Christine: A Fife Fisher Girl Part 25

"But Jesus called them unto him, and said, 'Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of G.o.d.

"'Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of G.o.d as a little child, shall in no wise enter therein.'"

Then the schoolmistress touched a hand bell and a crowd of little children, none over five years old, gathered round her. Contrary to the usual practice of children, their behavior and recitals were better than usual, and laughter and hand-clapping followed all their simple efforts. Polly Craig was their evident leader, and when she had told a charming story about a little girl who would do what she ought not to do, the records of the cla.s.s were read by the Domine, and the prize awarded to Polly.

Willie Tamsen and Jamie Ruleson's cla.s.ses were treated in a similar way, and were equally successful in their recitations and equally delighted with their gifts. Now, the real joy in giving gifts is found in giving them to children, for the child heart beats long after we think it has outgrown itself. The perfect charm of this gathering lay in the fact that men and women became for a few hours little children again. It was really a wonderful thing to see the half-grown girls, the married women, and even old Judith Macpherson, crowding round Polly to admire the waxen beauty and the long fair curls of her prize doll.

After the school exercises the adults slowly scattered, sauntering home with their wives, and carrying their babies as proudly as Polly carried her new treasure. Truly both men and women receive the kingdom of G.o.d and Love, when they become as little children. The children remained for two hours longer in the school room. For the entertainment of their parents the youngest ones had danced some of those new dances just at that period introduced into Scotland, called polkas and mazurkas, and now, to please themselves, they began a series of those mythic games which children played in the world's infancy, and which, thank G.o.d, have not yet perished from off the face of the earth. "How many miles to Babylon?" "Hide and seek," "In and out," "Blind man's buff," and so forth, and in this part of the entertainment, everything and everyone depended upon Christine. Mothers, going home, called to her, "Christine, look after my bairn," and then went contentedly away.

They might contentedly do so, for whoever saw Christine Ruleson that afternoon, in the midst of those forty or fifty children, saw something as near to a vision of angels, as they were likely to see on this earth. She stood among them like some divine mother. A little one three years old was on her right arm. It pulled her earrings, and rumpled her hair, and crushed her lace collar, and she only kissed and held it closer. A little lad with a crooked spine, and the seraphic face which generally distinguishes such sufferers, held her tightly by her right hand. Others clung to her dress, and called her name in every key of love and trust. She directed their games, and settled their disputes, and if anything went wrong, put it right with a kiss.

The Domine watched her for ten or fifteen minutes, then he went slowly up the hill. "Where at a' is Christine, Domine?" asked Margot. "I'm wanting her sairly."

"Christine is too busy to meddle with, Margot. She's doing G.o.d's best work--ministering to little children. As I saw her half-an-hour ago, she was little lower than the angels. I'm doubting if an angel could be lovelier, or fuller of life and love, and every sweet influence."

"Christine is a handsome la.s.s, nae doubt o' that, but our women are all o' them heritage handsome. I'm doubting if Eve, being a Jewess, could be worth evening wi' us."

"Eve was not a Jewess. She was G.o.d's eldest daughter, Margot."

"Then G.o.d's eldest daughter hasna a very gude character. She has been badly spoken of, ever since the warld began. And I do hope my Christine will behave hersel' better than Eve did--if all's true that is said anent her."

"Christine is a good girl, Margot. If little children love a woman, and she loves them, the love of G.o.d is there. Margot! Margot! G.o.d comes to us in many ways, but the sweetest and tenderest of all of them, is when he sends Jesus Christ by the way of the cradle."

All's well that ends well. If this be true, the first session of Culraine school was a great success. It had brought an entirely new, and very happy estimate of a father's and a mother's duty to their children. It had even made them emulous of each other, in their care and attention to the highest wants of childhood.

The whole village was yet talking of the examination when the herring came. Then every woman went gladly to her appointed post and work, and every man--rested and eager for labor--hailed the news with a shout of welcome. Peter Brodie's big Sam brought it very early one lovely summer morning, and having anch.o.r.ed his boat, ran through the sleeping village shouting--"Caller Herrin'! In Culraine Bay!"

