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CHRISTINE




  By AMELIA E. BARR

    Christine
    Joan
    Profit and Loss
    Three Score and Ten
    The Measure of a Man
    The Winning of Lucia
    Playing with Fire
    All the Days of My Life


  D. APPLETON & COMPANY
  Publishers    New York


[Illustration: When she came to the top of the cliff, she turned and
gazed again at the sea. Page 6]




  CHRISTINE

  A FIFE FISHER GIRL

  BY
  AMELIA E. BARR

  AUTHOR OF "JOAN", "PROFIT AND LOSS", "THE MEASURE OF A MAN",
  "ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE", ETC.


  FRONTISPIECE BY STOCKTON MULFORD


  "_The sea is His, and He made it_"


  D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
  NEW YORK    LONDON
  1917

  COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY
  D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

  Printed in the United States of America




  I Inscribe This Book To

  Rutger Bleecker Jewett

  Because He is my Friend, And
  Expresses All That Jewel of a
  Monosyllable Requires And
  Because, Though a Landsman,
  He Loves the Sea And
  In His Dreams, He is a Sailor.

  Amelia E. Barr.
  _January 7th, 1917._




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                                         PAGE
       I. Fishers of Culraine                                        1
      II. Christine and the Domine                                  23
     III. Angus Ballister                                           38
      IV. The Fisherman's Fair                                      61
       V. Christine and Angus                                       86
      VI. A Child, Two Lovers, and a Wedding                       115
     VII. Neil and a Little Child                                  152
    VIII. An Unexpected Marriage                                   183
      IX. A Happy Bit of Writing                                   212
       X. Roberta Interferes                                       247
      XI. Christine Mistress of Ruleson Cottage                    280
     XII. Neil's Return Home                                       306
    XIII. The Right Mate and the Right Time                        339
     XIV. After Many Years                                         362




CHAPTER I

FISHERS OF CULRAINE

  The hollow oak our palace is
    Our heritage the sea.

  Howe'er it be it seems to me
    'Tis only noble to be good.
  Kind hearts are more than coronets
    And simple faith than Norman blood.


Friends, who have wandered with me through England, and Scotland, and
old New York, come now to Fife, and I will tell you the story of
Christina Ruleson, who lived in the little fishing village of
Culraine, seventy years ago. You will not find Culraine on the map,
though it is one of that chain of wonderful little towns and villages
which crown, as with a diadem, the forefront and the sea-front of the
ancient kingdom of Fife. Most of these towns have some song or story,
with which they glorify themselves, but Culraine--hidden in the clefts
of her sea-girt rocks--was _in_ the world, but not _of_ the world.
Her people lived between the sea and the sky, between their hard lives
on the sea, and their glorious hopes of a land where there would be
"no more sea."

Seventy years ago every man in Culraine was a fisherman, a mighty,
modest, blue-eyed Goliath, with a serious, inscrutable face; naturally
a silent man, and instinctively a very courteous one. He was exactly
like his great-grandfathers, he had the same fishing ground, the same
phenomena of tides and winds, the same boat of rude construction, and
the same implements for its management. His modes of thought were just
as stationary. It took the majesty of the Free Kirk Movement, and its
host of self-sacrificing clergy, to rouse again that passion of
religious faith, which made him the most thorough and determined of
the followers of John Knox.

The women of these fishermen were in many respects totally unlike the
men. They had a character of their own, and they occupied a far more
prominent position in the village than the men did. They were the
agents through whom all sales were effected, and all the money passed
through their hands. They were talkative, assertive, bustling, and a
marked contrast to their gravely silent husbands.

The Fife fisherman dresses very much like a sailor--though he never
looks like one--but the Fife fisher-wife had then a distinctly foreign
look. She delighted in the widest stripes, and the brightest colors.
Flaunting calicoes and many- kerchiefs were her steady fashion.
Her petticoats were very short, her feet trigly shod, and while
unmarried she wore a most picturesque headdress of white muslin or
linen, set a little backward over her always luxuriant hair. Even in
her girlhood she was the epitome of power and self-reliance, and the
husband who could prevent her in womanhood from making the bargains
and handling the money, must have been an extraordinarily clever man.

I find that in representing a certain class of humanity, I have
accurately described, mentally and physically, the father and mother
of my heroine; and it is only necessary to say further that James
Ruleson was a sternly devout man. He trusted God heartily at all
hazards, and submitted himself and all he loved to the Will of God,
with that complete self-abnegation which is perhaps one of the best
fruits of a passionate Calvinism.

