THE BROKEN WEDDING-RING.
"His little hardy infant son
Sits crowing on his lusty neck;
His wife--a fair and tender one--
Murmurs and weeps upon his cheek;
The sail is set, she clears the shore,
She feels the wind and scuds away,
Heels on her little keel, and o'er
The jostling waves appears to play."
While all these events which have been narrated had taken place,
Jamie Gair, the fisherman of Broughty-point, had been quietly fishing
and selling, or selling and fishing, and while battles were won and a
kingdom lost, he had nothing to agitate his mind of greater
importance than an occasional foul wind, or an evil omen, such as
meeting a cat, a pig, or an old woman, when about to embark, or
seeing two crows flying together--an infallible sign of misfortune;
or losing a net, and being unable to settle his twine bill--a serious
matter for a poor fisherman.
During the last days of July, he had suffered so many omens to deter
him from putting to sea, that the imperative necessity for braving
all such absurd dangers and superstitious fears, and of departing for
the fishing ground, made Jamie prepare his nets and floats, though
advised by his companion and partner in the boat, John o' the
Buddon-ness, that the weather, which had been squally for some days
past, was likely to become more so.
"Toots, carle," said Jamie, as he knotted the last brown bladder to
the net; "the Crail fisher that passed in here yestreen said the sea
had been roaring at Kincraig, a sure sign o' fine weather; so let us
trip our anchor, and hie awa', John, for the last cogfu' o' meal is
in Mary's girnel, and I daurna' byde langer by the ingle cheek, like
a lubberly land-louper."
"E'en as ye please," replied John, drawing on his long rough boots;
"he that will to Cupar, maun to Cupar."
"But Mary, my doo, what is asteer, lass, and wherefore greet ye?"
asked Gair, whom John's proverb annoyed.
"Oh, Jamie, look on _this_, and then say whether you suld gang to the
fishing this day!" replied Mary, showing her wedding ring, which by
some fatal mischance had been broken in two; and in Scotland this is
deemed an invariable sign of approaching separation. People lived in
an atmosphere of omens in those days; thus Jamie was sorely
staggered: but he had been inert so long, that to linger longer on
shore was to ruin himself. He held his cottage from the castellan of
the king's castle, and its rent had to be punctually paid when the
time came. For many days his kain of fish had not been delivered at
the barbican gate, and though the new governor, the Laird of
Balgillo, was a man of a very different character from Sir Patrick
Gray, yet he could be trifled with no longer! And now the herring
droves were sweeping down from the Northern Ocean; and seaward Jamie
Gair resolved to go, though John o' the Buddon-ness looked stern and
gloomy, and Mary wept and held up their little son and heir for the
last kiss of his father's rough and bearded cheek,--and a _last_ kiss
it proved indeed to be! But let us not anticipate.
"The ring will mend, Mary," said Jamie, as he kissed away the tears
from her blooming cheek; "and bethink ye, lass, can an omen o' evil
ever be shown by a ring that was blessed by the auld Monk o' Sanct
John at the Sclaitheughs? I trow no."
After a breakfast of peasebannocks, cheese, and hot Lammas ale,
thickened by eggs, the fishermen embarked, trimmed their boat, braced
the yard sharp up to the north wind, and bore down the estuary.
There was a grey sky overhead, and a rolling sea below; the horizon
looked dark where it met the line of ocean, and the waves lifted
their white tops between.
The wind whistled drearily along the shores of the Firth; the
breakers boomed on the low flat sands of the Buddon-ness; the gusts
that came at times strained the braces of the brown lug-sail, and
while they lifted the boat's sharp prow above the water, they tore
the white spray off the dancing waves, and threw it far along the
sea, like heavy rain or mist.
Mary's form in her mantle and lowland wyliecoat had faded to a speck
on the sand, and now the square tower of Broughty and the Hill of
Balgillo began to sink among the grey vapour that crept along the
shore. The cottage on the beach was all the world to Jamie Gair, and
the boat that was dwindling into a black spot in the grey and dusky
offing, was all the world to Mary.
Jamie whistled and sang, as the waves rolled past.
"There will be a grand haul of herrings to nicht!" said he; but his
partner, John o' the Buddon-ness, made no reply, for his keen eyes
were fixed to windward. He had an uncomfortable feeling in his
breast--for old seamen have secret instincts about the weather,
instincts of which a landsman knows nothing, and in which he cannot
share: but the evil foreboded by this old man's heart was different,
perhaps, from what he anticipated.
