Christine: A Fife Fisher Girl Part 21

"Jamie will hae the gude o' it, and lots o' Culraine lads and la.s.ses until they get a better one. Weel, so be it! After Finlay and I had finished our crack, I took Jamie to Molly Stark's, and we had a holiday dinner."

"Chicken pie! Custard pudding! Strawberry tarts! Nuts and raisins! And a big orange! Grandmither! Oh, it was beautiful! Beautiful!"

"Then we walked about the town a bit, and I saw a big tent, and men playing music before it, and when we got close pictures of animals and of horses, and men riding. And Jamie saw many little lads going in, especially one big school, and he said, 'Grandfeyther, tak' me in too!' And I took counsel wi' my ain heart for a minute, and it said to me, 'Tak' the lad in,' and so I did."

"And now you're blaming yoursel'?"

"I am not. I think I did right. There was neither sound nor sight o'

wrang, and the little laddie went wild wi' pleasure; and to tell the vera truth, I was pleased mysel' beyond a' my thoughts and expectations. I would like to tak' you, Margot, and Christine too. I would like it weel. Let us a' go the morn's night."

"I hae not lost my senses yet, James. Me go to a circus! Culraine wad ne'er get o'er the fact. It wad be a standing libel against Margot Ruleson. As for Christine!"

"I wad like weel to go wi' Feyther."

"I'm fairly astonished at you, Christine! La.s.sie, the women here would ne'er see you again, they wad feel sae far above ye. I'm not the keeper o' your feyther's gude name, but I hae a charge o'er yours, and it is clear and clean impossible, for you to go to a circus."

"If Feyther goes----"

"Your feyther hasna heard the last o' his spree yet. To think o' him leaving the narrow road. Him, near saxty years old! The kirk session on the matter will be a notable one. Elders through the length and breadth o' Scotland will be takin' sides. Dear me, James Ruleson, that you, in your auld age, should come to this!" and then Margot laughed merrily and her husband and Christine understood she was only joking.

"And you'll maybe go wi' us all some afternoon, Margot?"

"Na, na, James! I'll not gie Jess Morrison, and the like o' her, any occasion for their ill tongues. They'd just glory in Margot Ruleson, Elder Ruleson's wife, going to the circus. I wouldn't be against going mysel' I'd like to go, but I wouldn't gie them the pleasure o'

tossing my gude name on their ill-natured tongues."

"I saw Peter Brodie there, and his three lads, and his daughter Bella."

"Weel, James, tak' the little laddie again, if so you wish. Peter will stand wi' you, and he's the real ruling elder. But Christine is different. It lets a woman down to be talked about, whether she is right, or wrang."

Then Jamie was allowed to give his version of the wonder and the joy of a circus, and the last cups of tea were turned into some glorious kind of a drink, by the laughter and delight his descriptions evoked.

Then and there it was resolved that his grandfather must take him again on the following day, and with this joyous expectation in his heart, the child at last fell asleep.

When Ruleson and his wife were alone, Margot noticed that her man's face became very somber and thoughtful. He was taking his bed-time smoke by the fireside, and she waited beside him, with her knitting in her hands, though she frequently dropped it. She was sure he had something on his mind, and she waited patiently for its revealing. At length he shook the ashes from his pipe, and stood it in its proper corner of the hob, then going to the window, he looked out and said,

"It's fair and calm, thank G.o.d! Margot, I saw Neil today." As he spoke, he sat down, and looked at her, almost sorrowfully.

"What did he say for himsel'?"

"I didna speak to him. I was in Finlay's store, at the back o' it, whar Finlay hes his office. A young man came into the store, and Finlay got up and went to speak to him. It was Rath, and when he went awa', Finlay called me, and showed me a little group on the sidewalk.

They were Rath and his sister, our Neil and Provost Blackie's son."

"Our Provost Blackie's son?"

"Just sae. And Neil and him were as well met and friendly as if they had been brought up in the same cottage. The four o' them stood talking a few minutes, and then Neil offered his arm to Miss Rath, and led the young lady to a carriage waiting for them. She smiled and said something, and Neil turned and bowed to Rath and young Blackie, and then stepped into the carriage and took his seat beside the lady, and they drove off together."

