Page:History of Buckhaven, or, The exploits of Wise Willie and Witty Eppie.pdf/4

4 ye binna de like to me.' An article of good neigh- bourhood they had, whoever was first up in a good morning, was to raise all the rest to go to sea, but if it was a very bad morning, piss and go to bed again till break of day, then raise Wise Willie, who could judge of the weather by the blawing of the wind. - Their freedoms were to take all sorts of fish contained in their tickets, as lobsters, partens, podles, spout-fish, sea-cast, sea- dogs, flucks, pikes, dick-paddocks, and p-fish.

Again these people are said to have descended from one Tom and his two sons who were fishers on the coast of Norway, who in a violent stormy were blown over and got ashore at Buckharbour where they settled ; and the whole of his children were called Tom's sons, and soon became a little town by themselves, as few of any other name dwelt among then. This is a traditional story, handed down from one generation to another. They keep but little communication with country people about them, for a farmer in those days thought his daughter cast away, if she married one of the fishers in Bucky harbour ; and on the other hand, Witty Eppie, the ale wife, wad a sa orn, " Be go laddie, I wad rather see my boat and a' my three sons dadded against the Bass, or I saw ony o' then married to a muck a byre's daughter a wheen useless tapies, it can do nae- thing but puck at a two rock, and cut a corn, they can neither bait a hook nor rade a line, be go laddie, nor gather perriwinkles.