



Produced by Nathan Harris, Juliet Sutherland, Charles
Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team










A DAUGHTER OF FIFE


By

AMELIA E. BARR


AUTHOR OF "JAN VEDDER'S WIFE"




CONTENTS


CHAPTER I.--THE BEACHED BOAT

CHAPTER II.--THE UNKNOWN GUEST

CHAPTER III.--THE CAMPBELLS OF MERITON

CHAPTER IV.--MAGGIE AND ANGUS

CHAPTER V.--PARTING

CHAPTER VI.--OFF WITH THE OLD LOVE

CHAPTER VII.--MAGGIE

CHAPTER VIII.--THE BROKEN SIXPENCE

CHAPTER IX.--SEVERED SELVES AND SHADOWS

CHAPTER X.--MAGGIE'S FLIGHT

CHAPTER XI.--DRUMLOCH

CHAPTER XII.--TO THE HEBRIDES

CHAPTER XIII.--THE BROKEN TRYST

CHAPTER XIV.--THE MEETING PLACE

CHAPTER XV.--WOO'D AN' MARRIED AND A'




CHAPTER I.

THE BEACHING OF THE BOAT.


  "Thou old gray sea,
   Thou broad briny water,
   With thy ripple and thy plash,
   And thy waves as they lash
   The old gray rocks on the shore.
   With thy tempests as they roar,
   And thy crested billows hoar,
   And thy tide evermore
                    Fresh and free."

   --Dr. Blackie.


On the shore of a little land-locked haven, into which the gulls and
terns bring tidings of the sea, stands the fishing hamlet of Pittenloch.
It is in the "East Neuk o' Fife," that bit of old Scotland "fronted with a
girdle of little towns," of which Pittenloch is one of the smallest
and the most characteristic. Some of the cottages stand upon the sands,
others are grouped in a steep glen, and a few surmount the lofty
sea-washed rocks.

To their inhabitants the sea is every thing. Their hopes and fears, their
gains and losses, their joys and sorrows, are linked with it; and the
largeness of the ocean has moulded their feelings and their characters.
They are in a measure partakers of its immensity and its mystery. The
commonest of their men have wrestled with the powers of the air, and the
might of wind, and wave, and icy cold. The weakest of their women have
felt the hallowing touch of sudden calamity, and of long, lonely,
life-and-death, watches. They are intensely religious, they hold
tenaciously to the modes of thought and speech, to the manner of living
and dressing, and to all the household traditions which they have
cherished for centuries.

Two voices only have had the power to move them from the even spirit of
their life--the voice of Knox, and the voice of Chalmers. It was among the
fishers of Fife that Knox began his crusade against popery; and from their
very midst, in later days, sprang the champion of the Free Kirk. Otherwise
rebellions and revolutions troubled them little. Whether Scotland's king
sat in Edinburgh or London--whether Prince Charles or George of Hanover
reigned, was to them of small importance. They lived apart from the battle
of life, and only the things relating to their eternal salvation, or their
daily bread, moved them.

Forty-two years ago there was no landward road to Pittenloch, unless you
followed the goats down the steep rocks. There was not a horse or cart in
the place; probably there was not a man in it who had ever seen a
haymaking. If you went to Pittenloch, you went by the sea; if you left it,
there was the same grand highway. And the great, bearded, sinewy men,
bending to the oars, and sending the boat spinning through clouds of
spindrift, made it, after all, a right royal road.

Forty-two years ago, one wild March afternoon, a young woman was standing
on the beach of Pittenloch. There was an ominous wail in the sea, telling
of the fierce tide yet to come; and all around her whirling wraiths of
vapor sweeping across the level sands. From a little distance, she
appeared like a woman standing amid gray clouds--a sombre, solid, figure;
whose attitude was one of grave thoughtfulness. Approaching nearer, it was
evident that her gaze was fixed upon a fishing boat which had been drawn
high upon the shingle