CHAPTER VIII.

THE FISHERMAN OF BROUGHTY.

Oh weel may the boatie row, And better may she speed; And weel may the boatie row, That wins the bairns' bread. I cuist my net in Largo bay, And fishes I caught nine; There's three to fry, and three to broil, And three to bait the line. _Scots Song._

A cheerful fire burned on the hearth of Jamie Gair, the fisherman of Broughty-point, and it seemed to burn brighter as evening deepened on the land and sea. The cottage, which stood within a kail-yard, the gate of which was a pair of whale jaw-bones, consisted of a butt and a ben,--_i.e._, an outer and inner apartment,--the latter, serving as a kitchen, had a floor of hard-beaten clay; the walls were lined with wood, and in the rafters were a vast quantity of lumber, boat-gear, oars, sails, fishing-creels, bladders, floats, and other apparatus stowed away aloft. Half of a cart-wheel felloe formed a fender (such as we may yet see in Scottish cottages), but the fire of bog-fir was blazing on the hearthstone, for iron grates were then an article of splendour and luxury. On the wooden shelf above the fireplace stood a little image of St. Clement, the mariner's patron, with the anchor of his martyrdom hung about his neck; and on the back of the door a horseshoe was nailed, with a sprig of rowan-tree, the usual precaution against witchcraft. From a rafter an egg was suspended by a rope-yarn. This was the _babys-egg_, the first laid by a pullet, the gift of its granny, and carefully preserved, as a source of good fortune to it in after life.

By the bright red light of the fire (which shone through a little window upon the waters of the ferry) Jamie Gair sat mending his nets, and affixing various large brown bladders thereto. A red night-cap was placed jauntily on his round curly head; the sleeves of his blue flannel-shirt were rolled up to the elbows, displaying his brawny arms, and, where his thick beard and whiskers did not conceal it, his face was browned to the hue of mahogany by exposure to the weather.

Mary, his wife, a buxom dame of six-and-twenty, wearing one of those long-eared coifs, which are still worn by old women in the Lowlands, and a short skirted jacket, was fondling their son and heir, a baby about a year old, to which she was merrily _lilting_ in that manner peculiar to the women of Scotland, when a song is hummed and half sung, while a dish of stappit-haddie (_i.e._, a haddock stuffed with oatmeal, onions, and pepper), broiled before the fire, for breakfast next morning, as Jamie had to start early, and now sat late in the preparation of his nets.

Jamie had not sailed that day to the fishing-ground for various reasons. He had passed a stray pig on the beach; and, moreover, he had on a pair of new boots--both ominous of a bad day's fishing, and, perhaps, of greater evil; so he had spent the noon and evening beside his red-cheeked Mary at the cottage, mending and thoroughly repairing his nets for the morrow; for he believed as implicitly in these augurs of evil as in the mark of St. Peter's thumb on the haddock, and in the wonderful story of the twenty-four beautiful mermaids who swam round Inchkeith, and sought in vain to tempt Abbot William of Holyrood, who dwelt there as a hermit, to trust himself afloat on their tails, which, happily for himself, the Abbot politely declined to do. Mary was pleased that he was at home, for the night was fitful, and dark masses of cloud crossed the face of the moon, which rose slowly above the ness of Fife. The wind swept in sudden gusts down the ferry, and the surf hissed as it rolled on the outer beach; for the sand was thickly strewn with enormous whin boulders, and was not a pistol-shot from the cottage door.

Three strange ships had been visible in the offing all day, and, as evening fell, Jamie had observed them stealthily creeping towards the shore; and when the gloaming came on, the head-most vessel was perhaps not three miles from the Gaa sands. When Jamie had scanned her last with his nautical eye he observed her laying off and on, but without manifesting any intention of entering the harbour or requiring a pilot, as she never fired a gun or showed her colours. Not a vessel had passed the ferry that day; all was quiet in the harbour of Dundee, for the old superstition about the ill-luck of sailing on a Friday was still devoutly believed in.

The hour was now verging on midnight. Jamie had mended the last hole in his nets, and the pretty Mary looked very sleepy and coy.

"Hark, gudeman," said she, interrupting her lilting, "some one tirls the door-pin."

At that moment a loud and reiterated knocking was heard, and the door-latch was shaken violently. Jamie relinquished the net for a boat-stretcher, lest the visitor might be, as he muttered, "some ground-shark or uncanny body," and angrily opened the door, saying,--

"Wha the deil's this, makin' sic a dirdum at my door, at this time o' nicht?"

"Sir Hew Borthwick," replied that personage, with gruff hauteur; and Jamie perceived that he and two companions were well muffled in cloaks, beneath which he saw their long swords and spurs glittering. The two gentlemen were masked. "Thou knowest me, Jamie Gair, I think?"

"Ay, Sir Hew," replied the fisherman, doffing his night-cap, while something of a leer twinkled in his lively grey eyes; "I took ye on board the _Yellow Frigate_ yestreen, for which--"

"I owe thee half a lion; here it is. Now, art willing to earn another honest penny?"

"Troth am I, sir," replied Jamie, throwing on his storm-jacket; "I've my gudewife and a bonnie bairn to provide for. In what can I serve ye, sir?"

"Take us on board the vessel that is nearest the shore, and thou shalt have an angel."

An angel was thirteen shillings Scots--but now Jamie paused.

"A Louis, then? Plague on't! thou sailest nigh the wind, man!"

"Come, come, fellow," said one of the masked men, imperiously, "do not trifle, for we have not time to chaffer with such carles as thee. Besides, this place hath a devilish odour of tar, wet twine, and old fish baskets----"

"Wow, sir, but you've a het tongue in your head, and a dainty nose on your face. But it's no the money that I tak tent o'," replied Jamie, proudly. "The craft that was close in shore, and hugging the land a' day, never showed her ensign; but three times lowered her boat, and three times hoisted it on board again. Her forecastle guns are levelled owre the gunnel, and not through portholes, wherefore I opine she is English; so gentlemen, I crave your pardons, but I likena the job."