The call was an enchantment. It rang like a trumpet through the sleeping village, and windows were thrown up, and doors flung open, and half-dressed men were demanding in stentorian voices, "Where are the fish, Sam?"

"Outside Culraine Bay," he answered, still keeping up his exultant cry of "Caller Herrin'!" and in less than half an hour men were at work preparing for the amazing physical strain before them. Much was to do if they were to cast their nets that evening, and the streets were soon busy with men and lads carrying nets and other necessities to the boats. It was up with the flag on every boat in commission, for the fishing, and this day's last preparations excited the place as if it were some great national holiday. The women were equally full of joyful business. They had to cook the breakfast, but immediately after it were all in the packing and curing sheds. You would have been sure they were keeping holiday. Pleasant greetings, s.n.a.t.c.hes of song, encouraging cries to the men struggling down to the boats with the leaded nets, shouts of hurry to the bewildered children, little flytings at their delays, O twenty different motives for clamor and haste were rife, and not unpleasant, because through all there was that tone of equal interest and good fellowship that can never be mistaken.

Margot had insisted on a visit to her special shed, to see whether all was in readiness for her special labor, but Christine had entreated her to wait for her return from the town, where she was going for orders. She had left her mother with the clear understanding that she would not risk the walk and the chatter and the clatter until the following day. But as soon as she was alone, Margot changed her intentions. "I must make the effort," she said to herself. "I'm feared of the pain, that's all about it." So she made the effort, and found out that there was something more than fear to be reckoned with.

Christine brought home astonishing orders, and Margot's face flushed with pride and energy. "I'll not let that order slip through my fingers," she cried, "I'm going to the kippering, and what I canna do, Christine can manage, following my say-so."

This change in Margot's work was the only shadow on that year's herring-tide. It was a change, however, that all felt would not be removed. Margot said, with a little laugh, that she was teaching her la.s.sie how to make a living, or how to help some gudeman to do it.

"And I have a fine scholar," she soon began to add. "Christine can now kipper a herring as weel as her mother, and why not? She has seen the kippering done, ever since she wore ankle tights."

"And you will be glad of a bit rest to yourself, Margot, no doubt,"

was the general answer.

"Ay, I have turned the corner of womanhood, and I'm wearing away down the hillside of life. I hae been in a dowie and desponding condition for a year or mair."

"Christine is clever with business, and folks do say she has a full sense of the value of money."

"To be sure, Nancy. There's no harm in the like of that. Her feyther came from Aberdeen folk, and it's weel recognized that Aberdeen folk look at both sides of a penny."

"Christine is a clever la.s.s, and good likewise, we were all saying that, a while ago."

"Weel, some folk, out of bad taste, or a natural want of good sense, may think different; but there--that's enough on the subject of Christine. Her feyther is gey touchy anent Christine, and it will be as weel to let that subject alone."

So, day after day, Margot sat in a chair at her daughter's side, and Christine filled the big orders as her mother instructed her. And they were well filled, in good time, and the outcome was beyond all expectation. Yet Christine looked sadly at the money, and Margot turned her head away, to hide the unbidden tears in her eyes, as she said:

"It's all yours, la.s.sie. I'll not touch a farthing of it. You have fairly won it. It will happen help Neil's deficiencies. Oh, my dear la.s.sie! Mither has done her last kippering! I feel it."

"Then I'll kipper for you, Mither, as long as we both live. The hill is now o'er much for you--and the noisy women, and skirling bairns!

Christine will go to Mother's shed, and Mother will bide at hame, and red up the house, and have a cup of tea ready for hungry folk, as they come weary hame."

And Margot let it go at that, but she was as she said, "dowie and despondent." Ruleson begged her to go with him to Edinburgh, and get the advice of a good physician, but Margot would not listen to any entreaty.

