Christine A Fife Fisher Girl   By: Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (1831-1919)

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.