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THERE lived in the Island
of Skye, more than a century ago, a small farmer or "gentleman tacksman."
Some of his admirably-written letters are now before me; but I know
little of his history beyond the fact revealed in his correspondence,
and preserved in the affectionate traditions of his descendants, that he
was "a good man," and among the first, if not the very first, in the
district where he lived who introduced the worship of God in his family.
One great object of his
ambition was to give his sons the best education that could be obtained
for them, and in particular to train his first-born for the ministry of
the Church of Scotland. His wishes were fully realised, for that noble
institution, the parochial school, provided in the remotest districts
teaching of a very high order, and produced admirable classical
scholars—such as even Dr Johnson talks of with respect.
And in addition to the
school teaching there was an excellent custom then existing among the
tenantry in Skye, of associating themselves to obtain a tutor for their
sons. The tutor resided alternately at different farms, and the boys
from the other farms in the neighbourhood came daily to him. In this way
the burden of supporting the teacher, and the difficulties of travelling
on the part of the boys, were divided among the several families in the
district. In autumn the-tutor, accompanied by his more advanced pupils,
journeyed on foot to Aberdeen to attend the University. He superintended
their studies during the winter, and returned in spring with them to
their Highland homes to pursue the same routine. The then Chief of
Macleod was one who took a pride in being surrounded by a tenantry who
possessed so much culture. It was his custom to introduce all the sons
of his tenants who were studying at Aberdeen to their respective
professors, and to entertain both professors and students at his hotel.
On one such occasion, when a professor remarked with surprise, "Why,
sir, these are all gentlemen!" Macleod replied, "Gentlemen I found them,
as gentlemen I wish to see them educated, and as gentlemen I hope to
leave them behind me." ["At dinner I expressed to Macleod the joy which
I had in seeing him on such cordial feelings with his clan.
`Government,' said he, `has deprived us of our ancient power; but it
cannot deprive us of our domestic satisfactions. I would rather drink
punch in one of their houses, (meaning the houses of the people,) than
be enabled by their hardships to have claret in my own.'"—Boswell's
"Life of Johnson," vol. iv., p. 275.]
The "gentleman tacksman's"
eldest son acted as a tutor for some time, then as parochial teacher,
and finally became minister of "the Highland Parish." It was said of him
that "a prettier man never left his native island." He was upwards of
six feet in height, with a noble countenance which age only made nobler.
He was accompanied from
Skye by a servant-lad, whom he had known from his boyhood, called "Ruari
Beg," or Little Rory. Rory was rather a contrast to his master in
outward appearance. One of his eyes was blind, but the other seemed to
have stolen the sight from its extinguished neighbour to intensify its
own. That gray eye gleamed and scintillated with the peculiar sagacity
and reflection which one sees in the eye of a Skye terrier, but with
such intervals of feeling as human love of the most genuine kind could
alone have expressed. One leg, too, was slightly shorter than the other,
and the manner in which he rose on the longer or sunk on, the shorter,
and the frequency or rapidity with which the alternate ups and downs in
his life were practised, became a telegraph of his thoughts when words,
out of respect to his master, were withheld. "So you don't agree with
me, Rory?" "What's wrong?" "You think it dangerous to put to sea
to-day?" "Yes; the mountain-pass also would be dangerous?" "Exactly so.
Then we must consider what is to be done." Such were the remarks which a
series of slow or rapid movements of Rory's limbs would draw forth from
his master, though no other token were afforded of his inner doubt or
opposition. A better boatman, a truer genius at the helm, never took a
tiller in his hand; a more enduring traveller never trod the heather; a
better singer of a boat-song never cheered the rowers, nor kept them as
one man to their stroke; a more devoted, Ioyal, and affectionate
"minister's man" and friend never lived than Rory—first called "Little
Rory," but as long as I can remember, "Old Rory." More of him anon,
however. The minister and his servant arrived in the Highland parish
nearly ninety years ago, almost total strangers to its inhabitants, and
alone they entered the manse to see what it was like.
I ought to inform my
readers in the south, some of whom—can they pardon the suspicion if it
be unjust?—are more ignorant of Scotland and its Church than they are of
France or Italy and the Church of Rome,—I ought to inform them that the
Presbyterian Church is established in Scotland and that the landed
proprietors in each parish are bound by Iaw to build and keep in repair
a church, suitable school, and parsonage or "manse," and also to secure
a portion of land, or "glebe," for the minister. Both manses and
churches have of late years improved immensely in Scotland, so that in
many cases they are now far superior to those in some of the rural
parishes of England. But much still remains to be accomplished in this
department of architecture and taste. Yet even at the time I speak of,
the manse was in its structure rather above than below the houses
occupied by the ordinary gentry, with the exception of "the big house"
of the chief. It has been replaced by one more worthy of the times; but
it was nevertheless respectable, as the sketch of , it on the title-page
shows.
