She laughs softly. Eh, hush your mouth, quinie, or ye’ll swallow a bumblebee.

But ye canna go to the fish. Ye know what Ma says: it’s not respectable. She’ll not let ye. An’ Granda will … I stop. Am unable to imagine what Granda Jeemsie will say.

Kitta tosses her plait but doesn’t look so sure. Maudie Ross has signed—Maudie Ross!—and is there a livin’ soul in Roanhaven would say the Rosses are not respectable? Ma will be pleased for the shilling. She gives me a little push, looks at me anxiously. She will, don’t ye think?

But Granda …

I’ve signed the book, Meggie. I’ve signed an’ that’s an end to it.

But no, it was Ma who put an end to it. Granda Jeemsie never even got to say his piece, for it was over before the Lily Maud came home next day. The shilling was returned and the whole of Tiller Street heard just what Ma thought of chaifing snipes who would take the pledge of a girl not yet fourteen and who didn’t have her parents’ leave to give it.

It was a wonder those arling men from Gadlehead kept coming back to sign up Roanhaven girls. They never had collected too many names in their books. Maybe the drift of fishers to the Gadlehead crews gave them hope, I don’t know. But families slow to send their men to the herring were slower still to give up their women. It didn’t pass the thoughts of those in the village that domestic life would not continue as it had, the girls doing the work they’d always done with never a glance to the world outside. Roanhaven families knew about the lasses gone to the fish, they’d heard how the crews travelled about by boat and by train, living far from their families—scandalous! It was no life for honest fisher girls, God-fearing and good.

But still the Gadlehead curers sent their hopeful men, offering girls the lure of a shilling to be arled for the season. And then, if a girl was a fast worker, she could bring home a little pile to the family at the end of the year. Those arling men were cunning with their silky words, aye, they knew just what to say, and every girl heard the word escape like a whisper. Becoming a gutting quine, well, it meant leaving the tight grip of family, travelling beyond the village, beyond even the town. A ticket to the wide world. Who wouldn’t be gasping for that?

So Ma kept a narrow eye on Kitta, and let it be known—in Gadlehead, in the estates nearby—that she had a daughter ready to go into service. A respectable girl who worked hard and knew all she needed to and nothing indeed she shouldn’t.

~