From sea, John’s house was therefore by day a very good mark to the helmsman, and on a clear night was as good as many a lighthouse.
Small though the building was, John’s best room, now given up to Sandie, was as snug and well furnished as any fisherman’s need be. The bed at one end, with its snowy counterpane and white calico curtains, would have made you drowsy to look at. Then there was a chest of drawers, an old-fashioned grandfather’s clock, and a real mahogany table with chairs, besides a little bookcase filled with the most motley collection of books ever seen, and a large sea-chest well stocked, nay, even crammed, with everything appertaining to male or female wearing apparel.
And all these articles of use and luxury John and his wife had gathered by their own untiring industry. But this room, you may be sure, was only dwelt in upon high days and holidays, such as John’s birthday, or “my ain,” Eppie would say, “which comes but once a year, ye ken.”
The portals of this sacred chamber were likewise thrown open wide on Halloween and Fasterseen, called in England Shrove Tuesday, and until the advent of one or other of those festive occasions, let us leave it. The best room was called butt the house. It was ben the house, however, where you found John and Eppie when really at home. This was the apartment next the sea, and in addition to its front window, it could also boast of a little six-paned gable window, with a very broad sill. Alongside this window stood John’s easy-chair, a vast chintz-covered edifice, which one would imagine had been built on the premises. And on the window sill, within easy reach, lay a large Family Bible, a copy of the Shorter Catechism, Burns’ Poems, and a Life of Sir William Wallace.
On stormy nights, when John’s boat was far out in the bay, rocked in the cradle of the deep, Eppie used to burn a bright light in the wee window, to keep up the spirits of her little man, and guide him safe to shore.
The window was, moreover, fitted with a strong shutter, which was shipped when the tides were high or the weather threatening.
A low fire of peats and pinewood burned upon the hearth, and in winter evenings, the stormier the night and the higher the waves, the bigger was the fire that Eppie built, seating herself near it, with a bright and cheery face to knit her stocking, while John, in his easy-chair opposite, entertained her with wonderful stories from that seemingly inexhaustible book, the Life of Wallace.
John, too, had other accomplishments besides that of reading, one of which, and not the least clever either, was his ability to stamp a reel or a strathspey on an old fiddle, that hung in its green baize bag on the wall behind his chair; how he loved that old instrument too! It was the only thing in the world that Eppie had ever had reason to be jealous of. John called his violin by the not over-euphonious name of “Janet.”
“Isn’t she natural?” he would exclaim gleefully after playing a tune. “Isn’t she na-a-tural?” and he would pat it on the back, and laughing, kiss it, then hold it to his breast as if it were a favourite child.
Yet John never cared to perform for his own special delectation, but rather for the happiness of others. Although himself childless, very seldom indeed was John’s fireside not surrounded of an evening by little curly heads and bright jubilant faces, listening mute and wondering to the weird old-fashioned tales he had such a gift in relating. How, too, would these little faces light up with smiles when, after a long story, John would rise, and standing on a chair, take down the mysterious green bag, and, after a series of tinkle-tankle-tum-tum, as he tuned up, and which made expectancy itself a pleasure, launch forth into a lively tune.