CHAPTER LXIII.

THE BROKEN WEDDING-RING.

"His little hardy infant son Sits crowing on his lusty neck; His wife--a fair and tender one-- Murmurs and weeps upon his cheek; The sail is set, she clears the shore, She feels the wind and scuds away, Heels on her little keel, and o'er The jostling waves appears to play."

While all these events which have been narrated had taken place, Jamie Gair, the fisherman of Broughty-point, had been quietly fishing and selling, or selling and fishing, and while battles were won and a kingdom lost, he had nothing to agitate his mind of greater importance than an occasional foul wind, or an evil omen, such as meeting a cat, a pig, or an old woman, when about to embark, or seeing two crows flying together--an infallible sign of misfortune; or losing a net, and being unable to settle his twine bill--a serious matter for a poor fisherman.

During the last days of July, he had suffered so many omens to deter him from putting to sea, that the imperative necessity for braving all such absurd dangers and superstitious fears, and of departing for the fishing ground, made Jamie prepare his nets and floats, though advised by his companion and partner in the boat, John o' the Buddon-ness, that the weather, which had been squally for some days past, was likely to become more so.

"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.

"There will be a grand haul of herrings to nicht!" said he; but his partner, John o' the Buddon-ness, made no reply, for his keen eyes were fixed to windward. He had an uncomfortable feeling in his breast--for old seamen have secret instincts about the weather, instincts of which a landsman knows nothing, and in which he cannot share: but the evil foreboded by this old man's heart was different, perhaps, from what he anticipated.

"Tak' a pull o' the sheet, John," said Jamie; "though the weather looks grey, we are as safe as our neighbours--be a man--trust in God and St. Mary!"

"I do trust in them," said the old man, touching his bonnet with reverence as he looked upward; "but neither God nor St. Mary have said men shall no be drooned. I can face saut water and the northern scud, Jamie, as my faithers did before me--and face them like a man as ye say, and neither blench nor quail."

"Keep her away another point or sae," said Jamie, "for the glare o' the kelpfires and the saut pans have scared the droves frae this part o' the shore,--and mairower, the _waterburn_ has been here for a week and mair."

This is a luminous appearance of the sea, which, like lightning, has the effect of scaring the herrings from the coast.

It is usually about this season--the end of June or middle of July--that the great _heer_, or shoal of herrings from the north, appears at the extremity of the northern isles of Scotland.

Where they come from, no man knows; but a surface of many hundred square miles of water becomes literally alive, and teeming with this prodigious body of fish. All the ocean seems to ripple around them, while whales are tumbling and myriads of porpoises surging and plunging through them, and clouds of gulls and gannets accompany them, screaming and in full flight.

The Scottish fishermen aver that they can scent this mighty drove from afar off, by the strong oily smell with which the air becomes impregnated. This yearly invasion divides into two bodies, one of which seeks the Ebudoe and the Irish Channel; the other keeps along the eastern and western coast of Scotland till October, and then, from her countless creeks and harbours, she sends forth her clinker-built fleets to net the annual mine of wealth with which her waters teem.

By sunset Jamie Gair and his companion reached the herring ground, where the gulls were screaming and the porpoises dancing through the short foamy waves, but still the sky was cold and lowering, and the sea was inky black; yet though the breeze was freshening, they shot their net, with inward hopes and a half muttered prayer--for they are pious souls, those hardy Scottish fishers--that a night of success might reward a day of toil amid the drenching spray.

Their boat, the _Mary_--for so she was fondly named--they denuded of her sail, and hooked on to the net, allowing her thus to drift before wind and tide. They were the farthest off shore, for more than a hundred boats were all drifting in the same fashion, between them and the land.

Night came on, and to prevent any chance of their being run down, each boat's crew lit their dim horn lantern; then a quaighful of whiskey went round; and still the darkness deepened on the silent sea; still the boats drifted by their heavy nets, and still the breeze was freshening from afar.

Midnight came.

Black, dense, and furious, a gust came with it--a fierce and heavy squall, sheer from the icy north, that scattered all the little fleet and nearly swamped the boat of Gair.

It was the turn of the tide now, and from their fishing ground a strong current runs from the north-north-east towards St. Andrew's stormy bay, and all along that bleak and iron shore.

"Awa' wi' the net, Jamie!" cried old John o' the Buddon-ness, furiously, through the roaring wind and hissing sea; and he held up a hand to the side of his mouth.

Jamie lingered, for the sacrifice was great.

"Awa' wi't!" cried John; "awa' wi't, or the boat is swamped in a minnit mair!"

