“The wife’s in a creel,” said Robbie Carlyle the fisherman, entering with his basket of flounders, thinly covered with a few grilse. “Wha’s she gaun to pit to the door? If it’s Effie, I’ll hae nae mair dealings wi’ ye, Mrs Mense; for Effie’s Jamie Caryl’s daughter, and Jamie’s my second cousin; sae we’ll be to ’gree again.”
“And wha’ll tire sunest o’ that, Robbie, my man?” said the housekeeper.
“Faith, I dinna ken,” said the bold fisherman, “there’s waur folk nor me, guid wife; and if I missed your custom, ye wad miss my ca’, ye ken; for I’m guid company—especially when I bring the cuddie.”
“I would like to ken, Robbie Caryl,” said Janet, “what the like o’ you has to do wi’ a cuddie.”
“The like o’ me! Ye’re a sensible woman, Jen, but ye dinna ken a’thing; it’s no to be expected. I ken few that does, by mysel’, and Mossgray, and the minister; the like o’ me! as if I wasna as ’sponsible a man as there is in the parish, and as weel entitled to hae ease to my shouthers! There’s thristles and dockens enow aboon tidemark to mainteen a dizzen cuddies, and he taks nae cleeding, puir beast; he’s cheaper than a wean.”
“Eh, Robbie!” said Mrs Mense, reproachfully, “to even the bits of innocent bairns to a brute beast!”
“He’s a very decent beast,” said Robbie. “I hae kent mony a waur Christian. The bairns! I hae half a dizzen curly pows o’ them, ilk ane a greater sorrow than the tither, and I can tell ye it’s Blackie out there that has the maist cause to compleen o’ being evened to them. He’s a decent, sober, ’sponsible beast, like my ain sel’, and the little anes are evendown spirits, never out o’ mischief, if it binna when they’re tumbled in a dub; and then ane has the fash o’ fishing them out again.”
“It maun be awfu’ dangerous for bairns, that weary marsh,” said Mrs Mense, sympathetically.
“Hout, we never fash our heads about it,” said the fisherman; “they’re a’ born to plouter amang saut water: it comes natural; when they do get a fa’, the oldest anes can scramble out again, and there’s nane o’ them ower young to skirl. The wife whiles makes a fyke about it, but nane o’ them ’ll drown. You might maist say they were born in the sea; onyway, the tide was up on the very doorstane the nicht Sandy was born. It was an uncommon high tide; and the weans hae a story that he came in on the tap o’ a muckle wave. Little Mary wad maist swear she saw the bit wee beld pow o’ him in amang the foam; and the foam’s nane o’ the clearest, I can tell ye, when the Firth’s in a roar.”
“Wasna Monday nicht uncommon coarse doun-bye?” said Janet. “Did ye hear if there was ony skaith dune, Robbie?”