Fisherman's wife

“ In front of the fire, attending to it and to three or four pots and kettles that simmered on the hearth, stood a woman about thirty years of age—just an ordinary fisherman's wife, strong and well shaped, without beauty of feature, but bright and intelligent looking ”

“ CHAPTER XL After supper Margaret sat and talked with Mrs. Viney. The fisherman's wife was a woman of fifty, with a dragging voice, a faint curiosity in her manner. Her iron-gray hair smoothed flat was tied in a little knot behind. Her husband, a good ten years older, had the vitality of a young man compared with his wife. ”

“ If you will part with this pretty young Maid,
I’ll give you whatever your heart can desire,
For she in good time to great riches will rise.
The Fisherman answer'd with a model grace,
I cannot unless my dear wife was in place
Get first her consent, and you'd have it off me.
And than to go with you, good Sir, she is free.
He got his Wife’s leave & the girl, with a him went
But little they thought of his cruel interest;
He kept her a month very bravely they say,
And then he contrived to wake her away.
For he had a brother in fair Lancashire,
A noble rich man of two thousand a year ”

“ There, close by the hearth, from whence a scanty fire shed its glimmering light over the clean little room, sat the Fisherman's old wife. When their noble guest came in, she rose to give him a kind welcome, but immediately resumed her place of honour, without offering it to him; and the Fisherman said with a smile: "Do not take it amiss, young sir, if she does not give up to you the most comfortable place; it is the custom among us poor people that it should always belong to the oldest." ”

“ THE FISHERMAN AND HIS WIFE There was once on a time, a Fisherman who lived with his wife in a miserable hovel close by the sea, and every day he went out fishing. And once, as he was sitting with his rod, looking at the clear water, his line suddenly went down, far down below, and when he drew it up again, he brought out a large Flounder.
Then the Flounder said to him: “Hark, you Fisherman, I pray you, let me live. I am no Flounder really, but an enchanted Prince. What good will it do you to kill me? I should not be good to eat. ”

“ During their brief seasons of needful rest, not a fishermen dare leave the failu or, under any pretext whatsoever, visit his own house; he must not so much as look on the face of woman (with one exception) be she his own, or another’s, mother, wife or daughter. If the heedless fisherman steal but a glance, flying fish will infallibly bore out his eyes at night. They may not even join in song or dance with the other men of the failu in the evening, but must keep strictly and silently apart ”

“ At last the fisherman's anger boiled over. "Very well," said he, spitting his words at her; "if you drive [Pg 21] me out into the night, I suppose I will have to go." And then he spoke the words that so many men say: "Many a man has come to trouble by following his wife's advice."
Then down he took his fur cap and up he took his nets, and off he and the old man marched through the moonlight, their shadows bobbing along like black spiders behind them. ”

“ Then the fisherman got up and went home to his wife in their hovel.
"Well, husband," said the wife, "have you caught nothing to-day?"
"No," said the man—"that is, I did catch a flounder, but as he said he was an enchanted prince, I let him go again."
"Then, did you wish for nothing?" said the wife.
"No," said the man; "what should I wish for?"
"Oh dear!" said the wife; "and it is so dreadful always to live in this evil-smelling hovel; you might as well have wished for a little cottage; go again and call him; tell him we want a little cottage, I daresay he will give it us ”

“ As you know, her husband, like Dave Baldwin’s father, was a Gloucester fisherman, whose home was in these parts. During his long absences at sea, she lived alone with her father-in-law, her little boy Harold and one old woman in that little farmhouse on the clearing. And I suppose every time that the wind howled through the woods she had a fresh fit of the quakes, thinking of her husband away on the foggy fishing-grounds.”
“Yes! I guess at such times the women suffer more than we do,” muttered Captain Andy, thinking of his dead wife. ”

