"Behind backs, leaning against the sparkling panes of the window, young Robert Davidson speaks aside to Lizzie Tosh, the daughter of the house. They were 'cried' to-day in West Anster kirk, and soon will have a blithe bridal—'If naething comes in the way,' says Lizzie, with her downcast face; and the manly young sailor answers—'Nae fear.'
"'Nae fear!' But without, the stealthy steps come nearer; and if you draw far enough away from the open door to lose the merry voices, and have your eyes no longer dazzled with the light, you will see dim figures creeping through the darkness, and feel that the air is heavy with the breath of men. But few people care to use that dark road between the manse and the churchyard at night, so no one challenges the advancing party, or gives the alarm.
"Lizzie Tosh has stolen to the door; it is to see if the moon is up, and if Robert will have light on his homeward walk to Pittenweem; but immediately she rushes in again, with a face as pale as it had before been blooming, and alarms the assembly. 'A band of the cutter's men;—an officer, with a sword at his side. Rin, lads, rin, afore they reach the door.'
"But there is a keen, eager face, with a cocked hat surmounting it, already looking in at the window. The assembled sailors make a wild plunge at the door; and, while a few escape under cover of the darkness, the cutter's men have secured, after a desperate resistance, three or four of the foremost. Poor fellows! You see them stand without, young Robert Davidson in the front, his broad, bronzed forehead bleeding from a cut he has received in the scuffle, and one of his captors, still more visibly wounded, looking on him with evil, revengeful eyes: his own eye, poor lad, is flaming with fierce indignation and rage, and his broad breast heaves almost convulsively. But now he catches a glimpse of the weeping Lizzie, and fiery tears, which scorch his eyelids, blind him for a moment, and his heart swells as if it would burst. But it does not burst, poor desperate heart! until the appointed bullet shall come, a year or two hence, to make its pulses quiet for ever.
"A few of the gang entered the house. It is only 'a but and a ben;' and Lizzie stands with her back against the door of the inner apartment, while her streaming eyes now and then cast a sick, yearning glance toward the prisoners at the door—for her brother stands there as well as her betrothed.
"'What for would you seek in there?' asked the mother, lifting up her trembling hands. 'What would ye despoil my chaumer for, after ye've made my hearthstane desolate. If ye've a license to steal men, ye've nane to steal gear. Ye've dune your warst: gang out o' my house ye thieves, ye locusts, ye'——
"'We'll see about that, old lady,' said the leader:—'put the girl away from that door. Tom, bring the lantern.'
"The little humble room was neatly arranged. It was their best, and they had not spared upon it what ornament they could attain. Shells far travelled, precious for the giver's sake, and many other heterogeneous trifles, such as sailors pick up in foreign parts, were arranged upon the little mantel-piece and grate. There was no nook or corner in it which could possibly be used for a hiding-place; but the experienced eye of the foremost man saw the homely counterpane disordered on the bed; and there indeed the mother had hid her youngest, dearest son. She had scarcely a minute's time to drag him in, to prevail upon him to let her conceal him under her feather-bed, and all its comfortable coverings. But the mother's pains were unavailing, and now she stood by, and looked on with a suppressed scream, while that heavy blow struck down her boy as he struggled—her youngest, fair-haired, hopeful boy.
"Calm thoughts are in your heart, Katie Stewart—dreams of sailing over silver seas under that moon which begins to rise, slowly climbing through the clouds yonder, on the south side of the Firth. In fancy, already, you watch the soft Mediterranean waves rippling past the side of the Flower of Fife, and see the strange beautiful countries of which your bridegroom has told you shining under the brilliant southern sun. And then the home-coming—the curious toys you will gather yonder for the sisters and the mother; the pride you will have in telling them how Willie has cared for your voyage—how wisely he rules the one Flower of Fife, how tenderly he guards the other.