"Tak' a pull o' the sheet, John," said Jamie; "though the weather
looks grey, we are as safe as our neighbours--be a man--trust in God
and St. Mary!"
"I do trust in them," said the old man, touching his bonnet with
reverence as he looked upward; "but neither God nor St. Mary have
said men shall no be drooned. I can face saut water and the northern
scud, Jamie, as my faithers did before me--and face them like a man
as ye say, and neither blench nor quail."
"Keep her away another point or sae," said Jamie, "for the glare o'
the kelpfires and the saut pans have scared the droves frae this part
o' the shore,--and mairower, the _waterburn_ has been here for a week
and mair."
This is a luminous appearance of the sea, which, like lightning, has
the effect of scaring the herrings from the coast.
It is usually about this season--the end of June or middle of
July--that the great _heer_, or shoal of herrings from the north,
appears at the extremity of the northern isles of Scotland.
Where they come from, no man knows; but a surface of many hundred
square miles of water becomes literally alive, and teeming with this
prodigious body of fish. All the ocean seems to ripple around them,
while whales are tumbling and myriads of porpoises surging and
plunging through them, and clouds of gulls and gannets accompany
them, screaming and in full flight.
The Scottish fishermen aver that they can scent this mighty drove
from afar off, by the strong oily smell with which the air becomes
impregnated. This yearly invasion divides into two bodies, one of
which seeks the Ebudoe and the Irish Channel; the other keeps along
the eastern and western coast of Scotland till October, and then,
from her countless creeks and harbours, she sends forth her
clinker-built fleets to net the annual mine of wealth with which her
waters teem.
By sunset Jamie Gair and his companion reached the herring ground,
where the gulls were screaming and the porpoises dancing through the
short foamy waves, but still the sky was cold and lowering, and the
sea was inky black; yet though the breeze was freshening, they shot
their net, with inward hopes and a half muttered prayer--for they are
pious souls, those hardy Scottish fishers--that a night of success
might reward a day of toil amid the drenching spray.
Their boat, the _Mary_--for so she was fondly named--they denuded of
her sail, and hooked on to the net, allowing her thus to drift before
wind and tide. They were the farthest off shore, for more than a
hundred boats were all drifting in the same fashion, between them and
the land.
Night came on, and to prevent any chance of their being run down,
each boat's crew lit their dim horn lantern; then a quaighful of
whiskey went round; and still the darkness deepened on the silent
sea; still the boats drifted by their heavy nets, and still the
breeze was freshening from afar.
Midnight came.
Black, dense, and furious, a gust came with it--a fierce and heavy
squall, sheer from the icy north, that scattered all the little fleet
and nearly swamped the boat of Gair.
It was the turn of the tide now, and from their fishing ground a
strong current runs from the north-north-east towards St. Andrew's
stormy bay, and all along that bleak and iron shore.
"Awa' wi' the net, Jamie!" cried old John o' the Buddon-ness,
furiously, through the roaring wind and hissing sea; and he held up a
hand to the side of his mouth.
Jamie lingered, for the sacrifice was great.
"Awa' wi't!" cried John; "awa' wi't, or the boat is swamped in a
minnit mair!"
Jamie sprang to the leeward gunnel, knife in hand, and a sore pang
shot through his heart, as he thought of the unpaid twine bill--for
he yet owed the price of the net to the rope-makers in Tindall's
Wynd; but go it must. One slash of the knife, and net and floats,
with all their scaly cargo, were swept away like a gossamer web.
Half the boat-lanterns around them were tumbling hither and thither
on the crests of the waves, or deep in the trough of the sea; the
other half had vanished, for many a boat had gone down with all her
hands on board!
And now nothing can save their frail shallop but running before the
wind, and the close-reefed foresail strains on the mast of tough
Scottish larch as it lifts the boat of the bold fisherman over each
hoarse wave of that black and gurly sea.
Nor kith nor kin has poor John o' the Buddon-ness to weep for him, if
his corpslicht dances on the waves to-morrow night; for his father
and seven brethren had all perished at sea.
Jamie thought of Mary and of their babe--of the broken ring--of the
lost nets, and of his older friend's foreboding, and their present
danger; and, while his strong heart swelled with agony, his iron
hands grasped the wet tiller, and kept the lug-sail full.