“ It was very fond of music. It would follow its master to fish, swimming around the boat, and taking a great many fish, which it would give up without even biting them. No dog could have been more faithful, or more quick to learn what was wanted.
"But the fisherman's half-sister was a silly old woman. She had come to help nurse his wife, who was ill. This half-sister took it into her head that the poor seal would [115] bring bad luck to the family. ”

“ just as vessels starting from ports thousands of miles apart pass close to each other in the naked breadth of the ocean, nay, sometimes even touch, in the dark, with a crack of timbers, a gurgling of water, a cry of startled sleepers,—a cry mysteriously echoed in warning dreams, as the wife of some Gloucester fisherman, some coasting skipper, wakes with a shriek, calls the name of her husband, and sinks back to uneasy slumbers upon her lonely pillow,—a widow. ”

“ The young wife was very restless at this point, and, though she did not look up, I saw her tears. The stout fisherman smoothed out the net a little upon his knee, and drew it in closer, and heaved a great sigh: he did not look at his hearers.
"When 'e throwed it down, it walloped, an' cried, an' soughed,—an' its poor eyes blinded wi' blood! ('Ee sees, Sir," said the planter, by way of excusing his tenderness, "they swiles were friends to I, after.) Dear, O dear! I could n' stand it; for 'e might ha' killed un ”

“ The control of affairs by husband and wife is a different sort of share-company; the wife is supreme mistress at home, but the man becomes "boss" as soon as he gets his sea-boots on. Many mackerel are often brought to St. Ives, and the men go still further afield after herring; but somehow the catch of the pilchard seems the most distinctively local feature, and the fish, once [Pg 246] common much further east, is still an important actuality to all the Land's End fishing ports. ”

“ One day, so runs the story, a native of Chama who had lost his wife was walking sadly on the beach, when he met a beautiful young woman whom he persuaded to be his wife. She consented, but told him that her home lay in the sea, that her people were fishes, and that she herself was a fish, and she made him swear that he would never allude to her old home and kinsfolk. All went well for a time till her husband took a second wife, who quarrelled with the first wife and taunted her with being a fish. ”

“ Fisher established a working-room of her own, and engaged several young women to labor under her superintendence, than the attention of her husband was seriously turned to the subject of those evils from which he had rescued his wife. ”

“ As the boats cast off, atrocious witticisms flew back and forth between deck and shore—all in good humor, of course, for such tradition would have it, and it was a test of brains, besides, to be able to say just the right word to those lanudos, those husbands whose eyes would be snugly plugged with wool, and come home in blessed ignorance of all their wives had been up to meanwhile! This theme of the wayward wife and the unsuspecting husband is the commonest sport—however cruel it may seem—along the shores of the Levant ”

“ For the fishwives of to-day are the same as those of a century ago,—'they keep the man, and keep the house, and keep the siller, too.' The men consider their own work ended when the boat is pulled up on the beach. It is the wife who must market the fish, which she does by carrying them on her back to the nearest town, where she must 'scauld and ban wi' ilka wife that will scauld and ban wi' her' until the fish are sold. 'Them that sell the goods guide the purse—them that guide the purse rule the house,' and therefore by common consent in these communities, the wife is the head of the family. ”

“ A fish-wife is of either sex; and even when she belongs of right to the better side of human nature, she is not easy to distinguish from her lord by any thing in her face and garb. Seeing her in the sharp wind, quilted in her sheep-skin coat, and legged in her deer-skin hose, her features pinched by frost, her hands blackened by toil, it would be hard to say which was the female and which the male, if Providence had not blessed the men with beards. ”

“ The work done by the fisher-women needs long and special training: the baiting of lines is a delicate and subtle operation, while the business of seeking bait is one which no country-woman ever learns properly. Moreover, a country girl who has been used to wearing long dresses and shoes can never take kindly to bare feet and brief petticoats: the cold and exposure are too much for her. A fisherman who marries a girl from inland is considered to have wrecked his chances in life, and the gossips bewail his fate. ”

