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 passe