In former days, before inns had multiplied in the Highlands, and especially before the advent of the crowds of tourists, and the inevitable modern ‘hotels,’ the manses were often the only houses, other than those of the lairds, where travellers could find decent accommodation. Their hospitality was often sought, and it became in the end proverbial. Kilbride was an excellent example of this type of manse. Not only did it receive every summer a succession of guests who made it their home for weeks at a time, but every visitor of note was sure of a kindly welcome, even if he were unexpected. Astonishing is the capacity of these plain-looking Highland houses. When the company assembles at dinner it may seem impossible that they can all find sleeping quarters under the same roof. Yet they are all stowed away not uncomfortably, sleep well, and come down next morning with appetites prepared to do full justice to a Highland breakfast.
In those Highland parishes where Gaelic is still commonly spoken, two services are held in the churches on Sunday, the first in that language and the second, after a brief interval, in English. This practice was followed in Strath. In the days of the Celtic Church, a chapel dedicated to Christ stood in the middle of the parish and was known as Kilchrist. On the same site, the Protestant Church was afterwards erected, and continued to be used until towards the middle of last century. But, like the adjacent manse, it fell into disrepair and was ultimately allowed to become the roofless ruin which stands in the midst of the old graveyard of Kilchrist. Instead of rebuilding it, the heritors, about the year 1840, resolved to erect a new church at Broadford, nearer to the chief centre of population. For two Sundays in succession the services are held at Broadford; on the third Sunday they take place at a little chapel in Strathaird, on the western side of the parish, for the benefit of a mixed crofter and fishing community.
SUNDAY SERVICES IN SKYE
At the Gaelic service in the Broadford church, a prominent feature used to be the row of picturesque red-cloaked or tartan-shawled old women, who, sitting in front immediately below the pulpit, followed the prayers and the sermon with the deepest attention, frequently uttering a running commentary of sighs and groans, while now and then one could even see tears coursing down the wrinkles into which age and peat-reek had shrivelled their cheeks.
The Sundays at Strathaird were peculiarly impressive. The house party from the manse—family, guests and servants—walked to the shore of the sea-inlet of Loch Slapin, embarked there in rowing boats, and pulled across the fjord and along the base of the cliffs on the opposite side. No finer landscape could be found even amidst the famous scenery of Skye,—the pink and russet-coloured cones and domes of the Red Hills, and the dark pinnacles and crags of Blaven behind us, and the blue islands that closed in the far distance in front.
During the long incumbency of the minister’s father, no built place of worship existed in Strathaird. The little chapel of the early Celtic Church, of which the memory is preserved in the name Kilmaree, had long disappeared, and the clergyman used to preach from a recess in the basalt crags, with a grassy slope in front on which his congregation sat to hear him. My host, however, in the early years of his tenancy of the parish, had succeeded in getting a small church erected wherein his people could be sheltered in bad weather. I can recollect one of these Sundays when the weather was absolutely perfect—a cloudless blue sky, the sea smooth as a mirror, and the air suffused with the calm peacefulness which seems so appropriate to a Sabbath. We were a large but singularly quiet party, as we steered for the little bay of Kilmaree, each wrapped up in the thoughts which the day or the scene suggested. As we approached our landing place, we were startled by two gun-shots in rapid succession on the hillside above us. The sound would under any circumstances have intruded somewhat harshly into the quiet of the landscape. But it was Sunday, and such a thing as shooting on the Lord’s day had never been heard of in Strath. An Englishman had rented the ground for the season, and he and his wife were now out with their guns. The surprise and horror with which this conduct was viewed by the minister and his family soon found an echo through the length and breadth of the parish.
THE MINISTER OF GLENELG
The sacramental season brought together to Kilbride some of the other clergymen of Skye, whom it was always a pleasure to meet. They were a race of earnest, hardworking, and intelligent men,[6] though, having remained in the Establishment, they would have been stigmatised by the seceding party as ‘Moderates’ who had clung to their loaves and fishes, in spite of the example of the Free Kirk. I remember being especially struck by Mr. Macrae of Glenelg and Mr. Martin of Snizort. With Mr. Macrae I had afterwards more intercourse. Over and above his ministerial duties, to which he conscientiously devoted himself, his great delight in life was to be on the sea. He had a little yacht or cutter, on which he lived as much as he could, and which, as it passed up and down the lochs and kyles, was as familiar as Hutcheson’s steamers. He was never happier than when, with his two daughters, he could entertain some friend on a cruise in these waters, and tell what he knew about the ruins and legends of the district—the Pictish towers, the mouldering Barracks, the traditions of 1715 and 1745, the Spanish invasion, the battle of Glen Shiel, the naval pursuit and the battering down of Eilean Donan Castle. Once when I was staying at Inverinate, the minister landed there from his little vessel, and hearing that I wished to examine a piece of the Skye shore south of Kyle Rhea, was delighted to offer to convey me there and back next day. My host jocularly remarked that the visit would be sooner made by land and crossing the Kyle at the ferry, than by trusting to the minister. The little cruise, however, was arranged, according to Mr. Macrae’s desire, and he duly dropped anchor in front of Inverinate next morning. We started early, and, with a gentle south-easterly breeze and unclouded sky, made good progress down Loch Duich. But the wind soon fell, and we crept more and more slowly past the ruined Eilean Donan into Loch Alsh. There could not have been a more glorious day for a lazy excursion, or a nobler landscape to gaze upon, as hour slipped after hour. Behind us rose the great range of the Seven Sisters of Kintail, in front were the hills of Sleat with the Cuillins peering up behind them, all suffused with the varying tints of the atmosphere. It was a source of keen interest to watch how the hues of peak and crag which one had actually climbed, were transformed in this aerial alembic, and one felt the truth of Dyer’s beautiful lines:
Mark yon summits, soft and fair,
Clad in colours of the air,