On, on flew the sharp boat before that furious wind; and now faint
lights were seen to twinkle amid the darkness and the flying scud to
starboard; then the poor Scottish fishermen, while tears of hope and
reliance mingled with the bitter spray that drenched their faces, put
their trust in God and St. Andrew, and a hope arose that all might
yet go well; for those lights were twinkling in the aisles of that
glorious cathedral church upon the promontory--the work of a hundred
and fifty years; and their prayers were heard; for morning came, and
still their boat was sea-worthy, and as the dawn brightened, both sea
and wind went down; the water was covered with foam--but not a trace
was seen of that little fleet, among which they had shot their nets
over-night.
As the sun rose through a hazy veil of vapour, Jamie found the Isle
of May lying right a-head, and discovered that he had been blown far
past Fife-ness, for now the distant spire of Crail and the faint blue
Craig of Kilmeinie were gilded by the rising beams; and, now that all
danger of being drowned was past, Jamie thought bitterly of his
losses over-night.
Toil-worn and disappointed, the two fishermen were about to haul up
for the shore and run into Crail Harbour, when the sudden apparition
of three large vessels, under easy sail, bearing straight towards
them, from under the lee of the Isle of May, where doubtless they had
lain secure all night at anchor, arrested their attention; for at a
glance Gair and John o' Buddon-ness perceived they were English
ships, heavily armed and full of men.
These vessels were little more than a mile distant, and the fishermen
knew that a run of four miles would bring them into the nearest
harbour, where their boat--their little all--would be safe. The time
was one of truce between the two countries; but recent events had
proved that the warlike skippers of King Henry were not
over-particular in respecting strangers at sea.
The breeze was still fresh and keen; the fishers stepped their mast,
hoisted so much of their lug-sail as they dared, and, favoured by a
side wind, bore away for Crail; but one of the English caravels
followed them, and only a short time elapsed before a puff of smoke
curled from her bows, and a cannon-shot boomed over the water close
by, and plunging into the slope of a wave, raised it like a spout
ahead of the boat.
"Ablins, they lack a pilot, Jamie," said John o' the Buddon-ness;
"let us lie-to; they canna' hae the hearts to harm twa puir dyvour
shields like you and me."
"May my een melt in their sockets when I undertake to pilot an
Englishman!" said Jamie; "but by my certie, here comes another
shot--douk doon, John, douk doon!"
This time it was the ball of an arquebuse, levelled through an iron
sling attached to the ratlins.
The warning words had scarcely left Jamie's lips before the boat
yawed round furiously, and his poor old companion fell dead across
the thwart, for the same bullet that cut the halyard had pierced his
heart, and in another minute the startled Gair found the English ship
cleaving the billows close by him, and her hull towering from the sea
as her mainyard was backed, and she lay to.
"Come on hoard, thou rascally Scot," cried a voice; "and marry! come
quickly, lest we fire again!"
"Fling me owre a rope, then," replied Jamie, who, but for the sake of
Mary, would have jumped overboard rather than obeyed.
A rope was thrown to him, and in another moment he found himself
standing on the deck of the stately ship commanded by Sir Stephen
Bull, and he was roughly dragged before that portly commander, who
appeared in half armour at the door of the poop, which contained the
principal cabins.
"Thou hast given us trouble enough, in all conscience, fellow!" said
he, angrily; "why laid ye not to?"
"Because Sir Andrew Wood is not in these waters; the ships of Sir
William Merrimonth and John Barton are all in the western seas, and
we have none to protect us now," said Gair, with a sigh of bitterness
as he looked after his boat, now cut adrift and tossing on the sea
with the dead body of his companion in it.
"Ah! and so Sir Andrew Wood is not in the seas?"
"No, sir; but is daily expected," said Gair, spitefully.
"Good," said Sir Stephen, with a smile of gratification on his broad
and bearded face; "that is the reason, Scot, which brings us here."
"I pray you to release me, gude sir," implored Jamie, as he stood,
bonnet in hand, amid a circle of armed Londoners, who stared at the
"rough-footed Scot" as if he had been a wild animal; "I am but a puir
fisher carle, wi' a wife and a wean to support in these hard times of
civil war and trouble; I lost my nets yesternicht in the squall, and
ye have cut my boat adrift this morning--I am a ruined man!" he
added, as he almost wept in the agony of his spirit.
"A ruined man, indeed! so much the better for our purpose, perhaps,"
said Sir Stephen Bull, with an icy smile; "wouldst know the ships of
Sir Andrew Wood if you saw them now?"
