THE FISHERMAN OF BROUGHTY.
Oh weel may the boatie row,
And better may she speed;
And weel may the boatie row,
That wins the bairns' bread.
I cuist my net in Largo bay,
And fishes I caught nine;
There's three to fry, and three to broil,
And three to bait the line.
_Scots Song._
A cheerful fire burned on the hearth of Jamie Gair, the fisherman of
Broughty-point, and it seemed to burn brighter as evening deepened on
the land and sea. The cottage, which stood within a kail-yard, the
gate of which was a pair of whale jaw-bones, consisted of a butt and
a ben,--_i.e._, an outer and inner apartment,--the latter, serving as
a kitchen, had a floor of hard-beaten clay; the walls were lined with
wood, and in the rafters were a vast quantity of lumber, boat-gear,
oars, sails, fishing-creels, bladders, floats, and other apparatus
stowed away aloft. Half of a cart-wheel felloe formed a fender (such
as we may yet see in Scottish cottages), but the fire of bog-fir was
blazing on the hearthstone, for iron grates were then an article of
splendour and luxury. On the wooden shelf above the fireplace stood
a little image of St. Clement, the mariner's patron, with the anchor
of his martyrdom hung about his neck; and on the back of the door a
horseshoe was nailed, with a sprig of rowan-tree, the usual
precaution against witchcraft. From a rafter an egg was suspended by
a rope-yarn. This was the _babys-egg_, the first laid by a pullet,
the gift of its granny, and carefully preserved, as a source of good
fortune to it in after life.
By the bright red light of the fire (which shone through a little
window upon the waters of the ferry) Jamie Gair sat mending his nets,
and affixing various large brown bladders thereto. A red night-cap
was placed jauntily on his round curly head; the sleeves of his blue
flannel-shirt were rolled up to the elbows, displaying his brawny
arms, and, where his thick beard and whiskers did not conceal it, his
face was browned to the hue of mahogany by exposure to the weather.
Mary, his wife, a buxom dame of six-and-twenty, wearing one of those
long-eared coifs, which are still worn by old women in the Lowlands,
and a short skirted jacket, was fondling their son and heir, a baby
about a year old, to which she was merrily _lilting_ in that manner
peculiar to the women of Scotland, when a song is hummed and half
sung, while a dish of stappit-haddie (_i.e._, a haddock stuffed with
oatmeal, onions, and pepper), broiled before the fire, for breakfast
next morning, as Jamie had to start early, and now sat late in the
preparation of his nets.
Jamie had not sailed that day to the fishing-ground for various
reasons. He had passed a stray pig on the beach; and, moreover, he
had on a pair of new boots--both ominous of a bad day's fishing, and,
perhaps, of greater evil; so he had spent the noon and evening beside
his red-cheeked Mary at the cottage, mending and thoroughly repairing
his nets for the morrow; for he believed as implicitly in these
augurs of evil as in the mark of St. Peter's thumb on the haddock,
and in the wonderful story of the twenty-four beautiful mermaids who
swam round Inchkeith, and sought in vain to tempt Abbot William of
Holyrood, who dwelt there as a hermit, to trust himself afloat on
their tails, which, happily for himself, the Abbot politely declined
to do. Mary was pleased that he was at home, for the night was
fitful, and dark masses of cloud crossed the face of the moon, which
rose slowly above the ness of Fife. The wind swept in sudden gusts
down the ferry, and the surf hissed as it rolled on the outer beach;
for the sand was thickly strewn with enormous whin boulders, and was
not a pistol-shot from the cottage door.
Three strange ships had been visible in the offing all day, and, as
evening fell, Jamie had observed them stealthily creeping towards the
shore; and when the gloaming came on, the head-most vessel was
perhaps not three miles from the Gaa sands. When Jamie had scanned
her last with his nautical eye he observed her laying off and on, but
without manifesting any intention of entering the harbour or
requiring a pilot, as she never fired a gun or showed her colours.