Jamie sprang to the leeward gunnel, knife in hand, and a sore pang shot through his heart, as he thought of the unpaid twine bill--for he yet owed the price of the net to the rope-makers in Tindall's Wynd; but go it must. One slash of the knife, and net and floats, with all their scaly cargo, were swept away like a gossamer web. Half the boat-lanterns around them were tumbling hither and thither on the crests of the waves, or deep in the trough of the sea; the other half had vanished, for many a boat had gone down with all her hands on board!

And now nothing can save their frail shallop but running before the wind, and the close-reefed foresail strains on the mast of tough Scottish larch as it lifts the boat of the bold fisherman over each hoarse wave of that black and gurly sea.

Nor kith nor kin has poor John o' the Buddon-ness to weep for him, if his corpslicht dances on the waves to-morrow night; for his father and seven brethren had all perished at sea.

Jamie thought of Mary and of their babe--of the broken ring--of the lost nets, and of his older friend's foreboding, and their present danger; and, while his strong heart swelled with agony, his iron hands grasped the wet tiller, and kept the lug-sail full.

On, on flew the sharp boat before that furious wind; and now faint lights were seen to twinkle amid the darkness and the flying scud to starboard; then the poor Scottish fishermen, while tears of hope and reliance mingled with the bitter spray that drenched their faces, put their trust in God and St. Andrew, and a hope arose that all might yet go well; for those lights were twinkling in the aisles of that glorious cathedral church upon the promontory--the work of a hundred and fifty years; and their prayers were heard; for morning came, and still their boat was sea-worthy, and as the dawn brightened, both sea and wind went down; the water was covered with foam--but not a trace was seen of that little fleet, among which they had shot their nets over-night.

As the sun rose through a hazy veil of vapour, Jamie found the Isle of May lying right a-head, and discovered that he had been blown far past Fife-ness, for now the distant spire of Crail and the faint blue Craig of Kilmeinie were gilded by the rising beams; and, now that all danger of being drowned was past, Jamie thought bitterly of his losses over-night.

Toil-worn and disappointed, the two fishermen were about to haul up for the shore and run into Crail Harbour, when the sudden apparition of three large vessels, under easy sail, bearing straight towards them, from under the lee of the Isle of May, where doubtless they had lain secure all night at anchor, arrested their attention; for at a glance Gair and John o' Buddon-ness perceived they were English ships, heavily armed and full of men.

These vessels were little more than a mile distant, and the fishermen knew that a run of four miles would bring them into the nearest harbour, where their boat--their little all--would be safe. The time was one of truce between the two countries; but recent events had proved that the warlike skippers of King Henry were not over-particular in respecting strangers at sea.

The breeze was still fresh and keen; the fishers stepped their mast, hoisted so much of their lug-sail as they dared, and, favoured by a side wind, bore away for Crail; but one of the English caravels followed them, and only a short time elapsed before a puff of smoke curled from her bows, and a cannon-shot boomed over the water close by, and plunging into the slope of a wave, raised it like a spout ahead of the boat.

"Ablins, they lack a pilot, Jamie," said John o' the Buddon-ness; "let us lie-to; they canna' hae the hearts to harm twa puir dyvour shields like you and me."

"May my een melt in their sockets when I undertake to pilot an Englishman!" said Jamie; "but by my certie, here comes another shot--douk doon, John, douk doon!"

This time it was the ball of an arquebuse, levelled through an iron sling attached to the ratlins.

The warning words had scarcely left Jamie's lips before the boat yawed round furiously, and his poor old companion fell dead across the thwart, for the same bullet that cut the halyard had pierced his heart, and in another minute the startled Gair found the English ship cleaving the billows close by him, and her hull towering from the sea as her mainyard was backed, and she lay to.

"Come on hoard, thou rascally Scot," cried a voice; "and marry! come quickly, lest we fire again!"

"Fling me owre a rope, then," replied Jamie, who, but for the sake of Mary, would have jumped overboard rather than obeyed.

A rope was thrown to him, and in another moment he found himself standing on the deck of the stately ship commanded by Sir Stephen Bull, and he was roughly dragged before that portly commander, who appeared in half armour at the door of the poop, which contained the principal cabins.

"Thou hast given us trouble enough, in all conscience, fellow!" said he, angrily; "why laid ye not to?"

"Because Sir Andrew Wood is not in these waters; the ships of Sir William Merrimonth and John Barton are all in the western seas, and we have none to protect us now," said Gair, with a sigh of bitterness as he looked after his boat, now cut adrift and tossing on the sea with the dead body of his companion in it.

"Ah! and so Sir Andrew Wood is not in the seas?"

"No, sir; but is daily expected," said Gair, spitefully.

