 | Poems, Ballads and Bucolics |  |
CATHERINE WATSON.
To the rescue! long as sun
Floods the Firth with gold, your name
Shall be golden as your fame;
Never boy in yonder bay
But shall feel above his play
Towering up the granite cross
Mindful of our love and loss;
Never fisherman shall ride
Homewards on the swelling tide
But shall dream beside his boat
That he sees your body float,
With those hands that stretched to save
Drifting helpless on the wave;
And when tempests cease to roar
They who gather by the shore,
Whose strong roots do clutch and cling
Round the stones, shall haply find
Branches of the weed that twined
Round your hair in Berwick Bay,
Lest the tides should steal away
All that we, who loved you dear,
Held in veneration here.
Boys who played beneath the “Law”
Strip and run to meet the tide,
Then you heard how voices cried,
And with not a look behind,
With your loose hair on the wind
Of your speed, you raced across
Sand and shallow to our loss,
Entered boldly to the wave
That roared at you, calm and brave,
Strong to die or strong to save.
You are seen upon the shore,
At our fisher huts you stand,
Smiling on our children's faces,
Catching all their pretty graces
With your pencil, laughing free,
Dandling babes upon your knee,
Talking to our wives at home
Of the boats that sure will come
Round by Fidra laden well,—
Still we fishers feel your spell,
And at times we hear your brave
Voice sound cheerly o'er the wave,
Saying that you still can love
Berwick Law, and Berwick Cove,—
Still for children in the Bay
Glad would give your life away.
On the shore of East Bay, North Berwick, stands a very beautiful granite cross of Celtic design. At its base are engraved the words: “Erected by public subscription to the memory of Catherine Watson of Glasgow, aged 19, who was drowned in the East Bay, 27th July, 1889, while rescuing a drowning boy. The child was saved—the brave girl was taken.”
A fisherman standing near gave me the following account of this heroic attempt at rescue:—
“Well you see, sir, she was just a hot favourite with us all; came down year after year; a grand swimmer, and such a painter! would come and stand by hours watching our bairnies and would paint the boys and girls, and call in and chat at the doors, and take the babies into her arms, and talk on about the boats and nets just as if she was one of us. Well, she had just been in the water herself and had gone up to the house, Forth Lodge, I think they call it, that faces right on to the beach; and she looked out of the room where she was dressing and saw the boys run out to the tide for a bathe, and heard a cry, and knew they had got out of their depth. So she just dashed out of the house and away across the sand and into the sea as bold as a lion. There was a great sea running and the boy told us he heard her say, “Now put your hand on my shoulder and all will be right,” and then she sank like a stone. A boat came up and saved the boys and not a body knew she had gone under; forgot all about her in the rescue of the lads. Eh man! but it was a sair pity for we loved her all of us.
“And then we could not find the poor body; dragged and dragged and dragged, and at last one Monday morning very early, when the boats were just going out, I said I felt sure she would be found somewhere at the point there, and they said the tide would have carried her up the Firth; and I remember well the boat rounded the rocks, and I heard them sing out and knew they had found her, and they brought her in. Eh man! I was just beside myself—and there in her hair, long grand hair, was one of those great sea-weeds strong as iron with a big stone at its root; and I cut the stem and let the stone fall on the beach, for I was sair put out of the way. I would have gi'en a hundred pounds to have kept the stone; for you ken it was the stone that kept her in the bay. Eh! she was a hot favourite, as brave a leddy as ever drew breath.” And the rough man's eyes filled with tears.
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