"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.