CHAPTER XI ANSTRUTHER AND CELLARDYKE THE chief of these fishing towns is Anstruther, with its neighbour, Cellardyke. Anstruther is a much bigger place than St. Monans or Pittenweem, and with its spacious harbour forms the great rallying place for herring-boats all round the Firth. Here are the big fish-curing yards, sail-makers, rope-makers, places for barking nets, and all the other various industries connected with the trade. Characteristic too, the buildings round the harbour are much less picturesque than in the two smaller towns, for they are more modern, a sure sign of prosperity. Anstruther has, however, a history stretching far into the past. Dreel Castle, the old seat of the Anstruthers, just overhanging the harbour, could tell many tales, one of which concerning how the house of Anstruther came by its coat of arms, must take a place on our stage by itself, as a fine old-world melodrama. Away back in the days of Robert III. Sir William Anstruther lived at Dreel Castle with his only daughter Margaret. "Fisher Willie' he is called, for he loved to spend his time on the Firth, a scourge to the pirates there, and, if truth be told, a thorn in the side of neighbours, towards whom he was not well disposed. The daughter, in all the bloom of her youth, tall and slender, with golden hair and deep blue eyes, is the pride of the countryside. She is just home from a prolonged stay at the Court, where, though her fond father little knows it, her heart has been captured by the gay and debonair Patrick Home, the son of the Earl of Home. But there is trouble brewing here, for the two families have been bitter enemies since the days when a Home slew Sir William's grandfather in a fight on the Firth. And now enters the villain of the piece. The Laird of Thirdpart, near by, their next neighbour in fact, low in stature, a man of infamous reputation, cunning and deceitful, conceives a violent passion for the fair Margaret, and riding up to Dreel Castle formally asks her hand in marriage. A stormy scene ensues between old Sir William and the suitor. What! Marry his daughter Margaret, the brightest ornament of the royal Court, to a penniless Fife Laird! Doubtless he thinks by that means to make himself "King of Anstruther walk"; but he has reckoned without his host. And Thirdpart, choking with rage, spluttering oaths and threats, goes down the castle stair and rides away. So ends the first act. Act II., Scene 1., finds the Laird of Thirdpart in his own castle, gnawing his beard, and turning over schemes for revenge in his mind. But Dreel Castle is a hard nut to crack. Yet stay, what if he had Sir William here? A crafty smile creeps over his sinister features, and the plan unfolds itself. A few minutes later a messenger from Thirdpart bears a letter to Sir William, with a humble and obsequious apology for his presumption, which he now realises, and which he can only excuse by the fact that the fair Margaret, whom he shall for ever adore, but whom he now renounces, had |