JEAN cowie's stoet. 329 



towns, would have fancied that during one fatal morning her 

 boy son, her husband, and her father, had all been borne into her 

 house in a melancholy procession, drowned ! They had sailed 

 away the day before to a distant fishing-bank, and while 

 returning home were overtaken by a sudden storm, which 

 dashed their boat upon the rocks within a few yards of the 

 landing-place. There was great lamentation in the village over 

 that calamity, for both Bull Cowie and his wife's father had 

 been favourites in the Braes. Dancing Flucker, her father, had 

 only a few days before he met his own death saved the life 

 of a little child who had fallen into the sea. Thus Jean was 

 suddenly left a widow with four young children ; and when the 

 first keenness of her grief had been somewhat deadened, she felt 

 nerved to work as she had never worked before, for the sake of 

 her young ones — his children. Jean scorned to ask assistance, 

 or to go before " the Board." " Na, na," said the young widow ; 

 " neen o' my bairns 'ill ever hear it said that their mither geed 

 on the parish. I can work — I can mak' nets or gather mussels, 

 an' there's a kind Providence aboon us a', an' neen that hae 

 hands needs to starve." Like all her countrywomen, Jean Cowie 

 had an abhorrence of receiving parochial relief, or " going on the 

 parish," as the Scottish peasantry call it — even out-door relief 

 is distasteful to them. And as to going into the poor-house, it 

 is looked upon by some of the poorest of the poor as worse than 

 death. 



Perhaps my readers would like to hear Jean's story as told 

 by herself to a young lady who was buying fish from her. 

 It was as follows : — " What did ye say, mem, saxpence — sax- 

 pence ! Saxpence for they eight bonnie baddies just new oot 

 o' the water, as clean and caller as yersel', mem ! Na, na ; gang 

 till yer flesher, and see what he'U gie for saxpence. They 

 baddies, mem, cost me a clear white shillin' oot o' ma ain hand 

 this momin', mem, without the word o' a lee ; ay, mem, it's 

 true ; but div ye ken what jist sic another creelfu' o' fish as 

 this cost me aince no lang ago ? I'll tell ye if ye dinna ken. 

 It cost me a faither, a guidman, an' a son, — yes, a' the three at 

 aince were brocht in till me, stark starin' drooned corpses, wi' 

 the saut sea faim rinnin' frae their hair, and dreepin' frae their 

 claes. Fish, ye see, mem, are no fish, they're lives o' men ; an' 

 yet ye wad offer me a saxpence for a' they bonnie baddies ! ye 

 valey men's lives but cheaply, you leddies. Ay, a blithe hale 

 auld chap was my faither. My mither de'ed o' the cholera. 



