The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1880-02-07
From All the Year Round.l
Along the Lakes OF Ain
mouth.

''Well, Annice, I'll say it again. Ye mich
gae farther and fare worse; and yell own it
yerser ane o these days"
AN will i: be your son bid ye tell me SO,
Mrs Garth? Indeed, an twas vera kind
20 him; an tits he knows best his ain val
ue"
''Eh, but you're saucy girl Annice. Ye
knaw weel eneuch that Johns no the man
to say anything for himser; tho weel he
MIGHT, an he were willing
CAV, but he'll set you to say it; an for
the matter O. that I'd as lief heart from
himself Sure an it's a. ane to me, an it
you're willin', I'll be biddin' ye guide day
the moo, Mrs. Garth, for I'm gaun WI
message to Meestress Plaistaws at Wark-
worth: an I'm no minded to be driven ABBOTT
any man, least o. a. ane who thinks sac weel
o. himself IS John Garth!' with which, and
in a little pet, which flushed her pretty
cheeks carnation-wise and lent double
sparkle to her bright blue eyes, Annice Laid
law caught up little basket, and departed
with whisk of her short skirts from the
cottage door at which she had been standing
for the last ten minutes. Mrs. Garth,
thin, rather Manufactured old woman wear
ing widows cap and a LuSty black gown,
and with joints sorely crippled by rheuma-
tism, looked after her with a sigh and shook
her head frowningy.
'sNoo, I'll hae jest made matters worse"
she said to herself with second shake
somewhat more resigned than the first.
'.An' John'll blame me whin he coomes to
hear ont: but Gamma see that lass playin'
wi him i the way she does; an if she ill
ma, take ward frae her luv's mither, she's
no the woman to make good wife to him,
an sac I'll tell him.. In despite OF which
conclusion Mrs. Garth felt uncomfortable in
her heart and went back with another sigh to
her wash tub and the grooming Of certain
homey but dreary psalm tunes which had
been handed down from the times OF the
Covenanters to those of her own mother;
and having been sung to her as lullaby,
had served ths same purpose with her own
children.
Whenever Mrs. Garth was heard grooming
one of these grim old tunes, it was a sure
sign that she had been stirred in spirit re-
specting some member of her family.
She had only one left on earth to her now,
the John above mentioned. A strong
hearted, right thinking, north country wo-
man, she had borne with much travail, and
reared with hard labor and patient love, five
strapping. strong-limbed children from in
fancy to maturity; Shaving for them night
and day when they were young, and living
hard and faring poorly that they might be
led and clothed and have a ''bit of school
ing to fit them for the world they were to
labor in-four sons and one daughter. Then
came one wild and boisterous night when
the waves beat like the thunder of thous-
and cannon on the rocks of Dustanborough,
and flung themselves in sheets of milk
white foam over the slender lighthouse on
Coquet Isle, and raved and roared up to the
very cottage doors of Alnmouth; and in that
storm Mrs. Garth's husband and three elder
lads, together with her daughters bride
groom of three months standing, went down
into eternity; nor was aught of them ever
given back to greet the widows eyes save a
shattered boat and one bruised and mangled
corpse flung high on the Boulmer sands on
the following morning. The daughter did
thing, poor girl, married early, as the lassies
of the ''north countrie'' generally are and
after her fisher lads death she just 'pined
and dwithered," to use her neighbors'
phrase, San soughed DOT like the flag eend
O. wind" dying six months after her hus-
band in the effort to give birth to a child
who never opened its eyes on world VIII re
there were none to welcome it.
Mrs. Garth laid them both in one grave
beside that which held h + husbands bat
tered corpse, and went back to her own cot
tage, a bent, gray-haired woman, leaning ON
the arm of the one son left her. To him
from that day forth she devoted herself with
stern and passionate love, which only the
unconquerable reserve of the Northumbrian
character prevented her from expressing by
those signs and caresses which another wo-
man would have freely lavished on him who
was indeed Ben amin to her in her be-
reavement. The utmost she ever allowed
herself to say on the subject was: "Ay,hes
guide lad to me, an I'll no deny set some
store by him."
In truth John Garth WAS a very good son
sober, steady, and hard working, and
and though fisherman, like the
rest of his family, and therefore
often causing his mother anxious hours and
nights of prayer and wakefulness, he had
never added wrinkle to her brow of bis
own willfuluess and now at seven-and-
twenty was still a bachelor, because in his
love for his mother he had determined to
take no wife to himself until his means
would allow him not only to support her
and any family he might have by her, but to
secure home to the woman whom hard la
Dor and sorrow had prematurely aged. Mrs
Garth was active and energetic enough STILL
and would willingly have made out
that she was quite able to keep herself But
John would not hear to her doing so, and
being a very decided young man-'master
fur' his mother called it-she knew better
than to try to go against him when he had
once set his will on anything. Had she even
said cold word when she found that his
heart was lost to Annice Laidlaw, pretty,
blue-eyed, saucy little coquette who lived
with her old grandmother in a wee cottage
down on the beach, and was almost the last
girl in Alnmouth whom she would have
thought of picking out far daughter-in-
law? Annice hadn't a farthing in her pouch
to bless herself with save what she earned
by her own needle; yet she was so far from
bowling down to Johns supremacy, and ac-
cepting his love with gratitude, that she had
no sooner beguled his heart into her meshes
than she played hot and cold with it, half
yielded and half held off, and leased and
tormented him in way which filled Mrs.
Garth's motherly heart with indignation,
and even brought down on herself the cen
sure of many of her feminine neighbors,
who wondered what she could be thinking
of to tritle with man like John Garth. |
Faith, aud if she lost him altogether there'd
be dizzen lasses ready to take oop VII
him, an where would she be then"
And meanwhile John only'oved her the |
better for it, as big, strong, generous-hearted |
men often do pretty, impulsive, quick |
tempered little women: and thought himself |
unworthy of her that it was wonder to him |
at first that she didn't send him |
away altogethert and followed after her like
a faithful Newfoundland dog, thinking the
whole day bright if she gave him a smile at
the beginning of it, and thought no sight |
so lovely as when Annlce, VINO, alter ALL |
had been a childish pet of his mother,
ran in, as she often did to give his mother a
helping hand with her baking or cleaning
up; or, perhaps, took one of his own coarse |
blue socks from the widows stffened fin
gers, and sat down to darn it, with charm
ing little assumption of meekness and
''gudewifery'', which made her more than
ever fascinating to the honestfsherman.
'If she wuld but bind herself to me"
he used to say to himself. Come next au-
tumn, 1 will ha' paid off the last two in