“Ye’ll gie me a what?”
“A sixpence.”
“I daur say ye wull, ma bonny leddy, but ye’ll no get thae four fish for twa sixpences this day.”
“I’ll not give more.”
“Weel, mem, gude day” (making preparations to go); “I’ll tak’ eighteenpence an’ be dune wi’t.”
“No; I’ll give you twopence each for them.”
And so the chaffering goes on, till ultimately the fishwife will take tenpence for the lot, and this plan of asking double what will be taken, which is common with them all and sometimes succeeds with simple housewives, will be repeated from door to door, till the supply be exhausted. The mode of doing business with a fishwife is admirably illustrated in the Antiquary. When Monkbarns bargains for “the bannock-fluke” and “the cock-padle,” Maggie Mucklebackit asks four and sixpence, and ends, after a little negotiation and much finesse, in accepting half-a-crown and a dram; the latter commodity being worth siller just then, in consequence of the stoppage of the distilleries.
The fishwives while selling their fish will often say something quaint to the customer with whom they are dealing. I will give one instance of this, which, though somewhat ludicrous, is characteristic, and have no doubt the words were spoken from the poor woman’s heart. “A fishwife who was crying her “caller cod” in George Street, Edinburgh, was stopped by a cook at the head of one of the area stairs. A cod was wanted that day for the dinner of the family, but the cook and the fishwife could not trade, disagreeing about the price. The night had been stormy, and instead of the fishwife flying into a passion, as is their general custom when bargaining for their fish if opposed in getting their price, the poor woman shed tears, and said to the cook, ‘Tak’ it or want it; ye may think it dear, but it’s a’ that’s left to me for a faither o’ four bairns.’”
Notwithstanding, however, their lying and cheating in the streets during the week when selling their fish, there are no human beings in Scotland more regular in their attendance at church. To go to their church on a Sunday, and see the women all sitting with their smooth glossy hair and snow-white caps, staring with open eyes and mouth at the minister, as he exhorts them from the pulpit as to what they should do, one would think them the most innocent and simple creatures in existence. But offer one of them a penny less than she feels inclined to take for a haddock, and he is a lucky fellow who escapes without its tail coming across his whiskers. Of late our fishwives have been considering themselves of some importance. When the Queen came first to Edinburgh, she happened to take notice of them, and every printshop window is now stuck full of pictures of Newhaven fishwives in their quaint costume of short petticoats of flaming red and yellow colours.[19]