A Daughter of Fife

A Daughter of Fife

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Title: A Daughter of Fife
Author: Amelia Edith Barr
Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7062] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on March 5,
2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A
DAUGHTER OF FIFE ***

This eBook was produced by Nathan Harris, Juliet Sutherland, Charles
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A DAUGHTER OF FIFE
By
AMELIA E. BARR
AUTHOR OF "JAN VEDDER'S WIFE"

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.
--THE BEACHED BOAT

CHAPTER II.
--THE UNKNOWN GUEST

CHAPTER III.
--THE CAMPBELLS OF MERITON

CHAPTER IV.
--MAGGIE AND ANGUS

CHAPTER V.
--PARTING

CHAPTER VI.
--OFF WITH THE OLD LOVE

CHAPTER VII.
--MAGGIE

CHAPTER VIII.
--THE BROKEN SIXPENCE

CHAPTER IX.
--SEVERED SELVES AND SHADOWS

CHAPTER X.
--MAGGIE'S FLIGHT

CHAPTER XI.
--DRUMLOCH

CHAPTER XII.
--TO THE HEBRIDES

CHAPTER XIII.
--THE BROKEN TRYST

CHAPTER XIV.
--THE MEETING PLACE

CHAPTER XV.
--WOO'D AN' MARRIED AND A'

CHAPTER I.
THE BEACHING OF THE BOAT.
"Thou old gray sea, Thou broad briny water, With thy ripple and thy
plash, And thy waves as they lash The old gray rocks on the shore.
With thy tempests as they roar, And thy crested billows hoar, And thy
tide evermore Fresh and free."
--Dr. Blackie.
On the shore of a little land-locked haven, into which the gulls and
terns bring tidings of the sea, stands the fishing hamlet of Pittenloch. It
is in the "East Neuk o' Fife," that bit of old Scotland "fronted with a
girdle of little towns," of which Pittenloch is one of the smallest and the
most characteristic. Some of the cottages stand upon the sands, others
are grouped in a steep glen, and a few surmount the lofty sea-washed
rocks.
To their inhabitants the sea is every thing. Their hopes and fears, their
gains and losses, their joys and sorrows, are linked with it; and the
largeness of the ocean has moulded their feelings and their characters.
They are in a measure partakers of its immensity and its mystery. The
commonest of their men have wrestled with the powers of the air, and
the might of wind, and wave, and icy cold. The weakest of their women
have felt the hallowing touch of sudden calamity, and of long, lonely,
life-and-death, watches. They are intensely religious, they hold
tenaciously to the modes of thought and speech, to the manner of living
and dressing, and to all the household traditions which they have
cherished for centuries.
Two voices only have had the power to move them from the even spirit
of their life--the voice of Knox, and the voice of Chalmers. It was

among the fishers of Fife that Knox began his crusade against popery;
and from their very midst, in later days, sprang the champion of the
Free Kirk. Otherwise rebellions and revolutions troubled them little.
Whether Scotland's king sat in Edinburgh or London--whether Prince
Charles or George of Hanover reigned, was to them of small
importance. They lived apart from the battle of life, and only the things
relating to their eternal salvation, or their daily bread, moved them.
Forty-two years ago there was no landward road to Pittenloch, unless
you followed the goats down the steep rocks. There was not a horse or
cart in the place; probably there was not a man in it who had ever seen
a haymaking. If you went to Pittenloch, you went by the sea; if you left
it, there was the same grand highway. And the great, bearded, sinewy
men, bending to the oars, and sending the boat spinning through clouds
of spindrift, made it, after all, a right royal road.
Forty-two years ago, one wild March afternoon, a young woman was
standing on the