For a fisherman he was doubtless well-provided, but no one but his
wife, Margot Ruleson, knew the exact sum of money lying to his credit
in the Bank of Scotland; and Margot kept such knowledge strictly
private. Ruleson owned his boat, and his cottage, and both were a
little better and larger than the ordinary boat and cottage; while
Margot was a woman who could turn a penny ten times over better than
any other woman in the cottages of Culraine. Ruleson also had been
blessed with six sons and one daughter, and with the exception of the
youngest, all the lads had served their time in their father's boat,
and even the one daughter was not excused a single duty that a
fisher-girl ought to do.

Culraine was not a pretty village, though its cottages were all alike
whitewashed outside, and roofed with heather. They had but two rooms
generally--a but and a ben, with no passage between. The majority were
among the sand hills, but many were built on the lofty, sea-lashed
rocks. James Ruleson's stood on a wide shelf, too high up for the
highest waves, though they often washed away the wall of the garden,
where it touched the sandy shore.

The house stood by itself. It had its own sea, and its own sky, and
its own garden, the latter sloping in narrow, giddy paths to the very
beach. Sure feet were needed among its vegetables, and its thickets of
gooseberry and currant bushes, and its straying tangles of blackberry
vines. Round the whole plot there was a low stone wall, covered with
wall-flowers, wild thyme, rosemary, and house-leek.

A few beds around the house held roses and lilies, and other floral
treasures, but these were so exclusively Margot's property, and
Margot's adoration, that I do not think she would like me even to
write about them. Sometimes she put a rosebud in the buttonhole of her
husband's Sunday coat, and sometimes Christina had a similar favor,
but Margot was intimate with her flowers. She knew every one by a
special name, and she counted them every morning. It really hurt her
to cut short their beautiful lives, and her eldest son Norman, after
long experience said: "If Mither cuts a flower, she'll ill to live
wi'. I wouldna tine her good temper for a bit rosebud. It's a poor
bargain."

One afternoon, early in the June of 1849, Christine Ruleson walked
slowly up the narrow, flowery path of this mountain garden. She was
heard before she was seen, for she was singing an east coast ballad,
telling all the world around her, that she

  --Cast her line in Largo bay,
    And fishes she caught nine;
  Three to boil, and three to fry,
    And three to bait the line.

So much she sang, and then she turned to the sea. The boat of a
solitary fisherman, and a lustrously white bird, were lying quietly on
the bay, close together, and a large ship with all her sails set was
dropping lazily along to the south. For a few moments she watched
them, and then continued her song.

She was tall and lovely, and browned and bloomed in the fresh salt
winds. Her hair had been loosened by the breeze, and had partially
escaped from her cap. She had a broad, white brow, and the dark blue
eyes that dwelt beneath it were full of soul--not a cloud in them,
only a soft, radiant light, shaded by eyelids deeply fringed, and
almost transparent--eyelids that were eloquent--full of secrets. Her
mouth was beautiful, her lips made for loving words--even little
children wanted to kiss her. And she lived the very life of the sea.
Like it she was subject to ebb and flow. Her love for it was perhaps
prenatal, it might even have driven her into her present incarnation.

When she came to the top of the cliff, she turned and gazed again at
the sea. The sunshine then fell all over her, and her dress came into
notice. It was simple enough, yet very effective--a white fluted cap,
lying well back on her bright, rippling hair, long gold rings in her
ears, and a vivid scarlet kerchief over her shoulders. Her skirt was
of wide blue and gray stripes, but it was hardly noticeable, for
whoever looked in Christine's face cared little about her dress. He
could never tell what she wore.

As she stood in the sunshine, a young man ran out of the house to meet
her--a passing handsome youth, with his heart in his eager face and
outstretched hands.

"Christine! Christine!" he cried. "Where at a' have you keepit
yourself? I hae been watching and waiting for you, these three hours
past."

"Cluny! You are crushing the bonnie flowers i' my hands, and I'm no
thanking you for that."

"And my puir heart! It is atween your twa hands, and it's crushing it
you are, day after day. Christine, it is most broke wi' the cruel grip
o' longing and loving--and not a word o' hope or love to help it haud
together."

"You should learn seasonable times, Cluny. It's few lasses that can be
bothered wi' lovers that come sae early. Women folk hae their hands
full o' wark o' some kind, then."

"Ay, full o' flowers. They canna even find time to gie the grip o'
their hand to the lad that loves them, maist to the death throe."

"I'm not wanting any lad to love me to the death throe, and I'm not
believing them, when they talk such-like nonsense. No indeed! The lad
I love must be full o' life and _forthput_. He must be able to guide
his boat, and throw and draw his nets single-handed--if needs be."

"I love you so! I love you so! I can do nothing else, Christine!"

"_Havers!_ Love sweetens life, but it's a long way from being life
itsel'. Many a man, and many a woman, loses their love, but they dinna
fling their life awa' because o' that misfortune--unless they have no
kindred to love, and no God to fear."