"Good," said Sir Stephen, with a smile of gratification on his broad and bearded face; "that is the reason, Scot, which brings us here."

"I pray you to release me, gude sir," implored Jamie, as he stood, bonnet in hand, amid a circle of armed Londoners, who stared at the "rough-footed Scot" as if he had been a wild animal; "I am but a puir fisher carle, wi' a wife and a wean to support in these hard times of civil war and trouble; I lost my nets yesternicht in the squall, and ye have cut my boat adrift this morning--I am a ruined man!" he added, as he almost wept in the agony of his spirit.

"A ruined man, indeed! so much the better for our purpose, perhaps," said Sir Stephen Bull, with an icy smile; "wouldst know the ships of Sir Andrew Wood if you saw them now?"

"Yes, sir, as well as my ain cottage lum."

"Cottage what, sirrah?"

"Lum, sir; lum."

"'Tis well," said Bull, turning to Captain Edmund Howard, who had recognised the poor fisherman of Broughty-point, and who had been standing somewhat aloof; "let this man be well watched, and call me the moment a sail appears in sight; for Scot though he be, his eyes may serve us here better than our own."

"But he may escape," suggested Howard, who half hoped he would.

"Escape! nay, nay; let his legs be secured in fetterlocks, then he'll not drag his anchor, I warrant."

Strictly guarded, Jamie was kept for three days on board of the _Unicorn_, the ship of Bull; and though he knew not exactly for what purpose, he feared it would prove of no good ultimately to himself. In these three days which succeeded the midnight storm, what would be the thoughts, the surmises of poor Mary, and how great would be her terror at his disappearance; how much greater, too, if his boat was picked up, or cast ashore, with the body of his slaughtered friend in it! The poor man covered his brown visage with his rough hands, and endeavoured to shut out sight, sound, and reflection, but such thoughts would come again and again.

Edmund Howard treated him with the greatest kindness, and endeavoured to raise his drooping spirits by promises that he would soon be set on shore, with gold sufficient to buy ten such boats and nets as those he had lost; but Jamie ever replied,--

"Na--na, sir; I want nane o' your siller, for English gold works Scotland ever dule and wae; and may my fingers be blistered if I touch it!"

Then Howard questioned him about the family of Lord Drummond; but Jamie could only say that "it was commonly bruited abroad that his daughter, the Lady Margaret, the king's gude cousin, was to be Queen of Scotland, and that a winsome young pair they would be."

Had honest Jamie Gair been less occupied by his own thoughts than he was, he could not have failed to observe how these tidings--though expected, sank into poor Howard's brave and noble heart.

Meanwhile the English ships never molested the coast, for it was not the purpose of Sir Stephen Bull to create an alarm, so he continued to cruise off the mouth of the Firth, within a space of twenty miles or so, running southward as far as Dunbar, and northward as far as the Carr Rock; but generally hovering about the Isle of May, to the great anxiety and discomposure of the secluded priests of Pittenweem, who dwelt thereon, and traded by shipping with France and the Baltic.

About dawn, on the fourth day after Jamie's misadventure, two large vessels were descried at the horizon, like black specks, for the clear streak of the coming day was astern of them, and their outline was darkly and strongly defined. They loomed large; and from the lofty poop of the _Unicorn_ Sir Stephen Bull reconnoitred them with some anxiety, for the Scottish admiral was said to have but two ships with him; and so he despatched a boat to the vessel of Miles le Furnival, to bring on board the Scottish spy he had brought with him from London.

"Is it _thee_, thou hell-begotten wretch?" exclaimed Howard, as Hew Borthwick, gaily attired, stepped confidently along the deck of the very ship which had been captured by his treachery; "by St. Paul, I would give something handsome to see thee rove up to the foreyard-arm!"

Borthwick gave the speaker a dark and furtive glance, but made no reply.

"Thou art sure, sirrah, that Andrew Wood hath but two ships with him?" asked Stephen Bull, imperiously, contempt and scorn curling his full, ruddy lip as he spoke.

"Sure as I have now the honour of addressing you."

"Wouldst know them if ye saw them?"

"Not unless within half-a-mile or so."

"That were somewhat too close for my purpose," said Bull; "remove this shabby lubber, this skulking lurdane, from the quarterdeck, and bring aft the fisherman."

Borthwick, who had repeatedly begged to be placed ashore, but in vain, was now roughly removed, and poor Jamie Gair, with his legs stiff by four days' and nights' retention in fetter-locks, was brought before Sir Stephen Bull, around whom all his officers and gentlemen volunteers were crowding, with kindling eyes and open ears.

