During the week the priest kept daily moving about among his people, and little of interest could happen which did not soon come to his knowledge. "The fowk aye enjoyit a chat wi' the priest," said Bell, "for Mr. McGillivray wes the best oot at tellin' auld-fashioned stories." His figure was a familiar one in all the countryside, as he walked slowly along, leaning on his silver-mounted walking-stick, and wrapped in the ample folds of a well-worn Spanish cloak, buckled at the neck by a silver clasp. Under that same cloak he would often carry tit-bits of oatcake for the horses he might come across in the farms he visited—for he was a lover of all dumb creatures.
Mr. McGillivray's only outdoor recreation was fishing. Children knew his ways, and would shyly steal after him down to the side of the burn and watch him from a distance. When his rod happened to get caught in the branches of the stunted birches which bordered the stream—which was not of infrequent occurrence—they would run to his assistance and help to untangle the hook; they would often search for and carry to him worms to serve as bait. Both kinds of service were sure to be rewarded by a piece of "black sugar," as Bell styled licorice, which he always carried with him for use in such emergencies.
"We bairns," she explained, "were niver feared o' the priest. I weel remember hoo my mither chided me for usin' sic freedom wi' him—I had lived sae lang in the hoose wi' him, ye ken, that I wes whiles gey familiar in my speech. Well, when he askit me one day—juist as a joke, ye ken—to tak' a snuff oot o' the wee boxie he aye carrit, I tossit my head and said (ill bred as I wes!), 'Fuich!' Mr. McGillivray wesna' angered; he juist laughed oot an' says he: 'Weel, lassie, ye couldna' ha' said worse to a dog!' But I got mair words frae my mither aifter, an' a strappin' as weel, an' to bed wi'oot supper. It learned me to be mair respectful-like to the priest!"
This anecdote recalled another. "I mind weel hoo I got my first bonnet through Mr. McGillivray. In they times, ye ken, sir, it wes aye the fashion to wear large bonnets o' Tuscan straw, an' a lassie o' foorteen wes surely auld enough for siclike—I said to mysel'. So when the priest cam' to oor hoose aince, I made sae bold as to get him to ask my faither to buy me a bonnet for Sundays, next time he went to the toon o' Aberdeen. My faither wouldna' ha' done it for me, but he did when the priest askit him, and I got my bonnet! But I doot I wes a bit o' a favorite with the priest, sin' I herdit his coos sae lang."
However free the children may have been in their intercourse with the old priest, I gathered from Bell's narrative that the grown-ups rather feared him. His methods were certainly such as would be considered unnecessarily severe in these days; still, there is no doubt he managed by them to keep his people well in hand.
"I canna' mind muckle aboot Mr. McGillivray's discoorses," she answered, when I questioned her on that subject. "I wes but a bit lassie, an' I couldna' onderstand weel. He seemed to me to stan' an' drone awa' mostly. Whiles, he wud gi' great scoldin's, an' then I usit to think it wes splendid! He could be eloquent then, I assure ye, sir! I mind weel when there wes a marriage in Advent in a Protestant family, an' Mr. McGillivray warned the fowk that they mightna' attend it; some o' them, in spite o' that, went to the marriage, an' I could niver forget the awfu' way he chided them in the chapel on the Sunday aifter! It wes tarrible!
"If ony o' the fowk cam' to the chapel in their working clothes he would be greatly pit aboot. He would ca' them up to the rail at catechism time an' reprove them before a' the congregation."
"So you said your catechism in public!" I asked.
"There wes aye catechism, atween the Mass an' the preachin'. Aebody had to be prepared to be callit up till they wes marrit, at least! Even aifter that, a body couldna' be sure o' bein' left alane! I mind him callin' a mon o' saxty years o' age ane Sunday! He wes a mon greatly thought of by the congregation, an' maybe the priest wes afeared he wes gettin' prood. Onyways, Mr. McGillivray had him at the rails wi' the bairns. 'Are you ashamed,' he says, 'to learn your Christian Doctrine?' 'Na, na, sir,' says he. 'Then gae back an' sit ye doon,' says the priest."
Such treatment would scarcely be appreciated in these days, but perhaps the reason is that we are less endowed with humility than our fathers in the Faith.