"Yes, sir, as well as my ain cottage lum."
"Cottage what, sirrah?"
"Lum, sir; lum."
"'Tis well," said Bull, turning to Captain Edmund Howard, who had
recognised the poor fisherman of Broughty-point, and who had been
standing somewhat aloof; "let this man be well watched, and call me
the moment a sail appears in sight; for Scot though he be, his eyes
may serve us here better than our own."
"But he may escape," suggested Howard, who half hoped he would.
"Escape! nay, nay; let his legs be secured in fetterlocks, then he'll
not drag his anchor, I warrant."
Strictly guarded, Jamie was kept for three days on board of the
_Unicorn_, the ship of Bull; and though he knew not exactly for what
purpose, he feared it would prove of no good ultimately to himself.
In these three days which succeeded the midnight storm, what would be
the thoughts, the surmises of poor Mary, and how great would be her
terror at his disappearance; how much greater, too, if his boat was
picked up, or cast ashore, with the body of his slaughtered friend in
it! The poor man covered his brown visage with his rough hands, and
endeavoured to shut out sight, sound, and reflection, but such
thoughts would come again and again.
Edmund Howard treated him with the greatest kindness, and endeavoured
to raise his drooping spirits by promises that he would soon be set
on shore, with gold sufficient to buy ten such boats and nets as
those he had lost; but Jamie ever replied,--
"Na--na, sir; I want nane o' your siller, for English gold works
Scotland ever dule and wae; and may my fingers be blistered if I
touch it!"
Then Howard questioned him about the family of Lord Drummond; but
Jamie could only say that "it was commonly bruited abroad that his
daughter, the Lady Margaret, the king's gude cousin, was to be Queen
of Scotland, and that a winsome young pair they would be."
Had honest Jamie Gair been less occupied by his own thoughts than he
was, he could not have failed to observe how these tidings--though
expected, sank into poor Howard's brave and noble heart.
Meanwhile the English ships never molested the coast, for it was not
the purpose of Sir Stephen Bull to create an alarm, so he continued
to cruise off the mouth of the Firth, within a space of twenty miles
or so, running southward as far as Dunbar, and northward as far as
the Carr Rock; but generally hovering about the Isle of May, to the
great anxiety and discomposure of the secluded priests of Pittenweem,
who dwelt thereon, and traded by shipping with France and the Baltic.
About dawn, on the fourth day after Jamie's misadventure, two large
vessels were descried at the horizon, like black specks, for the
clear streak of the coming day was astern of them, and their outline
was darkly and strongly defined. They loomed large; and from the
lofty poop of the _Unicorn_ Sir Stephen Bull reconnoitred them with
some anxiety, for the Scottish admiral was said to have but two ships
with him; and so he despatched a boat to the vessel of Miles le
Furnival, to bring on board the Scottish spy he had brought with him
from London.
"Is it _thee_, thou hell-begotten wretch?" exclaimed Howard, as Hew
Borthwick, gaily attired, stepped confidently along the deck of the
very ship which had been captured by his treachery; "by St. Paul, I
would give something handsome to see thee rove up to the
foreyard-arm!"
Borthwick gave the speaker a dark and furtive glance, but made no
reply.
"Thou art sure, sirrah, that Andrew Wood hath but two ships with
him?" asked Stephen Bull, imperiously, contempt and scorn curling his
full, ruddy lip as he spoke.
"Sure as I have now the honour of addressing you."
"Wouldst know them if ye saw them?"
"Not unless within half-a-mile or so."
"That were somewhat too close for my purpose," said Bull; "remove
this shabby lubber, this skulking lurdane, from the quarterdeck, and
bring aft the fisherman."
Borthwick, who had repeatedly begged to be placed ashore, but in
vain, was now roughly removed, and poor Jamie Gair, with his legs
stiff by four days' and nights' retention in fetter-locks, was
brought before Sir Stephen Bull, around whom all his officers and
gentlemen volunteers were crowding, with kindling eyes and open ears.
"Wouldst thou know the ships of Sir Andrew Wood, sirrah?" asked Sir
Stephen, whose pages were arming him in a brilliant coat of mail.
"Weel as I wad ken the dear face o' my ain wife!" replied the
prisoner, with ardour and sadness.
"Never mind thy wife's face, Scot; but answer me."
"So far an honest man may, I will, sir."
"Then, are these his vessels--away there to windward?"