"Jamie Gair," said one of the strangers, in a hoarse whisper, "'tis on the King's service we are boune; here are six golden lions; art satisfied? If not, I would not be in thy tarry boots, fellow, for all the Howe of Angus!"

This man's voice startled Jamie, for he now recognised Sir Patrick Gray of Kyneff, captain of the adjacent Royal Castle of Broughty--one with whom he, a poor fisherman, dared not trifle for a moment.

"I will do your bidding, fair sir; but my neighbour is away to the fishing-ground, whilk o' ye can handle an oar?"

"I," said Borthwick.

"And I," added Gray of Kyneff; "so let us be off, for I have not a moment to spare."

"Gudewife, thou wilt pardon us taking Jamie away for an hour or so; and bethink thee, dame, how many braw gauds and new kirtles these golden lions will buy." And with these words Gray placed in Margo's hand six of those large gold coins of James II., which bore on one side a lion rampant, and on the reverse, the St. Andrew's cross. Jamie put on one of those broad blue bonnets for the manufacture of which Dundee was even then celebrated, and after kissing the sleeping baby, said,--

"Now, Mary, let me kiss thee, lass, frae lug to lug."

"To spare time, I shall be glad to save thee that trouble, Gair," said Sir Patrick Gray.

"Mony thanks, my braw gentleman," retorted Jamie, twirling the boat-stretcher in his brawny hand; "but there are some things I like to do for myself, and _this_ is ane o' them. Keep a cog fu' o' het yill on the hearth for me, Mary, gin the time I return; and now, sirs, let's awa."

As they stumbled along the beach to the rude stone pier, where Jamie's clinker-built boat was moored to an iron ring,

"Dost see anything of those ships?" asked Sir Patrick Gray whom Jamie was careful not to recognise.

"The headmost craft wasna a mile frae the Buddon-ness when the gloaming fell," replied the fisherman, looking keenly to the eastward; "the wind was off the land then, but it veered round a point to the north. Wow but the moon bodes a grand haul o' herrin' off St. Monan's the morn! I wish I had gane to the fishing-ground----"

"And lost these six lions--eh? But here is thy boat, grumbler," said the third personage, who as yet had scarcely spoken; "now let us shove off."

"If these are English ships, sir," said Jamie, as he assisted the three to embark, and cast off the painter, "I marvel mickle at their impudence in being off the Tay, while Sir Andrew Wood is at anchor in the Firth."

"Marvel at nothing; but keep thy wind for cooling thy porridge, or for better uses," retorted the haughty Gray, rolling himself up in his mantle, and his companion did the same, while Borthwick and Jamie shipped their oars, and turned the boat's prow to the sea.

When the shadows of the land and the square dark keep of Broughty, with its broad barbican and flanking towers were left behind, the night (even while the moon was enveloped in clouds) was not so murky that objects could not be distinguished; yet the three voyagers looked in vain for a vestige of the ship which they expected to be nearest the shore. A pale stripe of white light edged the horizon, and between it and the boat the waves were rising and falling, like those of an inky ocean; and in that streak of sky, and between the flying clouds, a few red, fiery stars were seen to sparkle at intervals. Cold currents of air swept over the estuary, bringing that peculiar fragrance which a night breeze always bears off the land; and the hoarse roar of the heavy surf, as it bellowed on the rocks of Broughty Castle, and rolled far inland upon the shingly beach to the eastward of it, could be hoard distinctly, as the boat of Gair was pulled directly out to sea.

"Tarry a moment, Gair," said Sir Patrick Gray; "now where are those vessels--eh?"

"You'll see them, sir, when they are lifted into the streak o' light; there they are! awa' doon to windward."

"But what the devil is windward--which way?" asked Borthwick.

"Well mayst thou ask that, for it seems to be whichever way I turn my face; but oho! I see them now!" added Gray--as the dark outlines of two vessels, with all their sails set, appeared in the distant offing, between the black vapours that seemed to rest on their mast-heads and the darker ocean on which they floated. "'Sdeath! they are ten good miles off."

"Outside the Inchcape, at least, I should say," added his hitherto silent friend.

"But where is the _Harry_--this devilish craft, which Gair says was visible near the Buddon-ness?"

"I'll soon find out."

"What was the signal agreed upon?" whispered Gray.

"_This_," replied the other, discharging a hand-gun the air,

Almost immediately afterwards, two sparks appeared about half-a-mile off; they brightened fast, and then two pale blue lights were seen burning close to the edge of the water.

"'Tis the _Harry_! Give way, Jamie--give way, Borthwick!" said Sir Patrick. The oars dipped into the water, and the sharp-prowed boat shot over the waves towards the lights, which soon faded away and expired. The night was now intensely dark, for not a vestige of moon was visible; but soon a noise was heard above the incessant dashing of the sea. It was like the flapping of a sail; and then one faint blink of moonlight, as it broke through an opening in the clouds, showed, close by, a large and high-pooped vessel coming suddenly to the wind, as if the watch had descried the boat upon the water; and this proved to be the case, for almost immediately, a voice in English cried out,

"Boat, a-hoy!"

Gray, who answered the hail, and held the tiller, passed the fisher boat under the towering stern of the English ship, and sheering sharply round on her larboard side, the little craft was soon made fast; but Jamie was commanded to remain in her, while Sir Patrick Gray, Borthwick, and the third personage, who proved to be no other than Sir James Shaw of Sauchie, governor of Stirling, were introduced to the state-cabin, where, with some reluctance, we are compelled to accompany them.