Christine: A Fife Fisher Girl Part 16

"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 a.s.sail 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 b.u.t.tered 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 G.o.d."

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. f.a.gging 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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d'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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 la.s.sie, canna you pity a lad sae miserable as I am, and a' for the love I hae for you. I'm sorry!