Christine: A Fife Fisher Girl

“You wadna daur to read them in a kirk, for they arena the truth.”

“Weel, there are many other things you wouldna care to read in the kirk – a perfectly honest love letter, for instance.”

“When did you hear frae Cluny?”

“Yesterday. He is kept vera close to his business, and he is studying navigation, so that helps him to get the long hours in foreign ports over. He’s hoping to get a step higher at the New Year, and to be transferred to the Atlantic boats. Then he can perhaps get awa’ a little oftener. Mither, I was thinking when you got strong enough, we might move to Glasgow. You would hae a’ your lads, but Norman, mair at your hand then.”

“Ay, but Norman is worth a’ the lave o’ them, and beside if I left this dear auld hame, Norman would want to come here, and I couldna thole the thought o’ that ill luck. Yet it would be gey hard to refuse him, if he asked me, and harder still to think night and day o’ his big, blundering, rough lads, among my flower beds, and destroying everything in baith house and bounds. I couldna think o’ it! Your feyther brought me here when the house was naething at a’ but a but and a ben. A bed and a table, a few chairs, and a handfu’ o’ crockery was a’ we had in the wide warld – save and forbye, as I hae often told you, my gold wedding ring.” And Margot held up her white, shrunken hand, and looked at it with tears streaming down her face. And oh, how tenderly Christine kissed her hand and her face, and said she was right, and she did not wonder she feared Norman’s boys. They were a rough-and-tumble lot, but would make fine men, every one o’ them being born for the sea, and the fishing.

“Just sae, Christine. They’ll do fine in a fishing boat, among nets and sails. But here! Nay, nay! And then there’s the mither o’ them! That woman in my place! Can you think o’ it, lassie?”

“We’ll never speak again o’ the matter. I ken how you feel, Mither. It would be too cruel! it would be mair than you could bear.”

Then there was a man’s voice heard in the living room, and Christine went to answer the call. It was the Domine’s messenger, with his arms full of books. And Christine had them taken into her mother’s room, and for a whole hour sat beside her and showed her books full of pictures, and read short anecdotes from the magazine volume, and Margot for a while seemed interested, but finally said with an air of great weariness: “Tak’ them all awa’, dearie. Ye can hae the best bedroom for them.”

“Dear Mither, will you let me hae the use o’ it? I will keep a’ in order, and it is sae near to yoursel’, I could hear you if you only spoke my name.”

“Tak’ the room and welcome. Neil had it for many a year. It has a feeling o’ books and lesson-larning in it.”

So that night, when her mother was in her first sleep, Christine took her books into this large, silent room. It faced the sea. It had an atmosphere different from that of any other room in the house, and no one but herself was likely to enter it. There was a broad sill to the largest window, and Christine arranged the Domine’s books on it. In the dozen or more volumes there was a pleasant variety – history, poetry and the popular novels of the time – especially the best work of George Eliot, Miss Braddon, Thackeray, and Dickens.

It was all so wonderful to Christine, she could hardly believe it. She touched them lovingly, she could have kissed them. For in those days in Scotland, good literature was yet a sort of luxury. A person in a country place who had a good novel, and was willing to loan it, was a benefactor. Christine had borrowed from the schoolmaster’s wife all she had to lend, and for several weeks had been without mental food and mental outlook. Was there any wonder that she was depressed and weary-looking?

Now all quickly changed. The housework went with her as if it were paid to do so. She sang as she worked. She was running in and out of Mither’s room with unfailing cheerfulness, and Margot caught her happy tone, and they were sufficient for each other. Mother and books would have been sufficient alone, but they had also many outside ties and interests. The Domine allowed Jamie to go to grandmother’s once a day. There were Cluny and Neil, and all the rest of the boys, the Domine and the villagers, the kirk and the school; and always Jamie came in the afternoon, and brought with him the daily Glasgow Herald. It was the Domine’s way. At first he had not consciously recognized what Christine required, but as soon as the situation was evident to him, he hasted to perform the good work, and he did the duty liberally, and wearied not in it.

