Part 23 (1/2)
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
PECULIAR INCIDENTS OF A SABBATH AMONG THE WESTERN ISLES.
One beautiful Sunday morning while the party a.s.sembled in Kinlossie House was at breakfast, a message was brought to the laird that he ”wa.s.s want.i.t to speak wi' the poy Tonal'.”
”Well, Donald, my lad, what want ye with me this fine morning?” asked the laird, on going out to the hall.
”I wa.s.s telt to tell ye the'll be no kirk the day, for the minister's got to preach at Drumquaich.”
”Very well, Donald. Have you had breakfast?”
”Oo, ay.”
”Go into the kitchen, then, and they will give you some more.”
”Thenkee, sir.”
”I find,” said the laird on returning to his friends, ”that we are to have no service to-day in our little church, as our minister has to take the duty at Drumquaich, on the other side of the loch. So those of you who are bent on going to church must make up your minds to cross the loch in the boat.”
”Is Drumquaich the little village close under the pine wood, that we see on doubling Eagle Point?” asked Mabberly.
”The same. The little church there, like our own, is not supplied regularly. Sometimes a Divinity student is sent down to them.
Occasionally they have a great gun from Edinburgh.”
”I think some of the students are better than the great guns,” remarked Mrs Gordon quietly.
”True, my dear, and that is most natural, for it stands to reason that some at least of the students must be the great guns of the future in embryo; and they have the freshness of youth to set against the weight of erudition.”
”The student who preached to us here last Sunday,” observed Barret, ”must surely be an embryo great gun, for he treated his subject in a learned and masterly way that amazed me. From the look of him I would not have expected even an average discourse.”
”That was partly owing to his modest air and reticence,” returned the laird. ”If you heard him converse on what he would call metapheesical subjects, you would perhaps have been still more surprised.”
”Well, I hope he will preach to-day,” said Barret.
”From which I conclude that you will be one of the boat party. My wife and Milly make three, myself four; who else?”
”No--don't count me” interrupted the hostess; ”I must stay with Flo; besides, I must visit poor Mrs Donaldson, who is again laid up. But I'll be glad if you will take Aggy Anderson. Ever since the poor girl came here for a little change of air she has been longing to go out in the boat. I really believe it is a natural craving for the free, fresh breezes of the sea. May she go?”
”By all means; as many as the boat will hold,” returned the laird.
It was finally arranged that, besides those already mentioned, Mabberly, Jackman, MacRummle, Quin, the three boys, Roderick the groom, and Ian Anderson, as boatman in charge, should cross over to the little church at Drumquaich, about eight miles distant by water.
While they were getting ready, Mrs Gordon and Flo, with the beloved black dolly, paid a visit to old Molly, the keeper's mother. They found her in her arm-chair, sitting by the large, open chimney, on the hearth of which a very small fire was burning--not for the sake of warmth, but for the boiling of an iron pot which hung over it.
The old woman was enveloped in a large, warm shawl--a gift from the ”Hoose.” She also wore a close-fitting white cap, or ”mutch,” which was secured to her head by a broad, black ribbon. The rims of her spectacles were of tortoisesh.e.l.l, and she had a huge family Bible on her knee, while her feet rested upon a three-legged stool. She looked up inquiringly as her visitors entered.
”Why, Molly, I thought you were in bed. They told me you were ill.”
”Na, mem, I'm weel eneuch in body; it's the speerit that's ill. And ye ken why.”
She spoke in a faint, quavering voice, for her old heart had been crushed by her wayward, self-indulgent son, and a few tears rolled down her wrinkled cheeks; but she was too old and feeble to give way to demonstrative grief. Little Flo, whose heart was easily touched, went close to the poor old woman, and looked up anxiously in her face.