Gair looked there for a moment; his eyes flashed and his cheek
reddened; but he hung his head with an emotion which did not escape
the keen and penetrating eyes of the English captain.
"Speak, sirrah!" said he, imperiously, as he grasped his poniard.
"They are hull down, sir."
"Well, but ye may know the trim of his sails, and the fashion of his
gear aloft."
"I--I dinna ken, sir."
"Answer me, fellow, at once; are these, or are they _not_, the
caravels of Sir Andrew of Largo?"
"I am no free to say."
"Trifle not; answer me at once, or, by the head of King Henry, I will
lash you at the gunner's daughter, and fling you overboard after!"
"I daurna trifle, noble sir, I who am but a pair fisherman, with you
an armed knight; but I too can swear, and by the head of King James,
I sall rather dee than tell ye."
"Then die, fellow!" said the knight, furiously; "Dick Selby, tie a
ball to his heels, and trice him by the armpits up to the yard-arm;
while there, he will have a better view of these coming craft. Knot
the rope round in a fisherman's bend--he may like it the better."
It was all done in the time we have taken to write it; the ball of a
carthoun--about thirty-six pounds in weight--was attached to his
ankles, which were tied together; a rope was passed round his body,
and he was run up to the arm of the maintopsail-yard, where he hung
with outspread hands. A shudder, but partly subdued by anger at his
obstinacy, passed over all on deck. A culverin was prepared, and the
seamen in the waist, who had "triced" the poor fisherman up, held in
their hands the line on which his life depended.
"Answer me now, Scot--are yonder craft the ships of Sir Andrew Wood?"
cried Stephen Bull, who was a stern and uncompromising, as well as a
cunning and reckless man; "answer!"
"Never," cried Gair, "though ye should wrench me bone frae bone!"
"You may as well tell the truth," said Howard, "and save your life,
for it will be all the same for your admiral in the end."
"I ne'er say aucht but truth," replied Gair; "but ye sall get nae
information frae me."
"Then take thy last look of yonder rising sun, my brave fellow," said
Howard, with deep commiseration; "for in one minute more thou'lt be
lying at the bottom of thy native sea."
"Oh, my sakeless wife and bairn!" cried the poor fisherman: "but in
life and death, I commit you to the care of God!"
These words struck a chill on all who heard them, and the brave
English gentlemen and mariners of Bull grew pale as they looked on
each other.
Twice Sir Stephen repeated the question, and on receiving, for the
last time, the same reply, he cried, furiously,--
"Thy blood be on thine own head, fellow!--fire the gun!"
The white smoke gushed from the gunport through the black rigging;
the sharp report pealed over the morning sea, and ere it died away
the rope had whistled through the block, as the sailors cast it from
them like an instrument of murder, and poor Jamie Gair had vanished
from the yard-arm of the _Unicorn_.
"Oh, Sir Stephen Bull," cried Howard, as he rushed to the vessel's
side; "what is this thou hast done?"
"Drowned a pitiful Scot, whose obstinacy may mar our morning's work,"
was the dogged reply, as a few bubbles that rose to the surface, were
all that remained to show where the fisherman had sunk. Sir Stephen
walked aft hastily, but was evidently dissatisfied with himself, for
he returned, and said,--
"Why this regret, Edmund Howard; was not the man only a Scot?"
"For that reason I commiserate his fate the more," said Howard, who
was no doubt thinking of Lady Margaret Drummond.
"Tush! display the signal to clear away for battle, and hoist the
French ancient, for I have no doubt these are the ships of him we are
in search of. If they were not, our defunct fisherman would soon
have said so."
"God will not bless the course we thus begin," said Howard; "and if
yonder ships are indeed those of Sir Andrew Wood, the weepers of
Saint John, by London Wall, will be singing dirges for some of us ere
long."
"I care little whether or not God blesses it, if Henry our king is
pleased," said Sir Stephen, with a glance of pride and anger; "but
peace with this croaking, Sir Captain of mine--'tis a new thing in
thee. To your arms and to your quarters, fore and aft--sound
trumpets, and load culverins and arquebusses! Dick Selby, open the
magazine; John o'Lynne, see the fire's out; beat to quarters, and get
abroach three runlets of canary. Fight to the death, my merry men
all, for if you fall into the hands of the Scots they will chain you
to work on their castles and highways, and feed you worse than
Charterhouse monks--so every man to quarters, and St. George for
Merry England!"