So the days came and went, and neither Margot nor Christine counted them, and Cluny came whenever he could by any travel get a few hours with Christine. And the herring season came and went again, and was not very successful. Margot and Christine were sorry, but it was no longer a matter of supreme importance. Still, the gossip concerning the fishing always interested Margot, and someone generally brought it to her. If no one did, she frankly asked the Domine what was going on, for he always knew everything affecting the people who sat in Culraine Kirk of Scotland.

Certainly he watched Christine’s improvement with the greatest interest and pleasure. In six months she was a far more beautiful woman than she had ever before been. Her soul was developing on the finest lines, and it was constantly beautifying its fleshly abode. The work was like that of a lapidary who, day by day, cuts and polishes a gem of great value. Even Margot occasionally looked intently at her daughter, and said wonderingly, “You are growing very bonnie, Christine, the Domine must hae lost his sight, when he thought you were sick and wearying for a change.”

“I’m never sick, Mither. Whiles, when I was worrying mysel’ anent Angus Ballister, I used to hae a dowie weariness come o’er me; but since feyther went awa’ I havena had as much as a headache. Now if it suits you, Mither, I’ll gie you your knitting, I’m wanting to go and write down something.”

“Weel, gie me the needles, and gie my love to Cluny, and tell him to bring me ane o’ them white fuchsia plants he saw in a Glasgow window.”

“I hae given that word already, Mither.”

“Do it again, lassie. Any man bides twice telling.”

But the writing Christine wished to do was not a letter to her lover. It was some lines that had been running through her mind for an hour, and she knew that the only way in which she could lay their persistency, was to write them down. She had just finished this work, when the door was opened, and the Domine came in, with a gust of wind, that blew the paper on which she was writing across the room. He caught it first, and he smiled when he saw it was poetry.

“I’ll even read it, Christine, it might be worth while.”

“I couldna help writing the lines down, Sir. They bothered me till I did sae. They always do.”

“Oh-h! Then the lines are your own. That is a circumstance I cannot pass.”

“Gie them to me, Sir. Please!”

“When I have read them, Christine,” and immediately he proceeded to read them aloud. He read them twice, the second time with care and sympathy:

“The boats rocked idly on the bay,

The nets hung straight within the deep,
On the hard deck the fishers lay,
Lost in a deep and dreamless sleep.
Why should they care, and watch, and wake —
Nets of the sleeping fishers take.
Only the sea the silence broke,
Until the Master Fisher spoke.

“O Christ, Thou must have loved the sea,
Its waves held firm Thy steady feet.
Wouldst Thou not talk of boats and nets,
If Thou some fishermen shouldst meet?
Yes, Thou wouldst speak of boats and nets,
Though walking on the golden street.

“And if, O Christ, Thou met’st some day
The Fishermen from Galilee,
Wouldst Thou not speed the hours away,
Recalling life upon their sea?
And sure their hearts would burn and thrill,
Remembering, Thy ‘Peace be still!’

“The Crystal Sea could ne’er replace
The old Earth Sea, so wild and gray —
The strain, the struggle, and the race
For daily bread, from day to day.
O Christ! we fishermen implore,
Say not, ‘The sea shall be no more.’

“Its tides have seen Thy godlike face —
Look down into its hidden graves,
Have felt Thy feet in solemn pace
Pass through the valley of its waves.
Fisher of Galilee! We pray,
Let not the Earth Sea pass away.”

“Weel, Sir, will you give me the bit paper now?”

“I want you to give it to me. In a year I should like to read it again, and see how you have improved.”

“Take your will wi’ it, Sir.”

“To write poetry teaches you how to write prose – teaches you the words of the English language, their variety and value. A good prose writer can write poetry, for he is acquainted wi’ words, and can always find the word he wants; but a good poet is not often a good prose writer.”

“How is that, Sir?”

“Because he is satisfied with his own vehicle of expression. He thinks it is the best. I am glad you have begun by writing poetry – but do not stop there.” As he was speaking he folded up the bit of paper in his hand, and put it into his pocketbook. Then he went to speak to Margot.