Not a vessel had passed the ferry that day; all was quiet in the
harbour of Dundee, for the old superstition about the ill-luck of
sailing on a Friday was still devoutly believed in.
The hour was now verging on midnight. Jamie had mended the last hole
in his nets, and the pretty Mary looked very sleepy and coy.
"Hark, gudeman," said she, interrupting her lilting, "some one tirls
the door-pin."
At that moment a loud and reiterated knocking was heard, and the
door-latch was shaken violently. Jamie relinquished the net for a
boat-stretcher, lest the visitor might be, as he muttered, "some
ground-shark or uncanny body," and angrily opened the door, saying,--
"Wha the deil's this, makin' sic a dirdum at my door, at this time o'
nicht?"
"Sir Hew Borthwick," replied that personage, with gruff hauteur; and
Jamie perceived that he and two companions were well muffled in
cloaks, beneath which he saw their long swords and spurs glittering.
The two gentlemen were masked. "Thou knowest me, Jamie Gair, I
think?"
"Ay, Sir Hew," replied the fisherman, doffing his night-cap, while
something of a leer twinkled in his lively grey eyes; "I took ye on
board the _Yellow Frigate_ yestreen, for which--"
"I owe thee half a lion; here it is. Now, art willing to earn
another honest penny?"
"Troth am I, sir," replied Jamie, throwing on his storm-jacket; "I've
my gudewife and a bonnie bairn to provide for. In what can I serve
ye, sir?"
"Take us on board the vessel that is nearest the shore, and thou
shalt have an angel."
An angel was thirteen shillings Scots--but now Jamie paused.
"A Louis, then? Plague on't! thou sailest nigh the wind, man!"
"Come, come, fellow," said one of the masked men, imperiously, "do
not trifle, for we have not time to chaffer with such carles as thee.
Besides, this place hath a devilish odour of tar, wet twine, and old
fish baskets----"
"Wow, sir, but you've a het tongue in your head, and a dainty nose on
your face. But it's no the money that I tak tent o'," replied Jamie,
proudly. "The craft that was close in shore, and hugging the land a'
day, never showed her ensign; but three times lowered her boat, and
three times hoisted it on board again. Her forecastle guns are
levelled owre the gunnel, and not through portholes, wherefore I
opine she is English; so gentlemen, I crave your pardons, but I
likena the job."
"Jamie Gair," said one of the strangers, in a hoarse whisper, "'tis
on the King's service we are boune; here are six golden lions; art
satisfied? If not, I would not be in thy tarry boots, fellow, for
all the Howe of Angus!"
This man's voice startled Jamie, for he now recognised Sir Patrick
Gray of Kyneff, captain of the adjacent Royal Castle of Broughty--one
with whom he, a poor fisherman, dared not trifle for a moment.
"I will do your bidding, fair sir; but my neighbour is away to the
fishing-ground, whilk o' ye can handle an oar?"
"I," said Borthwick.
"And I," added Gray of Kyneff; "so let us be off, for I have not a
moment to spare."
"Gudewife, thou wilt pardon us taking Jamie away for an hour or so;
and bethink thee, dame, how many braw gauds and new kirtles these
golden lions will buy." And with these words Gray placed in Margo's
hand six of those large gold coins of James II., which bore on one
side a lion rampant, and on the reverse, the St. Andrew's cross.
Jamie put on one of those broad blue bonnets for the manufacture of
which Dundee was even then celebrated, and after kissing the sleeping
baby, said,--
"Now, Mary, let me kiss thee, lass, frae lug to lug."
"To spare time, I shall be glad to save thee that trouble, Gair,"
said Sir Patrick Gray.
"Mony thanks, my braw gentleman," retorted Jamie, twirling the
boat-stretcher in his brawny hand; "but there are some things I like
to do for myself, and _this_ is ane o' them. Keep a cog fu' o' het
yill on the hearth for me, Mary, gin the time I return; and now,
sirs, let's awa."
As they stumbled along the beach to the rude stone pier, where
Jamie's clinker-built boat was moored to an iron ring,
"Dost see anything of those ships?" asked Sir Patrick Gray whom Jamie
was careful not to recognise.
