_WISE WEE JOHN AND WITTY EPPIE_
The landlady of the little inn, at which Sandie and Willie had dined so
sumptuously, was a chatty wee body. Like most chatty wee bodies, she was
by no means averse to being informed concerning the nature of other
people’s business.
“Ye’ll be tourists, I reckon?” she said, as she placed a delicious dish
of curds and cream in front of them.
Now it had occurred to Sandie that this same gossipy landlady, who
evidently knew everybody, might put him in the way of getting a boat. So
he answered her question readily enough.
“No,” he said, “not quite tourists, mother. I come on quite a different
errand, and mean to stay for a bit. My friend here came to bear me
company, and will return to-morrow, if not to-day.”
“And what may your business be, young sir?”
“Ah! that’s what I’m coming to, mother. I’m a student, you see, and my
people are poor. I have just enough to do to rub along and pay my way
during the winter session.”
“But, mind you,” interpolated Willie somewhat proudly, “my friend here
is first bursar at Marischal College and University, Aberdeen.”
“Preserve me!” cried the woman, lifting up her palms and raising her
eyes ceilingwards. “Preserve us a’, but what a high honour to hae a
first bursar in my poor house!”
“Never mind about the honour, mother. Let me tell you at once, that I’ve
come down here to find a boat, if possible, and to try to make a few
white shillings at the herring-fishing.”
“Gang awa’ wi’ ye, you’re jokin’. You a gentleman and a first bursar, to
go and catch scaly herrings, and work like a galley-slave. Dinna try to
deceive an auld wife; you’re just poking fun at Widow Stephen.”
“No, Mrs. Stephen, I was never so much in earnest in all my life. Look
at my brawny arms, look at my chest. I’ve been used to the scythe and
the plough, the pluck and the hoe. Think you that casting a net is going
to frighten me?
“But,” he said after a pause, “I thought you might know of some one who
would be glad to have youth, strength, and agility.”
“Oh, plenty will be glad to have you. Why, as sure as I live, there goes
the very man, and I ken weel that his boat’s crew is no complete. I’ll
tap at the window.”
She did so, and then hurried out to meet the fisherman.
Suffice it to say, that in less than half-an-hour Sandie was appointed
to John Menzies’ boat, at a good wage and his chance, that is, so much
per crane on the take.
Not only that, but, to his great joy, John told him that his wife Eppie
would take him in and do for him for an auld sang. He would have a canty
wee roomie, with a wee window lookin’ oot to the hills, where he could
study to the ring o’ the bonnet when the boat wasn’t at sea. This is
pretty much John’s own language, and it is needless to say that Sandie
was glad to accept the offer.
Willie and Sandie spent a very agreeable day indeed, and slept at the
little inn, but next morning Willie departed after a friendly and
somewhat sad farewell, and Sandie sauntered along the beach to John’s
house.
He found the worthy couple both waiting for him, and he noted at once
that they were characters. When I mention the fact that they are
sketched from the real life, perhaps my reader will understand my
reasons for not giving the village in which they resided its real name.
A few words about this queer, delightful couple won’t, I feel sure, be
thrown away.
John Menzies, then, was an honest fisherman of this same famous old town
of Blackhive, celebrated from time immemorial for the finest smoked
haddies that ever delighted the eye, or tickled the palate of gourmand
or epicure.
John Menzies (pronounced Maingees) lived with his wife, “as,” he himself
more than once remarked, “every decent man should.” It was the custom
with John to catch the fish, and the custom with John’s wife to sell
them, and thus they shared life’s burden.
Now John was reputed to be as wise a man as there was in the town, or
for that matter any town whatever, and his wife--well I should not like
to be the goose whose wings should supply the quills to write or
describe all the virtues ascribed to this good lady by her neighbours.
John’s wife, she was called, and likewise surnamed the Witty. Eppie was
her name--Witty Eppie. There you have it. “A virtuous wife,” says
Solomon, “is a crown unto her husband.” Well John’s wife was all that to
him, and more besides. In point of fact, John was often heard to say,
“It was for my Eppie’s goodness I married her,” and he was generally
believed for this simple reason--it could not have been for her beauty.
No; Nature had dealt sparingly with her as far as beauty was concerned.
But then, Nature could hardly be expected to give her all things. She
had an honest sonsy face of her own, though, for all that, and a
motherly look in it too, although so far from being a fruitful vine, she
never had borne fruit at all.
“John is my bairn,” Eppie would say, “and between him and the creel it
tak’s me a’ my time, ’oman.”
In figure, Eppie was rather rotund and somewhat given to corpulency
without, but then she had a Herculean frame to bear it. “A broad back to
a big burden,” was another of her sayings, for, like all Scottish
fisherwomen, she was much addicted to quoting proverbs, which she was
wont to term “the pepper dulse” of conversation.[7] Yet if she was not
a bonnie fishwife, she was at best a handsome one--six feet tall if an
inch, and well-made in proportion. On the other hand, John himself was
what might with fear of any serious contradiction be called a spare
man--a wee wee man--a man of bone and sinew certainly, but of little
else. Well, he might have been of feet four, and of inches double the
number, and it would have done your heart good to have seen the worthy
couple going to church on a Sabbath-day, which, to their credit be it
told, they never failed to do. The best view was to be obtained from
behind. Here, you could observe the exact difference in stature, for
John’s Sunday’s hat, which never, never sat easily on his head, and was
always bobbing from one side to another, scarcely reached his better
half’s shoulder. The difference too in the breadth of beam was here very
apparent--the vast and ample folds of the red tartan shawl on the one
hand, and the short waggling swallow tails of the little green coat with
its plain brass buttons on the other.
Despise not that dumpy garment, reader, for it was his best. It was his
marriage coat, and he had never got another since.
The next best view of the loving couple was the side view. There you
could observe and marvel at the vast difference in length of step, at
least John’s was a step, Eppie’s was a stride, and when, as sometimes
would occur, the church-bells ceased to ring before they reached the
gate, oh! to see the way she lugged the poor little man along by the
hand! Still, even under these circumstances, Eppie could afford to walk,
but--I almost sob to say it--wee Johnnie had to trot. In a word, imagine
an ostrich walking to church with a rook, and you see them. Good simple
couple, the minister never missed them from the kirk a single Sunday
from that auspicious day when he had joined their hands, until the
mournful morning when the old hearse wound slowly down the long loaning
that conveyed poor wee Johnnie to his home in the mould, while every
wife in Blackhive stood at her door with her apron to her eyes. But of
this more anon.
Eppie was as kind to her husband as kind could be, and it is but fair to
say that for this she took no credit.
“De’il thank me,” she used to exclaim, “wha could be onything else to
the poor wee worriting body?”
Yet, while never failing in household duties--and there never was a
button missing from John’s shirt, never _was_ his big toe seen staring
impudently through a hole in his stocking, neither did he ever come home
wet and cold without finding a change of well-aired warm raiment, a warm
meal, and some creature comforts besides waiting for him--John’s wife
found plenty of time to do kind and friendly actions to her neighbours
too.
Honest woman, she was always welcome wherever she went, for she carried
a ray of light into the darkest and gloomiest cottage. Even death itself
did not seem so terrible when Eppie stood at the bedside.
But strangest thing of all--because, where could she have obtained the
knowledge?--Eppie was always to be found handy in houses where little
caps and small-waisted frocks and many other mysteries began to appear,
without any visible little heads or small waists on which to fit them.
Poor John! it was on such occasions as those, and I am proud to add
only, that he had to be content with a cold dinner or a bowl of hasty
pudding made by his own hands. But he never grumbled.