“I’ll do as you say, dear lass. It is right I should.”
“Nay, but he should ask you to do it. If it was mysel’, I could ask you for anything I ought to have, but Neil is vera shy, and he kens weel how hard you wark for your money. He canna bear to speak o’ his necessities, sae I’m speaking the word for him.”
“Thy word goes wi’ me—always. I’ll ne’er say nay to thy yea,” and he clasped her hand, and looked with a splendid smile of affection into her beautiful face. An English father would have certainly kissed her, but Scotch fathers rarely give this token of affection. Christine did not expect it, unless it was her birthday, or New Year’s morning.
It was near the middle of July, when the herring arrived. Then early one day, Ruleson, watching the sea, smote his hands triumphantly, and lifting his cap with a shout of welcome, cried—
“There’s our boat! Cluny is sailing her! He’s bringing the news! They hae found the fish! Come awa’ to the pier to meet them, Christine.”
With hurrying steps they took the easier landward side of descent, but when they reached the pier there was already a crowd of men and women there, and the Sea Gull, James Ruleson’s boat, was making for it. She came in close-hauled to the wind, with a double reef in her sail. She came rushing across the bay, with the water splashing her gunwale. Christine kept her eyes upon the lad at the tiller, a handsome lad, tanned to the temples. His cheeks were flushed, and the wind was in his hair, 31 and the sunlight in his eyes, and he was steering the big herring boat into the harbor.
The men were soon staggering down to the boats with the nets, coiling them up in apparently endless fashion, and as they were loaded they were very hard to get into the boats, and harder still to get out. Just as the sun began to set, the oars were dipped, and the boats swept out of the harbor into the bay, and there they set their red-barked sails, and stood out for the open sea.
Ruleson’s boat led the way, because it was Ruleson’s boat that had found the fish, and Christine stood at the pier-edge cheering her strong, brave father, and not forgetting a smile and a wave of her hand for the handsome Cluny at the tiller. To her these two represented the very topmost types of brave and honorable humanity. The herring they were seeking were easily found, for it was the Grand Shoal, and it altered the very look of the ocean, as it drove the water before it in a kind of flushing ripple. Once, as the boats approached them, the shoal sank for at least ten minutes, and then rose in a body again, reflecting in the splendid sunset marvelous colors and silvery sheen.
With a sweet happiness in her heart, Christine went slowly home. She did not go into the village, she walked along the shore, over the wet sands to the little gate, which opened upon their garden. On her way she passed the life-boat. It was in full readiness for launching at a moment’s notice, 32 and she went close to it, and patted it on the bow, just as a farmer’s daughter would pat the neck of a favorite horse.