"You can't tell how it is, Christine. You never were i' love, I'm
thinking."

"I'm thankfu' to say I never was; and from all I see, and hear, I am
led to believe that being in love isna a superior state o' life. I'm
just hoping that what you ca' love isna of a catching quality."

"I wish it was! Maybe then, you might catch love from me. Oh
Christine, give me a hope, dear lass. I canna face life without it.
'Deed I can not."

"I might do such a thing. Whiles women-folk are left to themsel's, and
then it goes ill wi' them;" and she sighed and shook her head, as if
she feared such a possibility was within her own fate.

"What is it you mean? I'm seeking one word o' kindness from you,
Christine."

Then she looked at him, and she did not require speech. Cluny dared to
draw closer to her--to put his arm round her waist--to whisper such
alluring words of love and promise, that she smiled and gave him a
flower, and finally thought she might--perhaps--sometime--learn the
lesson he would teach her, for, "This warld is fu' o' maybe's, Cluny,"
she said, "and what's the good o' being young, if we dinna expect
miracles?"

"I'm looking for no miracle, Christine. I'm asking for what a man may
win by a woman's favor. I hae loved you, Christine, since I was a bit
laddie o' seven years auld. I'll love you till men carry me to the
kirk yard. I'd die for your love. I'd live, and suffer a' things for
it. Lassie! Dear, dear lassie, dinna fling love like mine awa'.
There's every gude in it."

She felt his heart throbbing in his words, but ere she could answer
them, her brother Neil called her three times, in a voice that
admitted of no delay. "Good-by, Cluny!" she said hurriedly. "You ken
Neil isna to be put off." Then she was gone, and Cluny, full of
bewildered loving and anxious feelings, rushed at headlong speed down
the steep and narrow garden path, to his grandmother's cottage on the
sands.

Neil stood by a little pine table covered with books and papers. He
was nearly twenty-one years old, and compared with his family was
small in stature, lightly built, and dark in complexion. His hair was
black, his eyes somberly gray, and full of calculation. His nose, lean
and sharp, indicated selfish adherence to the realities of life, and
the narrow nostrils positively accused him of timidity and caution.
His mouth was firm and discreet. Taken as a whole, his face was
handsome, though lean and thoughtful; but his manner was less
pleasant. It was that of a serious snob, who thinks there is a destiny
before him. He had been petted and spoiled all his life long, and his
speech and conduct were full of the unpleasant survivals of this
treatment. It spoiled him, and grated on Christine's temperament, like
grit in a fine salad.

He had never made a shilling in his life, he was the gentleman of the
family, elected by the family to that position. In his boyhood he had
been delicate, and quite unfit for the rough labor of the boats, but
as he had developed an extraordinary love for books and learning, the
minister had advised his dedication to the service of either the Law
or the Gospel. To this proposal the whole household cheerfully, even
proudly, agreed. To have an educated man among the Rulesons pleased
everyone. They spoke together of the great Scotch chancellors, and the
great Scotch clergy, and looked upon Neil Ruleson, by special choice
and election, as destined in the future to stand high among Scotland's
clergy or Scotland's lawyers.

For this end, during eleven years, all had given their share without
stint or holdback. That Neil had finally chosen to become a Lord of
the Law, and to sit on the Bench, rather than stand in the Pulpit, was
a great disappointment to his father, who had stubbornly hoped his son
would get the call no man can innocently refuse to answer. His mother
and brothers were satisfied. Norman Ruleson had once seen the Lords
ride in civic pomp and splendid attire to Edinburgh Parliament House,
and he was never weary of describing the majesty of the judges in
their wigs and gowns, and the ceremonials that attended every step of
the administration of justice.

"And the big salary coming to the judges!" Normany always added--"the
salary, and the visible honors arena to be lightlied, or made
little o'. Compared wi' a minister's stipend, a judge's salary is
stin-pen-dous! And they go wi' the best i' the land, and it isna
anything o' a wonder, when a judge is made a lord. There was Lord
Chancellor Campbell, born in Fife itsel', in the vera county town
o' Cupar. I have seen the house next the Bell Inn where he was
born, and his feyther was the minister o' Cupar. About the year
18----"

"You needna fash either us, or yoursel', Norman, wi' names and dates;
it will be time in plenty, when you can add our lad to the list."

Margot at this hour was inclined to side with her husband. Margot
believed in realities. She saw continually the honorable condition of
the Scotch clergy; Norman's story about the royal state and power of
the judges was like something read out of a book. However, now that
Neil was in his last year of study, and looking forward to the
certificate which would place him among men in such a desirable
condition, she would not darken his hopes, nor damp his ardor.

Neil's classes in the Maraschal college at Aberdeen were just closed,
but he was very busy preparing