"Wouldst thou know the ships of Sir Andrew Wood, sirrah?" asked Sir Stephen, whose pages were arming him in a brilliant coat of mail.

"Weel as I wad ken the dear face o' my ain wife!" replied the prisoner, with ardour and sadness.

"Never mind thy wife's face, Scot; but answer me."

"So far an honest man may, I will, sir."

"Then, are these his vessels--away there to windward?"

Gair looked there for a moment; his eyes flashed and his cheek reddened; but he hung his head with an emotion which did not escape the keen and penetrating eyes of the English captain.

"Speak, sirrah!" said he, imperiously, as he grasped his poniard.

"They are hull down, sir."

"Well, but ye may know the trim of his sails, and the fashion of his gear aloft."

"I--I dinna ken, sir."

"Answer me, fellow, at once; are these, or are they _not_, the caravels of Sir Andrew of Largo?"

"I am no free to say."

"Trifle not; answer me at once, or, by the head of King Henry, I will lash you at the gunner's daughter, and fling you overboard after!"

"I daurna trifle, noble sir, I who am but a pair fisherman, with you an armed knight; but I too can swear, and by the head of King James, I sall rather dee than tell ye."

"Then die, fellow!" said the knight, furiously; "Dick Selby, tie a ball to his heels, and trice him by the armpits up to the yard-arm; while there, he will have a better view of these coming craft. Knot the rope round in a fisherman's bend--he may like it the better."

It was all done in the time we have taken to write it; the ball of a carthoun--about thirty-six pounds in weight--was attached to his ankles, which were tied together; a rope was passed round his body, and he was run up to the arm of the maintopsail-yard, where he hung with outspread hands. A shudder, but partly subdued by anger at his obstinacy, passed over all on deck. A culverin was prepared, and the seamen in the waist, who had "triced" the poor fisherman up, held in their hands the line on which his life depended.

"Answer me now, Scot--are yonder craft the ships of Sir Andrew Wood?" cried Stephen Bull, who was a stern and uncompromising, as well as a cunning and reckless man; "answer!"

"Never," cried Gair, "though ye should wrench me bone frae bone!"

"You may as well tell the truth," said Howard, "and save your life, for it will be all the same for your admiral in the end."

"I ne'er say aucht but truth," replied Gair; "but ye sall get nae information frae me."

"Then take thy last look of yonder rising sun, my brave fellow," said Howard, with deep commiseration; "for in one minute more thou'lt be lying at the bottom of thy native sea."

"Oh, my sakeless wife and bairn!" cried the poor fisherman: "but in life and death, I commit you to the care of God!"

These words struck a chill on all who heard them, and the brave English gentlemen and mariners of Bull grew pale as they looked on each other.

Twice Sir Stephen repeated the question, and on receiving, for the last time, the same reply, he cried, furiously,--

"Thy blood be on thine own head, fellow!--fire the gun!"

The white smoke gushed from the gunport through the black rigging; the sharp report pealed over the morning sea, and ere it died away the rope had whistled through the block, as the sailors cast it from them like an instrument of murder, and poor Jamie Gair had vanished from the yard-arm of the _Unicorn_.

"Oh, Sir Stephen Bull," cried Howard, as he rushed to the vessel's side; "what is this thou hast done?"

"Drowned a pitiful Scot, whose obstinacy may mar our morning's work," was the dogged reply, as a few bubbles that rose to the surface, were all that remained to show where the fisherman had sunk. Sir Stephen walked aft hastily, but was evidently dissatisfied with himself, for he returned, and said,--

"Why this regret, Edmund Howard; was not the man only a Scot?"

"For that reason I commiserate his fate the more," said Howard, who was no doubt thinking of Lady Margaret Drummond.

"Tush! display the signal to clear away for battle, and hoist the French ancient, for I have no doubt these are the ships of him we are in search of. If they were not, our defunct fisherman would soon have said so."

"God will not bless the course we thus begin," said Howard; "and if yonder ships are indeed those of Sir Andrew Wood, the weepers of Saint John, by London Wall, will be singing dirges for some of us ere long."

"I care little whether or not God blesses it, if Henry our king is pleased," said Sir Stephen, with a glance of pride and anger; "but peace with this croaking, Sir Captain of mine--'tis a new thing in thee. To your arms and to your quarters, fore and aft--sound trumpets, and load culverins and arquebusses! Dick Selby, open the magazine; John o'Lynne, see the fire's out; beat to quarters, and get abroach three runlets of canary. Fight to the death, my merry men all, for if you fall into the hands of the Scots they will chain you to work on their castles and highways, and feed you worse than Charterhouse monks--so every man to quarters, and St. George for Merry England!"