“Weel, weel. I near forgot the laddies want ye to come pertikeler Tuesday at three or Wednesday at four, for the tide be high then; and they’ll bait some hooks, and ye can go out and catch the first haddie yersel’ for luck, mem.”
“All right, then, Tuesday, at three.”
So on Tuesday we hurried over luncheon and drove in the dogcart to the fishing village of Haddon, for the official ceremony, carefully armed with a bottle of red wine to sprinkle the sides of the boat, and a bottle of whisky for the family to drink the boat’s health; both being suggestions of the dear old fishwife herself—the one for the cold, the other for the boat, as she wisely remarked.
All our friends, the minister among them, refused to believe I—a stranger—had actually been asked to perform such a ceremony: the Haddon folk being usually so exclusive. They marry amongst themselves and do everything amongst themselves, no outsider ever being asked to partake in any of their functions.
Arrived at the quaint little village, driving with difficulty between the pigs, the babies, and the chickens, we sought the heather-thatched, whitewashed house of the Murrays.
“Good dee to ye, mem—good dee to ye au,” and out of the kitchen tumbled the mother, father, sons, and daughters, pigs, chickens, and grandchildren.
Carefully carrying a bottle in each arm, I marched to the beach, followed by the Murray family, our numbers being swelled by other villagers at every step.
There, on the sand, reposed the haddie boatie—a fine big boat, capable of taking a dozen or twenty men to sea. She was lying on rollers, ready to be put in the water—but, oh! what water. Great white horses lashed the shore; Neptune truly was riding fiery steeds. We were admiring the majestic crested waves breaking over the rocks when Mr. Murray said, “The hooks is baited, and ye shall catch the first haddie for luck yersel’, mem.”
Should I, or should I not, disgrace myself on that turbulent water, over which the seagulls screeched and whirled and flapped their wings?
By this time fifty or sixty of the villagers had arrived to help launch the boat, and my heart trembled when I remembered the one bottle of whisky brought for the Murray family to drink to the boat’s success. How far would it go amongst so many?