Inchbracken: The Story of a Fama Clamosa

by Robert Cleland

Yet she really liked Roderick Brown. He was so good and so kind. She had known him all her life, and she knew that he admired her. He did not exactly say so, in fact she did not expect that, it would have been too frivolous; but his voice grew softer when he spoke to her, his eyes glowed, and his pale face would sometimes flush. She did not understand much of what he said, but she knew she was not clever, and was content it should be so. It was 'nice' to hear him talk about heaven in his earnest eloquent way; it sounded all so real, and she felt always more sure of going there when she was with him--he was so good.

Over the moor, down a brae, across a burn and up another slope. Moorland again, past a peat hag with the new cut turf drying in the sun. Straggling groups dotted the outlook, the dwellers in many a distant shieling, all converging towards the common goal--the preaching tent. Old men and women, mothers with their children, shepherds with their dogs, lads and lasses, the latter carrying their heavy shoes and stockings in their hands, till they should come to the last burn before reaching the kirk, there, after a preliminary footbath, to put them on and appear before the congregation decently clad.

Joseph Smiley, ever on the alert, produced his chairs as the Lady of Auchlippie and her suite entered the assembly and took her place in the front with a condescending smile, and Mr. Dowlas disappeared from view behind the curtains of the tent.

Roderick not being as yet an ordained minister, was not authorized to celebrate the sacraments of the church, which necessitated the occasional intervention of some one who was, as on the present occasion, when Mr. Dowlas was to perform the rite of baptism, as might be guessed from frequent thin small wails which issued intermittingly from the neighbouring covert. Immediately in front of the tent were the elders and deacons seated on the uncomfortable benches which Joseph had constructed, and near them the older and more devout of the people sat on their folded plaids, on stools or bunches of bracken. These were the more earnest church members, denominated the 'far ben christians' by their neighbours. Behind, reclining at their ease on the elastic heather, where it sloped upward from the grassy level, were the general company, who felt diffident about including themselves with the 'professors,'--men, women, children and collie dogs, basking in the sun and fanned by breezes sweet with the heather and the wild thyme.

Mr. Wallowby had all the prejudices of a middle-class Englishman. Whatever differed from the use and wont of his native county and country was wrong, and a good many things in the North had therefore met with his disapproval; but of all the matters on which sane men could differ, the most preposterous appeared to him to be church affairs, in a country where the established religion was not entitled to be called a church at all, but only, by a supercilious adoption of the native speech, a 'Kirk,' as something altogether different; though, to be sure, all bodies of Christians not affiliated to his church were in the same position, excepting the Latin and Greek communions, which being older than his, are wont to treat it with precisely the same contemptuous disrespect. The present conventicle promised at least more interest than a schismatic service in a kirk, and Mr. Wallowby had come in a mood of bland condescension to enjoy the humours of the scene, and amuse his superior mind with Sawney at his devotions. But when he seated himself in the silent assemblage, the spirit of the scene seemed to fall on him, and he found himself strongly impressed.

The minister shortly appeared in gown and bands, and although silence overspread the crowd before, it seemed to deepen as the worshippers straightened themselves in their seats, and fixed their gaze intently on his face. Around, the swelling hills showed not a sign of life or habitation; yet in this sequestered hollow a thousand souls perhaps, were gathered together for prayer. The minister gave out a psalm, and the whole congregation presently burst forth in song. At first the voice of the precentor quavered uncertain and thin in the wide expanse of the open air, then one by one a few others tremulously joined in, till at length the ear of the people caught the familiar cadence of 'Bangor,' and the multitudinous voice rose in a mighty swell, filling up that recess in the hillside, brimming over and reverberating among the rocks around. Here and there around him he would perceive the momentary jar of a bad voice or a false ear, but these were overborne in the vast flood of sound, in which every one joined with a seeming intensity of feeling that counterbalanced mere technical imperfections, and fulfilling the purpose of all art, that of conveying emotion from soul to soul, the song of those uncultured voices impressed him as he had never been by choir and organ under the fretted roof of church or minster.

Mr. Dowlas preached from the Canticles, applying the apostrophe to the Shulamite to such as had wandered from the truth. The audience listened with silent and deep attention, but without any of the ejaculation and amens with which Mr. Wallowby's dissenting fellow-countrymen relieve and stimulate their fervour. Some aged grandmother would occasionally shake her head in concurrence with the minister's words, but that was all.

At the beginning of the sermon a slight rustling attracted Joseph Smiley's attention. He looked up and beheld Tibbie Tirpie taking her seat on the outskirts of the crowd. She was accompanied by a young woman who leant on her arm and appeared delicate and pale till she caught sight of Joseph, when her cheeks became suffused with crimson, and she bent down her head. A look of annoyance came into his sharp, squirrel-like eyes, but he passed his hand across his mouth, which appeared to act like the wet sponge over a much be-written slate, and left it blank and sober as before.

There were four babies to be baptized at the conclusion of the sermon, and during the singing of a hymn, Joseph, as master of the ceremonies, proceeded to the clump of hazel bushes and thence ushered three well pleased mothers, each with her latest born held proudly in her arms. As struts the brood hen before her chippering train, calling the universe to witness the last new life added to the mighty sum by her praiseworthy exertions, so sailed these worthy women behind the beadle, and took their places with rustle and importance in front of the congregation. The husband of each came diffidently behind, and stood in front of his proprietress, tall, awkward, and a little shame-faced before all the people, the length of leg and arm appearing sadly in its owner's way, and the hands especially difficult to dispose of. Behind the matrons came Mary Brown, carrying the little waif rescued by her brother from the sea, Roderick himself bringing up the rear. Their appearance created a sensation, and a hum of enquiry ran through the congregation, for many were as yet ignorant of the addition to the minister's family. Mary gave her own name to the little one, and Roderick presented it for baptism as the several sires presented theirs, vowing to bring it up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Mr. Dowlas concluded the service, and while the younger and the English-speaking part of the congregation rose to depart, the older members drew more closely together before the tent, and Roderick at once commenced the afternoon service in Gaelic for their behoof. Many of them having come long distances, it was best that the two services should follow each other without interval, that they might start the earlier on their return home. In reverent haste the retiring worshippers withdrew from the ground, that they might not disturb the Gaelic congregation, and in ten minutes every one of them was out of sight. Joseph's duties were now over till the breaking up of the meeting, and as he did not understand Gaelic he withdrew to a mossy bank hard by, where birch trees warded off the afternoon sun, and stretched himself at length to enjoy a little repose. He had drawn from the crown of his tall black hat a bannock and a hunch of skim-milk cheese wrapped in a turkey red cotton handkerchief which he spread out on his knees, and proceeded to refresh himself. While he was still so engaged there approached him from the thicket in his rear Tibbie Tirpie.