"I'll no do any such thing," she answered. "Not likely! The Domine can gie the pain a setback, and if G.o.d wants me here, He'll keep me here, sick or well, and if He doesna want me here, I'm willing to go where He does want me." From this position Margot was not movable, and now that the herring fishing was over, there did not appear to be any reason for making her restless and unhappy. So she naturally drifted into that household position, where everyone took care not to tire, and not to vex, grandmother.

One morning in the early days of October, Christine was sitting sewing, and Margot was making shortcake. They had been talking of Neil and wondering where he was.

"I'm thinking it is whole o' a month, since we heard from the lad,"

said Margot.

"I dare say it's mair, Mother; and that letter was from some strange French seaside place, and he was thinking that they wouldna stay there very long. He has mebbe gane further awa' than France."

"I wouldn't wonder--setting a young man traveling is like setting a ball rolling down a hill. Baith o' them are hard to turn back."

Margot had scarcely finished speaking, when Sam Brodie opened the door. He had been to the town post office and seen, in the list of uncalled-for letters, a letter addressed to Christine, so he had brought it along. It proved to be from Neil, and had been posted in Rome. Christine was familiar with that postmark, and it still had power at least to raise her curiosity. Neil's handwriting, however, spoke for itself, and before she broke the seal, she said, "Why, Mither! It is from Neil."

"I thought that, as soon as Sam came in. I was dreaming of a letter from Neil, last night. I dinna dream for naething. Make haste with the news--good or bad--read it all. I want to hear the warst of it." Then Christine read aloud the following letter:

DEAR CHRISTINE,

I want you to tell Mother that I married Miss Rath in Paris on the fifth of September ult. We were afraid that Reginald was going to interfere, so we settled the matter to prevent quarreling--which, you know, is against my nature. Reginald's opposition was quite unlooked for and, I must say, very ill-natured and discouraging.

If there is anything in a man's life he should have full liberty and sympathy in, it is his marriage. I dare say Mother will have some complaint or other to make. You must talk to her, until she sees things reasonably. We were married in the Protestant Episcopal Church in Paris, very quietly--only the necessary witnesses--and came on here at once. I disapproved so highly of Reginald's behavior at this important period of my life, and of some insulting things he said to me, that I have resolved not to have any more relations with him. After all I have done for him, it is most disheartening. My wife feels her brother's conduct very much, but she has perfect trust in me. Of course, if I had been married in Scotland, I would have had my friends' presence, but I am quite sure that my best interests demanded an immediate marriage. We shall be home in a month, and then I propose to open a law office in Glasgow _in my own name_. I shall do better without impedimenta like Reginald Rath. I trust to you to make all comfortable at home. I shall desire to bring my wife to see my mother. I am proud of Roberta. She is stylish, and has a good deal more money than I expected. I shall not require Reginald's money or patronage, they would now be offensive to my sense of honor and freedom. Give my love to my father and mother, and remember I am

Always your loving brother,

NEIL.

There was a few moments' dead silence, and Christine did not lift her eyes from the paper in her hand, until a pa.s.sionate exclamation from Margot demanded her notice.

"Oh, Mither, Mither!" she cried, "dinna mak' yoursel' sick; it's Neil, our Neil, that you are calling a scoundrel."

"And I'll call a scoundrel by no ither name. It's gude enough for him."

"We were talking one hour ago about him marrying Miss Rath, and you took to the idea then. Now that he has done so, what for are you railing at him?"

"I'm not railing at him for marrying the la.s.s, she's doubtless better than he deserves. It's the way that he's done the business--the mean, blackguardly way he's done the business, that shames and angers me.

Dod! I would strike him on the face, if he was near my hand. I'm shamed o' him! He's a black disgrace to his father and mother, and to all the kind he came from."

"Generally speaking, Mother, folks would say that Neil had done weel to himsel' and praise him for it."

"Who are you alluding to? Dinna call the name 'Neil' in my hearing.