"Gudeman, you arena leeing to me?"

"I am telling you the plain evendown truth, Margot."

"Did he see you?"

"No. I keepit oot o' his way."

"Whatna for?"

"I needna say the words."

"I'll say them for you--you thought he would be ashamed o' you."

"Ay, he might hae been. Dinna cry, woman. Dear, dear woman, dinna cry!

It's our ain fault--our ain fault. If we had stood firm for the pulpit, if we had said, 'you must be either a preacher or a schoolmaster,' this wouldna hae been. We were bent on makin' a gentleman o' him, and now he prefers gentlemen to fishermen--we ought to hae expect.i.t it."

"It is cruel, shamefu', ungratefu' as it can be!"

"Ay, but the lad is only seeking his ain good. If he still foregathered wi' our rough fisher-lads, we wouldn't like it. And we would tell him sae."

"He might hae found time to rin down, and see us for an hour or twa, and gie us the reasons for this, and that."

"He looked like he was courting the young lady--and we know of auld times, wife, that when our lads began courting, we hed to come after.

I was wrang to gie in to his studying the law. Studying the gospels, he wad hae learned that there are neither rich nor poor, in G.o.d's sight. We gave the lad to G.o.d, and then we took him awa' frae G.o.d, and would mak' a lawyer and a gentleman o' him. Weel, as far as I can see, he is going to be a' we intended. We are getting what we hae worked for. There's nane to blame but oursel's."

This reasoning quite silenced Margot. She considered it constantly, and finally came to her husband's opinion. Then she would not talk about Neil, either one way, or the other, and it soon fell out that the lad's name was never mentioned in the home where he had once ruled almost despotically. Only Christine kept her faith in Neil. She wrote him long letters constantly. She told him all that was going on in the village, all about his father and mother, the Domine and the school house. She recalled pleasant little incidents of the past, and prefigured a future when she would see him every day. And she seldom named little Jamie. She divined that Neil was jealous of the position the child had gained in the household. And Christine was no trouble-maker. Her letters were all messages of peace and good will, and without any advice from her father she had personally come to very much the same conclusion that he had arrived at. "There has been a great mistake," she said softly to herself, "and we be to mak' the best o' it. It isna beyond G.o.d's power to sort it right yet."

So Neil was seldom named unless a letter came from him, which was not a frequent occurrence. The boxes filled with home delicacies were no longer sent, nor was their absence noted, nor their presence requested. Neil was making money as a coach to younger and wealthier students. He now dined at the best hotel, and had a very good breakfast in his comfortable rooms. But Christine felt that the breaking of this tie of "something good to eat" was a serious thing.

Home was a long way further off to Neil, when the motherly baskets of homemade dainties ceased coming to him, and all Christine's apologies--whether they touched his mother's ill health, or his own prosperity's making them unnecessary, did not mend the matter. They were just common bread and meat, mere physical things, but their want was heart-hunger, and doubt and suspicion, in place of the love and pleasure they had always caused.

Generally, however, as one interest in life dies out, another springs up, and the school building, and the little laddie kept the Ruleson family happily busy. Ruleson had been asked to superintend the building and he did the work with a completeness which was natural to him. He looked over every load of stone, and saw that the blocks of granite were well fitting, and perfect in color. He examined all the mortar made, lest the builders follow modern habits and put too much sand among the lime. He returned as unworthy many pounds of nails, which were either too short, or too slight, for the purposes for which they were intended; and the slating for the roof was a thing he did not trust to anyone but James Ruleson. So the school house and his fishing kept him busy and happy, and Margot and Christine looked at him with wonder and pleasure. He was always smiling, and always listening to Jamie, who was chattering at his side, whenever he was on land.

So life at Culraine pursued the even tenor of its way, until the middle of March, when the school was opened for a short quarter until the herring should come on in July. The building was by no means finished, but the walls were up, the windows in, the slate roof on, and the desks and forms in place. The master's room, the painting, plastering, and decoration were untouched. Ruleson thought they could be attended to during the herring fishing, and the school formally opened in September.

