IT was an hour later; the natives of the New Town had left the pier, and were about their own doors, when three Buckhaven fishermen came slowly up from the pier; these men had arrived in one of their large fishing-boats, which defy all weather.
The men came slowly up; their petticoat trousers were drenched, and their neck-handkerchiefs and hair were wet with spray.
At the foot of the New Town they stood still and whispered to each other.
There was something about these men that drew the eye of Newhaven upon them.
In the first place a Buckhaven man rarely communicates with natives of Newhaven, except at the pier, where he brings in his cod and ling from the deep sea, flings them out like stones, and sells them to the fishwives; then up sail and away for Fifeshire.
But these men evidently came ashore to speak to some one in the town.
They whispered together; something appeared to be proposed and demurred to; but at last two went slowly back toward the pier, and the eldest remained, with a fisherman's long mackintosh coat in his hand which the others had given him as they left him.
With this in his hand, the Buckhaven fisherman stood in an irresolute posture; he looked down, and seemed to ask himself what course he should take.
"What's wrang?" said Jean Carnie, who, with her neighbors, had observed the men; "I wish yon man may na hae ill news."
"What ill news wad he hae?" replied another.
"Are ony freends of Liston Carnie here?" said the fisherman.
"The wife's awa' to Granton, Beeny Liston they ca' her--there's his house," added Jean, pointing up the row.
"Ay," said the fisherman, "I ken he lived there."
"Lived there!" cried Christie Johnstone. "Oh, what's this?"
"Freends," said the man, gravely, "his boat is driving keel uppermost in Kircauldy Bay. We passed her near enough to read the name upon her."
"But the men will have won to shore, please God?"
The fisherman shook his head.
"She'll hae coupit a mile wast Inch Keith, an' the tide rinning aff the island an' a heavy sea gaun. This is a' Newhaven we'll see of them _(holding up the coat)_ "till they rise to the top in three weeks' time."
The man then took the coat, which was now seen to be drenched with water, and hung it up on a line not very far from its unfortunate owner's house.
Then, in the same grave and subdued tone in which he had spoken all along, he said, "We are sorry to bring siccan a tale into your toon," and slowly moved off to rejoin his comrades, who had waited for him at no great distance. They then passed through the Old Town, and in five minutes the calamity was known to the whole place.
After the first stupor, the people in the New Town collected into knots, and lamented their hazardous calling, and feared for the lives of those that had just put to sea in this fatal gale for the rescue of strangers, and the older ones failed not to match this present sorrow with others within their recollection.
In the middle of this, Flucker Johnstone came hastily in from the Old Town and told them he had seen the wife, Beeny Liston, coming through from Granton.
The sympathy of all was instantly turned in this direction.
"She would hear the news."
"It would fall on her like a thunderclap."
"What would become of her?"
Every eye was strained toward the Old Town, and soon the poor woman was seen about to emerge from it; but she was walking in her usual way, and they felt she could not carry her person so if she knew.
At the last house she was seen to stop and speak to a fisherman and his wife that stood at their own door.
"They are telling her," was then the cry.
Beeny Liston then proceeded on her way.
Every eye was strained.
No! they had not told her.
She came gayly on, the unconscious object of every eye and every heart.
The hands of this people were hard, and their tongues rude, but they shrunk from telling this poor woman of her bereavement--they thought it kinder she should know it under her own roof, from her friends or neighbors, than from comparative strangers.
She drew near her own door.
And now a knot collected round Christie Johnstone, and urged her to undertake the sad task.
"You that speak sa learned, Christie, ye should tell her; we daur na."
"How can I tell her?" said Christie, turning pale. "How will I tell her?
I'se try."
She took one trembling step to meet the woman.
Beeny's eye fell upon her.
"Ay! here's the Queen o' Newhaven," cried she, in a loud and rather coarse voice. "The men will hae ta leave the place now y' are turned fisherman, I daur say."
"Oh, dinna fieicht on me! dinna fieicht on me!" cried Christie, trembling.
"Maircy on us," said the other, "auld Flucker Johnstone's dochter turned humble. What next?"
"I'm vexed for speaking back till ye the morn," faltered Christie.
"Hett," said the woman carelessly, "let yon flea stick i' the wa'. I fancy I began on ye. Aweel, Cirsty," said she, falling into a friendlier tone; "it's the place we live in spoils us--Newhaven's an impudent toon, as sure as deeth.
"I passed through the Auld Toon the noo--a place I never speak in; an' if they did na glower at me as I had been a strange beast.
"They cam' to their very doors to glower at me; if ye'll believe me, I thoucht shame.
"At the hinder end my paassion got up, and I faced a wife East-by, and I said, 'What gars ye glower at me that way, ye ignorant woman?' ye would na think it, she answered like honey itsel'. 'I'm askin' your paarrdon,' says she; and her mon by her side said, 'Gang hame to your ain hoose, my woman, and Gude help ye, and help us a' at our need,' the decent mon.
'It's just there I'm for,' said I, 'to get my mon his breakfast.'"
All who heard her drew their breath with difficulty.
The woman then made for her own house, but in going up the street she passed the wet coat hanging on the line.
She stopped directly.
They all trembled--they had forgotten the coat--it was all over; the coat would tell the tale.
