White Wings: A Yachting Romance, Volume II

by William Black

"Ye see, ma'am," he observed, "some are gifted in that way, and some not. My father, now, had an amazing power of expounding and explaining—I am sure there was nothing in Hutcheson's Exposeetion he had not in his memory. A very famous man he was in those days as an Anti-Lifter—very famous; there were few who could argue with him on that memorable point."

"But what did you call him, sir?" asks his hostess, with some vague notion that the Laird's father had lived in the days of body-snatchers.

"An Anti-Lifter: it was a famous controversy; but ye are too young to remember of it perhaps. And now in these days we are more tolerant, and rightly so; I do not care whether the minister lifts the sacramental bread before distribution or not, now that there is no chance of Popery getting into our Presbyterian Church in disguise. It is the speerit, not the form, that is of importance: our Church authoritatively declares that the efficacy of the sacraments depends not 'upon any virtue in them or in him that doth administer them.' Aye; that is the cardinal truth. But in those days they considered it right to guard against Popery in every manner; and my father was a prominent Anti-Lifter; and well would he argue and expound on that and most other doctrinal subjects. But I have not much gift that way," added the Laird, modestly; quite forgetting with what clearness he had put before us the chief features of the great Semple case.

"I don't think you have anything to regret, sir," said our young Doctor, as he carelessly worked the oar with one hand, "that you did not bother the brains of John and his men with any exposition of the Sermon on the Mount. Isn't it an odd thing that the common fishermen and boatmen of the Sea of Galilee understood the message Christ brought them just at once? and now a days, when we have millions of churches built, and millions of money being spent, and tons upon tons of sermons being written every year, we seem only to get further and further into confusion and chaos. Fancy the great army of able-bodied men that go on expounding and expounding; and the learning and time and trouble they bestow on their work; and scarcely any two of them agreed; while the people who listen to them are all in a fog. Simon Peter, and Andrew, and the sons of Zebedee, must have been men of the most extraordinary intellect. They understood at once; they were commissioned to teach; and they had not even a Shorter Catechism to go by."

The Laird looked at him doubtfully. He did not know whether to recognise in him a true ally or not. However, the mention of the Shorter Catechism seemed to suggest solid ground; and he was just about entering into the question of the Subordinate Standards when an exclamation of rage on the part of his nephew startled us. That handsome lad, during all this theological discussion, had been keeping a watchful and matter-of-fact eye on a number of birds on the shore; and now that we were quite close to the sandy promontory, he had recognised them.

"Look! look!" he said, in tones of mingled eagerness and disappointment. "Golden plovers, every one of them! Isn't it too bad? It's always like this on Sunday. I will bet you won't get within half a mile of them to-morrow!"

And he refused to be consoled as we landed on the sandy shore; and found the golden-dusted, long-legged birds running along before us, or flitting from patch to patch of the moist greensward. We had to leave him behind in moody contemplation as we left the shore and scrambled up the rugged and rocky slope to the ruins of this solitary little chapel.

There was an air of repose and silence about these crumbling walls and rusted gates that was in consonance with a habitation of the dead. And first of all, outside, we came upon an upright Iona cross, elaborately carved with strange figures of men and beasts. But inside the small building, lying prostrate among the grass and weeds, there was a collection of those memorials that would have made an antiquarian's heart leap for joy. It is to be feared that our guesses about the meaning of the emblems on the tombstones were of a crude and superficial character. Were these Irish chiefs, those stone figures with the long sword and the harp beside them? Was the recurrent shamrock a national or religious emblem? And why was the effigy of this ancient worthy accompanied by a pair of pincers, an object that looked like a tooth-comb, and a winged griffin? Again, outside but still within the sacred walls, we came upon still further tombs of warriors, most of them hidden among the long grass; and here and there we tried to brush the weeds away. It was no bad occupation for a Sunday morning, in this still and lonely burial-place above the wide seas.

On going on board again we learned from John of Skye that there were many traces of an ancient ecclesiastical colonisation about this coast; and that in especial there were a ruined chapel and other remains on one of a small group of islands that we could see on the southern horizon. Accordingly, after luncheon, we fitted out an expedition to explore that distant island. The Youth was particularly anxious to examine these ecclesiastical remains; he did not explain to everybody that he had received from Captain John a hint that the shores of this sainted island swarmed with seals.

And now the gig is shoved off; the four oars strike the glassy water; and away we go in search of the summer isles in the south. The Laird settles himself comfortably in the stern; it seems but natural that he should take Mary Avon's hand in his, just as if she were a little child.