Golden dreams do, now and again, it seems, get realized!
X
A RUSTIC PASTOR
"In sober state,
Through the sequestered vale of rural life,
The venerable patriarch guileless held
The tenor of his way."
(Porteus—"Death.")
The priest who ministered to the Catholic flock of Ardmuirland in the far-off days when "Bell o' the Burn" was a lassie was known as "Mr. McGillivray"; for the repeal of the penal laws had not yet emancipated the people from the cautious reticence of the days of persecution, and they still spoke of "prayers" instead of "Mass," and of "speaking to the priest" and "going forward" to intimate Confession and Holy Communion.
"He wes a stoot, broad-shouldered gentleman o' middle size," said Bell in one of her reminiscent moods; "when I first knew him he wes gettin' bent wi' age, and his hair wes snow-white and lang on his shoulders like. I couldna' ha' been muckle mair ner five or sax year auld when he took me by the hand and askit me if I'd like to come an' herd his coos an' leeve wi' his niece at the chapel hoose. That wes in 1847, sir, ten years aifter Queen Victoria (God rest her!) cam' to the throne. That's a good bit back, ye ken."
Bell dwelt under the same roof as the priest until she was needed at home, a few years later. Although chiefly employed during the day in looking after the two cows that grazed on the hillside about a mile distant, and driving them out and in, she was sufficiently within doors to be able to gain much knowledge of the daily life of a simple Scottish pastor of the old school.
That life, as her reminiscences witness, was one of extreme homeliness—not to say austerity. The food of the priest was that of the ordinary peasant class among which he lived. "His denner," said Bell, "wes juist tatties, taken in their skins; his supper wes brochan an' sometimes tatties as weel. Some o' the neebors would come an' join him, whiles, an' share the supper wi' him, as they sat roond the hearth." (In answer to my query Bell explained that "brochan" was a kind of soup or gruel, made from oatmeal.)
"My faither an' mither," Bell remarked with some pride, "usit often to tak' denner wi' the priest o' Sundays. They wes bidin' a good bit awa' frae the chapel, ye ken, sir, an' they aye likit a talk wi' me aifter Mass. So Mr. McGillivray wouldna' aloo them to fast till they got hame, but aye pressit them to stay. For they wouldna' break their fast till the priest did, ye ken; it had aye been the custom in their young days, and they keepit it till they wes too weak to fast sae lang."
Besides the Ardmuirland district, the priest had charge of two others at some little distance over the hills in different directions. It was his duty to say Mass at one or other of these stations occasionally, and the Ardmuirland folk who could conveniently manage the journey would generally accompany him on a Sunday. They would walk over the hill in a kind of unorganized procession, reciting the Rosary and litany as they went.