on which my southern feet tottered and stumbled, and all but fell! How well I remember my girlish terror when called upon to pass from one stepping-stone to another, and the girlish bravado with which, wanting courage to turn back, and laughing, half to cover my trepidation, and half from genuine fright, I confronted the danger and performed the exploit! Ah! I am not the first who has done a bold thing in fear and trembling, as (if such truths were ever told) many a soldier on his first field could bear witness. At last, encouraged by the applause of friends and relatives, I even came to like the stepping-stones, the excitement, and the praise; just as, cheered by similar bribery, the soldier learns to love a great battle-day. Those stepping-stones at Mitford! I can see them now. I had heard of them before I saw them, and of their perils A lady's-maid of my acquaintance, London-born and London-bredone of those dainty waiting gentlewomen for whose behoof Congreve, in the most graceful as well as the wittiest of his comedies, invented the name of Mrs. Mincing-had been seduced into venturing across them, handed and supported by a French valet. She had fallen, of course, and had dragged her unlucky escort after her; and her description of her previous alarm, the agonies she underwent before her dip, and the terrors of the catastrophe ; how she lost a kid slipper and spoiled a silk skirt, and was laughed at by the north-country savages into the bargain; was enough to frighten all the silk skirts and kid slippers within fifty miles, to say nothing of the Mrs. Mincings, or of me. Bright river Wansbeck! How many pleasant memories I owe to thy mere name! It were but common courtesy to wish a brimming basket and a smiling home to the kindly songster who casts his line across thy waters. THE FISHER'S WELCOME. We twa ha' fished the Kale sae clear, We've tried the Wansbeck and the Wear, An' we will try them ance again, An' we'll throw the flies thegither yet, 'Tis mony years sin' first we sat On Coquet's bonny braes, For we are hale and hearty baith, We still can guide our fishing graith, An' we'll hae a splash amang the lads, Tho' Cheviot's top be frosty still, He's green below the knee, Sae don your plaid, and tak' your gad, Come busk your flies, my auld compeer, We've fished the Coquet mony a year, An' hameward when we toddle back, An' ilka chiel maun hae his crack, We'll crack aboon them a'. When jugs are toomed and coggens wet, We've shown we're gude at water yet, We'll crack how mony a creel we've filled, How mony a line we've flung, How mony aged and saumon killed, In days when we were young. We'll gar the callants a' look blue, They're bleezing aye o' what they'll do, We'll tell them what we've dune. The next song is of the sea : Weel may the boatie row, An' weel may the boatie row, I cuist my line in Largo Bay, There's three to boil, and three to fry, The boatie rows, the boatie rows, The boatie rows indeed; An' happy be the lot of a' O weel may the boatie row An' cleads us a' frae head to feet, An' happy be the lot of a' That wishes her to speed! When Jamie vowed he wad be mine Oh muckle lighter grew my creel, My curch I pit upon my heid, But weel may the boatie row, An' lightsome be the lassie's care When Sawney, Jock, and Jeanetie Are up and gotten lear, They'll help to gar the boatie row, An' lighten a' our care. The boatie rows, the boatie rows, The boatie rows fu' weel! An' lightsome be her heart that bears The murlain and the creel. An' when wi' age we are worn down, An' hirpling round the door, They'll row to keep us hale and warm, As we did them before. Then weel may the boatie row That wins the bairnie's bread; An' happy be the lot of a' That wish the boat to speed! Again a song of the net and of the fishing-boat, and surely one of no ordinary merit. Miss Corbett is the authoress. We may well be proud of a poetess whose song is as bold and free as the breeze of which she sings : WE'LL GO TO SEA NO MORE. Oh! blithely shines the bonnie sun Upon the Isle of May, And blithely comes the morning tide Then up, gudeman, the breeze is fair; There's goud in yonder bonnie boat When haddocks leave the Frith o' Forth, When oysters climb up Berwick Law, We'll go to sea no more, No more, We'll go to sea no more. I've seen the waves as blue as air, But I never feared its foaming yet. We'll go to sea no more. I never liked the landsman's life, Gi'e me the fields that no man plows, Gi'e me the bonny fish, that glance When sails hang flapping on the masts, We'll go to sea no more. The sun is up, and round Inchkeith The gudeman has the lines on board:- An' ye be back by gloamin' gray, An' bright the fire will low, An' in your tales and sangs we'll tell How weel the boat ye row. When life's last sun gaes feebly down, An' Death comes to our door, No more, We'll go to sea no more. Gi'e me the fields that no man plows, What two lines are these? The whole song seerns set to the music of the winds and waves, so free and unshackled is the rhythm, and so hearty and seaman-like the sentiment. To spcak all praise in one word, it might have been written by Joanna Baillie. Although not strictly a Fishing Song, yet as one purporting to be sung by a mariner's wife, I can not resist the temptation of adding the charming ballad that concludes this paper. Mr. Robert Chambers attributes the authorship to William Julius Mickle, the translator of the "Lusiad," and the writer of "Cumnor Hall," to which, and the impression made upon Sir Walter Scott, in early life, by the first stanza,* the world is probably "The dews of summer night did fall, The moon, sweet regent of the sky, And many an oak that grew thereby." |