“ The wives of chiefs must not go about without attendants. Mariner says, somewhat naïvely, that when a man has an amour, he keeps it secret from his wife,
"not out of any fear or apprehension, but because it is unnecessary to excite her jealousy, and make her perhaps unhappy; for it must be said, to the honor of the men, that they consult in no small degree, and in no few respects, the happiness and comfort of their wives." ”

“ Holystoning is music compared with her playing; even the captain’s spaniel howls when she comes to the high notes; but she affects the fine lady, and always treats the officers with music when they dine in the cabin, which makes them very glad to get out of it.”
“But, O’Brien, I thought wives were not permitted on board.”
“Very true, but there’s the worst part in the man’s character: he knows that he is not allowed to take his wife to sea, and, in consequence, he never says she is his wife, or presents her on shore to anybody. ”

“ Their death is easily concealed; and they occasionally perish by the hand of one of the other wives, rivals of their mother. A common custom allows the Nile sailors to have two wives, one at Girgeh, for instance, and another at Assouan. The husband passes a month with each of them in turns, as his business allows him. He brings with him a few piastres, a piece or two of blue cotton stuff, often some little seaman’s venture, that the wife proceeds to dispose of on his departure. He receives in exchange the products of the place, that in turn go to swell the trade of the other wife. ”

“ She has beautiful hair, too, though I say it," continued the warm-hearted captain, and I liked him all the better for talking so tenderly of his wife. "That old lady that sits opposite to you now, almost bent double, as you see, is a friend of my wife's, and we are taking her on a visit. Poor old thing she is so near-sighted, that every thing must go close to her eyes, or her eyes be sent close to the object, otherwise she could not see to cut her food even. Excuse me, Mr. Parr, is your wife handsome?" ”

“ For this is equivalent to saying that by day or by night that husband had no more power to protect her than the man who lies bound upon a plundered vessel's deck has power to protect his wife on board the pirate-schooner disappearing in the horizon; she may be reverenced, she may be outraged; it is in the powerlessness that the agony lies. There is, indeed, one thing more which we do know of this young woman: the Virginia newspapers state that she was tortured under the lash, after her husband's execution, to make her produce his papers: this is all. ”

“ Should a man be successful in fishing or trading without any apparent reason, and shortly after his success his wife falls ill and dies, he is said to have given his wife to this spirit as an acknowledgment of his increased wealth. ”

“ For loving women might be parted from their husbands for months and years, even supposing that the latter lived through the storm and stress of their careers; while even this was, after all, the brightest side of both the sailor's and the sailor's wife's existence. ”

“ I am a sailor's daughter. Many times I saw my mother weeping and pitied her simplicity. There is no use weeping for what men do in distant lands. It is always bitter enough for a woman who loves her husband, but it has no bad consequences and must be pardoned.... But now.... Now!..."
The wife became irritated on recalling his recent infidelities.... Her rivals were not the public women of the great ports, nor the tourists who could give only a few days of love, like an alms which they tossed without stopping their progress. ”

“ The men have several wives, but conjugal affection is little known." This opinion is thus endorsed by Moffat, and a third missionary, the Rev. F. Fleming, wrote (167) that among Bushmen "conjugal affection seems totally unknown," and pre-matrimonial love is of course out of question in a region where girls are married as infants. The wife always has to work harder than the husband. If she becomes weak or ill she is unceremoniously left behind to starve. ”

“ Notwithstanding this affectionate "constant habit" of breaking their husbands' heads, the Bushman women have not succeeded in teaching them even the rudiments of gallantry. "The woman is a beast of burden," says Hahn; "at the same time she is subjected to ill-treatment which not seldom leads to death." When camp is moved, the gallant husband carries his spear and quiver, the wife "does the rest," carrying the baby, the mat, the earthen cooking-pot, the ostrich shells, and a bundle of skins. If it happens, as it often does, that there is not enough to eat, the wife has to go hungry. ”