"The headmost craft wasna a mile frae the Buddon-ness when the
gloaming fell," replied the fisherman, looking keenly to the
eastward; "the wind was off the land then, but it veered round a
point to the north. Wow but the moon bodes a grand haul o' herrin'
off St. Monan's the morn! I wish I had gane to the
fishing-ground----"
"And lost these six lions--eh? But here is thy boat, grumbler," said
the third personage, who as yet had scarcely spoken; "now let us
shove off."
"If these are English ships, sir," said Jamie, as he assisted the
three to embark, and cast off the painter, "I marvel mickle at their
impudence in being off the Tay, while Sir Andrew Wood is at anchor in
the Firth."
"Marvel at nothing; but keep thy wind for cooling thy porridge, or
for better uses," retorted the haughty Gray, rolling himself up in
his mantle, and his companion did the same, while Borthwick and Jamie
shipped their oars, and turned the boat's prow to the sea.
When the shadows of the land and the square dark keep of Broughty,
with its broad barbican and flanking towers were left behind, the
night (even while the moon was enveloped in clouds) was not so murky
that objects could not be distinguished; yet the three voyagers
looked in vain for a vestige of the ship which they expected to be
nearest the shore. A pale stripe of white light edged the horizon,
and between it and the boat the waves were rising and falling, like
those of an inky ocean; and in that streak of sky, and between the
flying clouds, a few red, fiery stars were seen to sparkle at
intervals. Cold currents of air swept over the estuary, bringing
that peculiar fragrance which a night breeze always bears off the
land; and the hoarse roar of the heavy surf, as it bellowed on the
rocks of Broughty Castle, and rolled far inland upon the shingly
beach to the eastward of it, could be hoard distinctly, as the boat
of Gair was pulled directly out to sea.
"Tarry a moment, Gair," said Sir Patrick Gray; "now where are those
vessels--eh?"
"You'll see them, sir, when they are lifted into the streak o' light;
there they are! awa' doon to windward."
"But what the devil is windward--which way?" asked Borthwick.
"Well mayst thou ask that, for it seems to be whichever way I turn my
face; but oho! I see them now!" added Gray--as the dark outlines of
two vessels, with all their sails set, appeared in the distant
offing, between the black vapours that seemed to rest on their
mast-heads and the darker ocean on which they floated. "'Sdeath!
they are ten good miles off."
"Outside the Inchcape, at least, I should say," added his hitherto
silent friend.
"But where is the _Harry_--this devilish craft, which Gair says was
visible near the Buddon-ness?"
"I'll soon find out."
"What was the signal agreed upon?" whispered Gray.
"_This_," replied the other, discharging a hand-gun the air,
Almost immediately afterwards, two sparks appeared about half-a-mile
off; they brightened fast, and then two pale blue lights were seen
burning close to the edge of the water.
"'Tis the _Harry_! Give way, Jamie--give way, Borthwick!" said Sir
Patrick. The oars dipped into the water, and the sharp-prowed boat
shot over the waves towards the lights, which soon faded away and
expired. The night was now intensely dark, for not a vestige of moon
was visible; but soon a noise was heard above the incessant dashing
of the sea. It was like the flapping of a sail; and then one faint
blink of moonlight, as it broke through an opening in the clouds,
showed, close by, a large and high-pooped vessel coming suddenly to
the wind, as if the watch had descried the boat upon the water; and
this proved to be the case, for almost immediately, a voice in
English cried out,
"Boat, a-hoy!"
Gray, who answered the hail, and held the tiller, passed the fisher
boat under the towering stern of the English ship, and sheering
sharply round on her larboard side, the little craft was soon made
fast; but Jamie was commanded to remain in her, while Sir Patrick
Gray, Borthwick, and the third personage, who proved to be no other
than Sir James Shaw of Sauchie, governor of Stirling, were introduced
to the state-cabin, where, with some reluctance, we are compelled to
accompany them.