To a man quite unaccustomed to business, these were tremendous, yet delightful responsibilities; and Ruleson lived between his boat and the school. When he was on land, Jamie was always at his side.

Hitherto Ruleson had been noted for his reticence. Even among such a silent race as the Fife fishers his silence was remarkable. He had held his peace even from good, but the child always chattering at his side had taught him to talk. Jamie's thirst for knowledge was insatiable, he was always wanting to know something or other, and the inquisitive "why" was constantly on his lips. Few people could remember James Ruleson's laughing, now his big guffaw constantly carried on its echo the little lad's shrill treble laugh. Ruleson had many amiable qualities unused and undeveloped that the boy brought out in many different ways. In his little grandson's company he was born again, and became as a little child. This was an actual and visible conversion. The whole village testified to this wonderful new birth.

On the fourteenth of March the dream of his heart came true. He saw the little children come running through the sand hills, and over the heather, to the school. From far and near, they came, wearing their best clothes, and happy as if it was a holiday. He listened to them reciting, after their teachers, a morning prayer. He heard them learning in cla.s.s together the alphabet, and the first lessons in numbers and addition, a lesson which all acquired rapidly by some secret natural process. For if the teacher asked how many two and two made, he had not to wait a moment for a correct answer from every baby mouth. It amazed Ruleson, until he remembered that no one had ever taught him to count. Through generations of clever bargaining mothers, had this ability become a natural instinct. The Domine thought it might have done so.

In some way or other, the school made Christine's life very busy. She was helping weary mothers make little dresses, and little breeches, or doing a bit of cleaning for them, or perhaps cooking a meal, or nursing the baby for an hour. She was mending or weaving nets, she was redding up her own home. She was busy with the washing or ironing, or hearing Jamie's lessons, or helping her mother with the cooking. Her hands were never idle, and there was generally a smile on her face, a song on her lips, or a pleasant word for everyone within the sound of her cheerful voice.

She had also her own peculiar duties. There were long and frequent letters from Cluny to answer, and occasionally one from Angus Ballister, the latter always enclosing a pretty piece of lace, or a trifle of some kind, special to the city he was in. Ballister's letters troubled her, for they were written still in that tone of "it might have been," with a certain faint sense of reproach, as if it was her fault, that it had not been. This was so cleverly insinuated, that there was nothing for her to deny, or to complain of. She wished he would not write, she wished he would cease sending her any reminders of "days forever gone." His sentimental letters were so evidently the outcome of a cultivated heart-breaking disappointment, that they deeply offended her sense of truth and sincerity.

One day she received from him a letter dated Madrid, and it contained a handsome lace collar, which she was asked to wear for his sake, and thus remember his love "so sorrowfully pa.s.sionate, and alas, so early doomed to disappointment and despair!"

"The leeing lad!" she angrily exclaimed. "I'll just tell him the truth, and be done wi' him. I'll send him the collar back, and tell him I'm no carin' to be reminded o' him, in ony shape or fashion. I'll tell him he kens naething about love, and is parfectly ignorant o' any honest way o' makin' love. I'll tell him that he never loved me, and that I never loved him worth talking about, and that I'll be obligated to him if he'll drop the makin' believe, and write to me anent village matters, or not write at a'."

Days so full and so happy went quickly away, and though there had been so much to do, never had the village been ready for the herring visit, as early, and so completely, as it was this summer. When Margot's roses began to bloom, the nets were all leaded, and ready for the boats, and the boats themselves had all been overhauled and their cordage and sails put in perfect condition. There would be a few halcyon days of waiting and watching, but the men were gathering strength for the gigantic labor before them, as they lounged on the pier, and talked sleepily of their hopes and plans.

It was in this restful interval that James and Margot Ruleson received a letter from their son Neil, inviting them to the great Commencement of his college. He said he was chosen to make the valedictory speech for his cla.s.s, that he had pa.s.sed his examination with honor, and would receive his commission as one of Her Majesty's attorneys at law.

"If you would honor and please me by your presence, dear father and mother," he wrote, "I shall be made very happy, and I will secure a room for you in the house where I am living, and we can have our meals together."