident to others. And she was not sure how Jamie would be received. ”

“ Being herself in the enthusiasm of a first love, she could not conceive such treachery possible as Sophy’s word seemed to imply. The girl had always been petted, and yet discontented with her situation; and had often made complaints which had no real foundation, and which in brighter moods she was likely to repudiate. And this night Andrew, instead of her Aunt Kilgour, was the object of her dissatisfaction—that would be all. To-morrow she would be complaining to Andrew of her aunt’s hard treatment of her, and Andrew would be whispering of future happiness in her ears. ”

“ There was, however, no hope or expectation of his resuming work until the herring fishing in June, and Janet and Christina were now suffering sorely from a strange dilemma. Never before in all their lives had they known what it was to be pinched for ready money. It was hard for Janet to realise that there was no longer “a little bit in the Largo bank to fall back on.” Naturally economical, and always regarding it as a sacred duty to live within the rim of their shilling, they had never known either the slow terror of gathering debt, or the acute pinch of actual necessity. ”

“ The tide was coming in, but the children were still paddling in the salt pools and on the cold bladder rack, and she stepped forward to the edge of the cliff, and threw them some wild geranium and ragwort. Then she stood motionless in the bright sunlight, looking down the shingle towards the pier and the little tavern, from which came, in drowsy tones, the rough monotonous songs which seamen delight to sing—songs, full of the complaining of the sea, interpreted by the hoarse, melancholy voices of sea faring men. ”

“ Sophy, from her chair in Mistress Kilgour’s workroom, greatly influenced the domestic happiness of the Binnie cottage, even though they neither saw her, nor spoke her name. But her moods made Andrew happy or miserable, and Andrew’s moods made Janet and Christina happy or miserable; so sure and so wonderful a thing is human solidarity. Yes indeed! For what one of us has not known some man or woman, never seen, who holds the thread of a destiny and yet has no knowledge concerning it. ”

“ And ‘common’ or uncommon, the fishermen of Fife call no man master but the Lord God Almighty, from whose hands they take their food, summer and winter. And I will make free to say, moreover, that if Braelands loves Sophy Traill and she loves him, worse might befall him than Sophy for a wife. For if God thinks fit to mate them, it is not Griselda Kilgour that will take upon herself to contradict the Will of Heaven.”
“Don’t talk rubbish, Mistress Kilgour. People who live in society have to regard what society thinks and says.” ”

“ She turned passionately away with the words, and left the room. In fifteen minutes she went to the front door in her cloak and hood, and the carriage was waiting there. “You will drive me to my aunt Kilgour’s shop,” she said with an air of reckless pride and defiance. It pleased her at that hour to humble herself to her low estate. And it pleased Thomas also that she had done so. His sympathy was with the fisher girl. He was delighted that she had at last found courage to assert herself, for Sophy’s wrongs had been the staple talk of the kitchen-table and fireside. ”

“ I am going to put all my siller in a carrying steamer—one of the Red-White fleet. And more to it. I am to be skipper, and sail her from the North Sea to London.”
“Will she be a big boat, Andrew?”
“She will carry three thousand ‘trunks’ of fish in her ice chambers. What do you think of that?”
“I am perfectly dazzled and dumbfoundered with the thought of it. You will be a man of some weight in the world, when that comes to pass.”
“I will be Captain Binnie, of the North Sea fleet, and Sophy will have reason enough for her muslins, and ribbons, and trinkum-trankums—God bless her!” ”

“ She did not reach home until quite dark, for she was stopped frequently by little groups of the wives and maids of Pittendurie, who wanted to hear the news about Sophy. It pleased Janet, for some reason, to magnify the girl’s position and all the fine things it had brought her. Perhaps, because she felt dimly that it placed Andrew’s defeat in a better Tight. No one could expect a mere fisherman to have any chance against a man able to shower silks and satins and gold and jewels upon his bride, and who could take her to France and Italy and Germany, not to speak of Asia and America. ”

“ A lonely little spot, shut in by sea and land, and yet life is there in all its passionate variety—love and hate, jealousy and avarice, youth, with its ideal sorrows and infinite expectations, age, with its memories and regrets, and “sure and certain hope.” ”

“ She might admit her illness—indeed, she would be almost compelled to do that, for she had fallen away so much, and had had her hair cut short during the height of the fever—but Archie and Madame must not know that she had been in a public hospital. For fisher-people have a singular dislike to public charity of any kind; they help one another. And, to Sophy’s intelligence, the hospital episode was a disgrace that not even her insensibility could quite excuse. ”

“ There is something wrong with folk that don’t mind their meat.”
“Well then, you shouldn’t be so vain of yourself, Mother. You were preening like a young girl when I first got sight of you—and the meat taking care of itself.”
“Me, vain! No! No! Nobody that knows Janet Binnie can ever say she is vain. I wot well that I am a frail, miserable creature, with little need of being vain, either for myself or my children. You are a great hand at arguing, Andrew, but you are always in the wrong. But draw to the table and eat. I’ll warrant the fish will prove better than it is bonnie.” ”

“ I hope she does that, my dear Andrew.”
“She will do. She will do! no doubt of it, Christina! She is shy now, and a bit frighted at the thought of marriage—she is such a gentle little thing—but I will make her love me; yes I will! I will make her love me as I love her. What for not?”
“To be sure. Love must give and take equal, to be satisfied. I know that myself. I am loving Jamie just as he loves me.”
“He is a brawly fine lad. Peddie was saying there wasn’t a better worker, nor a merrier one, in the whole fleet.”
“A good heart is always a merry one, Andrew.” ”

“ Madame was sitting alone in the waning light; her son had been away from her all day, and had sent her no excuse for his detention. She was both angry and sorrowful; and there had been a time when Archie would have been all conciliation and regret. That time was past. His mother had forfeited all his respect; there was nothing now between them but that wondrous tie of motherhood which a child must be utterly devoid of grace and feeling to forget. Archie never quite forgot it. In his worst moods he would tell himself, “after all she is my mother. ”

“ I’ll tell you how. Andrew has been that set on having a house for his wife, that he has just lost the wife while he was saving the siller for the house. I have told him, and better told him to bring Sophy here; but nothing but having her all to himself will he hear tell of. It is pure, wicked selfishness in the lad! He simply cannot thole her to give look or word to any one but himself. ”

“ And thus, day by day, he overcame the aching sorrow of his heart, for no man is ever crushed from without; if he is abased to despair, his ruin has come from within.
About three weeks after Sophy’s marriage, Christina was standing one evening at the gloaming, looking over the immense, cheerless waste of waters. Mists, vague and troublous as the background of dreams, were on the horizon, and there Was a feeling of melancholy in the air. But she liked the damp, fresh wind, with its taste of brine, and she drew her plaid round her, and breathed it with a sense of enjoyment. ”

“ And I should think a woman of your age—being at least twenty years older than myself—would know that true love never asks for a girl’s pedigree. And as for ‘disgrace,’ Sophy Traill will never call anything like ‘disgrace’ to herself. I will allow that Sophy is poor, but as for family, the Traills are of the best Norse strain. They were sea-fighters, hundreds of years before they were sea-fishers; and they had been ‘at home’ on the North Sea, and in all the lands about it, centuries before the like of the Braelands were thought or heard tell of. ”