Chapter IX: Wise Wee John and Witty Eppie

The landlady of the little inn, at which Sandie and Willie had dined so sumptuously, was a chatty wee body. Like most chatty wee bodies, she was by no means averse to being informed concerning the nature of other people’s business.

“Ye’ll be tourists, I reckon?” she said, as she placed a delicious dish of curds and cream in front of them.

Now it had occurred to Sandie that this same gossipy landlady, who evidently knew everybody, might put him in the way of getting a boat. So he answered her question readily enough.

“No,” he said, “not quite tourists, mother. I come on quite a different errand, and mean to stay for a bit. My friend here came to bear me company, and will return to-morrow, if not to-day.”

“And what may your business be, young sir?”

“Ah! that’s what I’m coming to, mother. I’m a student, you see, and my people are poor. I have just enough to do to rub along and pay my way during the winter session.”

“But, mind you,” interpolated Willie somewhat proudly, “my friend here is first bursar at Marischal College and University, Aberdeen.”

“Preserve me!” cried the woman, lifting up her palms and raising her eyes ceilingwards. “Preserve us a’, but what a high honour to hae a first bursar in my poor house!”

“Never mind about the honour, mother. Let me tell you at once, that I’ve come down here to find a boat, if possible, and to try to make a few white shillings at the herring-fishing.”

“Gang awa’ wi’ ye, you’re jokin’. You a gentleman and a first bursar, to go and catch scaly herrings, and work like a galley-slave. Dinna try to deceive an auld wife; you’re just poking fun at Widow Stephen.”

“No, Mrs. Stephen, I was never so much in earnest in all my life. Look at my brawny arms, look at my chest. I’ve been used to the scythe and the plough, the pluck and the hoe. Think you that casting a net is going to frighten me?

“But,” he said after a pause, “I thought you might know of some one who would be glad to have youth, strength, and agility.”

“Oh, plenty will be glad to have you. Why, as sure as I live, there goes the very man, and I ken weel that his boat’s crew is no complete. I’ll tap at the window.”

She did so, and then hurried out to meet the fisherman.

Suffice it to say, that in less than half-an-hour Sandie was appointed to John Menzies’ boat, at a good wage and his chance, that is, so much per crane on the take.

Not only that, but, to his great joy, John told him that his wife Eppie would take him in and do for him for an auld sang. He would have a canty wee roomie, with a wee window lookin’ oot to the hills, where he could study to the ring o’ the bonnet when the boat wasn’t at sea. This is pretty much John’s own language, and it is needless to say that Sandie was glad to accept the offer.

Willie and Sandie spent a very agreeable day indeed, and slept at the little inn, but next morning Willie departed after a friendly and somewhat sad farewell, and Sandie sauntered along the beach to John’s house.

He found the worthy couple both waiting for him, and he noted at once that they were characters. When I mention the fact that they are sketched from the real life, perhaps my reader will understand my reasons for not giving the village in which they resided its real name. A few words about this queer, delightful couple won’t, I feel sure, be thrown away.

John Menzies, then, was an honest fisherman of this same famous old town of Blackhive, celebrated from time immemorial for the finest smoked haddies that ever delighted the eye, or tickled the palate of gourmand or epicure.

John Menzies (pronounced Maingees) lived with his wife, “as,” he himself more than once remarked, “every decent man should.” It was the custom with John to catch the fish, and the custom with John’s wife to sell them, and thus they shared life’s burden.

Now John was reputed to be as wise a man as there was in the town, or for that matter any town whatever, and his wife--well I should not like to be the goose whose wings should supply the quills to write or describe all the virtues ascribed to this good lady by her neighbours.

John’s wife, she was called, and likewise surnamed the Witty. Eppie was her name--Witty Eppie. There you have it. “A virtuous wife,” says Solomon, “is a crown unto her husband.” Well John’s wife was all that to him, and more besides. In point of fact, John was often heard to say, “It was for my Eppie’s goodness I married her,” and he was generally believed for this simple reason--it could not have been for her beauty. No; Nature had dealt sparingly with her as far as beauty was concerned. But then, Nature could hardly be expected to give her all things. She had an honest sonsy face of her own, though, for all that, and a motherly look in it too, although so far from being a fruitful vine, she never had borne fruit at all.

“John is my bairn,” Eppie would say, “and between him and the creel it tak’s me a’ my time, ’oman.”

In figure, Eppie was rather rotund and somewhat given to corpulency without, but then she had a Herculean frame to bear it. “A broad back to a big burden,” was another of her sayings, for, like all Scottish fisherwomen, she was much addicted to quoting proverbs, which she was wont to term “the pepper dulse” of conversation.[7] Yet if she was not a bonnie fishwife, she was at best a handsome one--six feet tall if an inch, and well-made in proportion. On the other hand, John himself was what might with fear of any serious contradiction be called a spare man--a wee wee man--a man of bone and sinew certainly, but of little else. Well, he might have been of feet four, and of inches double the number, and it would have done your heart good to have seen the worthy couple going to church on a Sabbath-day, which, to their credit be it told, they never failed to do. The best view was to be obtained from behind. Here, you could observe the exact difference in stature, for John’s Sunday’s hat, which never, never sat easily on his head, and was always bobbing from one side to another, scarcely reached his better half’s shoulder. The difference too in the breadth of beam was here very apparent--the vast and ample folds of the red tartan shawl on the one hand, and the short waggling swallow tails of the little green coat with its plain brass buttons on the other.

Despise not that dumpy garment, reader, for it was his best. It was his marriage coat, and he had never got another since.

The next best view of the loving couple was the side view. There you could observe and marvel at the vast difference in length of step, at least John’s was a step, Eppie’s was a stride, and when, as sometimes would occur, the church-bells ceased to ring before they reached the gate, oh! to see the way she lugged the poor little man along by the hand! Still, even under these circumstances, Eppie could afford to walk, but--I almost sob to say it--wee Johnnie had to trot. In a word, imagine an ostrich walking to church with a rook, and you see them. Good simple couple, the minister never missed them from the kirk a single Sunday from that auspicious day when he had joined their hands, until the mournful morning when the old hearse wound slowly down the long loaning that conveyed poor wee Johnnie to his home in the mould, while every wife in Blackhive stood at her door with her apron to her eyes. But of this more anon.

Eppie was as kind to her husband as kind could be, and it is but fair to say that for this she took no credit.

“De’il thank me,” she used to exclaim, “wha could be onything else to the poor wee worriting body?”

Yet, while never failing in household duties--and there never was a button missing from John’s shirt, never _was_ his big toe seen staring impudently through a hole in his stocking, neither did he ever come home wet and cold without finding a change of well-aired warm raiment, a warm meal, and some creature comforts besides waiting for him--John’s wife found plenty of time to do kind and friendly actions to her neighbours too.

Honest woman, she was always welcome wherever she went, for she carried a ray of light into the darkest and gloomiest cottage. Even death itself did not seem so terrible when Eppie stood at the bedside.

But strangest thing of all--because, where could she have obtained the knowledge?--Eppie was always to be found handy in houses where little caps and small-waisted frocks and many other mysteries began to appear, without any visible little heads or small waists on which to fit them.

Poor John! it was on such occasions as those, and I am proud to add only, that he had to be content with a cold dinner or a bowl of hasty pudding made by his own hands. But he never grumbled.