Reforming Saints! too delicately nice!
By whose decrees, our sinful souls to save,
No Sunday tankards foam, no barbers shave;
And beer undrawn, and beards unmown, display
Your holy reverence for the Sabbath-day.’[14]
SABBATARIAN CODE
An octogenarian friend has told me that he believes he was the first man in Edinburgh to make a practice of taking a Sunday walk. He remembers that on some of these occasions he was accompanied by a well-known professor in the University, who besought him not to get back to the town until the church-goers had safely returned to their houses from afternoon service, as he was afraid of the public odium he might draw down not only on himself, but on the University. I myself recollect when it was a common practice to pull down the window blinds on Sunday, in order that the eyes of the inmates might be hindered from beholding vanity, and that their minds might be kept from wandering away from the solemn thoughts that should engage them. There was one lady who carried her sanctimonious scruples so far that she always rose a little earlier than usual on Sunday morning, and took care, as her first duty, to carry a merry-hearted and loud-throated canary down to the cellar that its carol might not disturb the quiet and solemnity of the day. It was considered sinful to use any implement of ordinary week-day work. Hence though a servant might perhaps scrape away with her fingers the earth from the roots of potatoes in the garden, if these were unexpectedly wanted for the Sunday dinner, on no account could a spade or graip be used to dig them up expeditiously. In the same spirit, a lad might be employed for half an hour on a Sunday morning in laboriously carrying armfuls of turnips or other vegetables for feeding the cattle, but he could not be allowed to use a wheelbarrow with which he could have done the whole work in a few minutes. As it was a heinous offence to write letters on Sunday, people used to sit up till midnight; what would have been a sin before the clock struck twelve, became quite legitimate thereafter.[15]
Happily this rigidity is gradually being relaxed, except perhaps in parts of the Highlands. How it looks to an observer from outside may be illustrated from some of my own personal experiences.
A ROSS-SHIRE SABBATH
In the summer of the year 1860, I found that the strict maintenance of the Highland view of Sabbath observance might have had serious consequences for myself. In company with my old chief, Sir Roderick Murchison, I had walked on a Saturday from the head of Loch Torridon, through the wild defile of Glen Torridon, to Loch Maree. Along the mountain slopes that sweep upwards from the southern side of that valley, I noticed so many features of interest, some of which, if further and more closely examined, might help to clear up problems of Highland geology for the solution of which we were seeking, that I felt I must ascend these mountains and look at their crests and corries. But we were pressed for time, and although next day was Sunday I determined to devote it to the quest. The morning broke auspiciously, and ushered in one of the most superb days which I have ever been fortunate enough to meet with in the West Highlands. As it was desirable to save time and fatigue by driving some six miles to the point of the road nearest to the ground to be traversed, a request was made for a dog-cart. But the answer came, that it was the Sabbath, and nobody would drive a ‘machine’ on the Lord’s Day. There was no objection, however, to allow the use of a dog-cart, nor to charge for the same in the bill (for Highland innkeepers, like Dryden’s Shimei, ‘never break the Sabbath but for gain’); we must, however, do the driving ourselves. It was accordingly arranged that Sir Roderick’s valet should drive me to the place and return with the vehicle, leaving me to make my tramp and find my way back to the inn on foot. The fresh buoyant air of the mountains; the depth of the glens with their piles of old moraines; the ruggedness and dislocation of the cliffs and slopes; the utter solitude of the scene, broken only now and then by the bound of a group of red deer, startled from a favourite corrie, or by the whirr of the snowy ptarmigan; the ever-widening panorama of mountain-summit, gorge, glen, and lake, as each peak was gained in succession; and then from the highest crest of all, the vista of the blue Atlantic, with the faint far hills of the Outer Hebrides and the nearer and darker spires of Skye—all this, added to the absorbing interest of the geology, filled up a day to the brim with that deep pleasure of which the memory becomes a life-long possession. The sun had sunk beneath the western hills before I began to retrace my steps, and night came down when there still lay some miles of trackless mountain, glen, river, and bog between me and the inn where my old chief was expecting me at dinner. Fortunately, in the end the moon rose, and I arrived at the end of the journey somewhere near midnight.