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 lassie 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 201 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 lass, 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, lassie. I’ll not touch a farthing of it. You have fairly won it. It will happen help 202 Neil’s deficiencies. Oh, my dear lassie! Mither has done her last kippering! I feel it.”