The glebe was the glory
of the manse! It was among the largest in the county, consisting of
about sixty acres, and containing a wonderful combination of Highland
beauty. It was bounded on one side by a "burn," whose torrent rushed far
down between lofty steep banks clothed with natural wood, ash, birch,
hazel, oak, and rowan-tree, and which poured its dark moss-water over a
series of falls, and through deep pools, "with beaded bubbles winking at
the brim." It was never tracked along its margin by any human being,
except herd-boys and their companions, who swam the pools and clambered
up the banks, holding by the roots of trees, starting the kingfisher
from his rock, or the, wild cat from his den. On the other side of the
glebe was the sea, with here a sandy beach, and there steep rocks and
deep water, and small gray islets beyond ; while many birds, curlews,
cranes, divers, and gulls of all sorts, gave life to the rocks and
shore. Along the margin of the sea there stretched a flat of green grass
which suggested the name it bore, namely, " the Duke of Argyle's walk."
And pacing along that green margin at evening, what sounds and wild
cries were heard of piping seabirds, chafing waves, the roll of oars,
and the song from fishing-boats, telling of their return home. The green
terrace-walk which fringed the sea, was but the outer border of a flat
that was hemmed in by the low precipice of the old upraised beach of
Scotland. Higher still was a second story of green fields and emerald
pastures, broken by a lovely rocky knoll, called Fingal's hill, whose
gray head, rising out of green grass, bent towards the burn. and looked
down into its own image reflected in the deep pools which slept at its
feet. On that upper table-land, and beside a clear stream, stood the
manse and garden sheltered by trees. Beyond the glebe began the dark
moor, which swept higher and higher, until crowned by the mountain-top
looking away to the Western Islands and the peaks of Skye.
The minister, like most
of his brethren, soon took to himself a wife, the daughter of a
neighbouring "gentleman tacksman," and the granddaughter of a minister,
well born and well bred and never did man find a help more meet for him
In that manse they lived for nearly fifty years, and there were born to
them sixteen children; yet neither father nor mother could ever lay hand
on a child and say, "We wish this one had not been." They were all a
source of unmingled joy.
A small farm was added to
the glebe, for it was found that the plant required to work sixty acres
of arable and pasture land could work more without additional expense.
Besides, John, Duke of Argyle, made it a rule at that time to give farms
at less than their value to the ministers on his estates; and why,
therefore; should not our minister, with his sensible, active, thrifty
wife, and growing sons and daughters, have a small one, and thus secure
for his large household abundance of food, including milk and butter,
cheese, potatoes, and meal, with the excellent addition of mutton, and
sometimes beef too? And the good man did not attend to his parish less
that his living was thus bettered; nor was he less cheerful or earnest
in duty because in his house " there was bread enough and to spare."
The manse and glebe of
that Highland parish were a colony which ever preached sermons, on week
days as well as Sundays, of industry and frugality, of courteous
hospitality and bountiful charity, and of the domestic peace,
contentment. and cheerfulness of a holy Christian home.
Several cottages were
built by the minister in sheltered nooks near his dwelling. One or two
were inhabited by labourers and shepherds; another by the weaver, who
made all the carpets, blankets, plaids, and finer webs of linen and
woollen cloths required for the household; and another by old Jenny, the
henwife, herself an old hen, waddling about and chucking among her
numerous family of poultry. Old Rory, with his wife and family, was
located near the shore, to attend at spare hours to fishing, as well as
to be ready with the boat for the use of the minister in his pastoral
work. Two or three cottages besides were inhabited by objects of
charity, whose claims upon the family it was difficult to trace. An old
sailor—Seoras nan Long, "George of the Ships," was his sole designation
— had settled down in one, but no person could tell anything about him,
except that he had been born. in Skye, had served in the navy, had
fought at the Nile, had no end of stories for winter evenings, and span
yarns about the wars and "foreign parts." He had come long ago in
distress to the manse, from whence he had passed after a time into the
cottage, and there lived—very much as a dependent on the family—until he
died twenty years afterwards. A poor decayed gentle-woman, connected
with one of the old families of the county, and a tenth cousin of the
minister's wife, had also cast herself in her utter loneliness, on the
glebe. She had only intended to remain a few days--she did not like to
be troublesome —hut she knew she could rely on a blood relation, and she
found it hard to leave, for whither could she go? And those who had
taken her in never thought of bidding this sister "depart in peace,
saying, Be ye clothed;" and so she became a neighbour to the sailor, and
was always called "Mrs" Stewart, and was treated with the utmost
delicacy and respect, being fed, clothed, and warmed in her cottage with
the best which the manse could afford. And when she died, she was
dressed in a shroud fit for a lady, while tall candles, made for the
occasion according to the old custom, were kept lighted round her body.
Her funeral was becoming the gentle blood that flowed in her veins; and
no one was glad in their heart when she departed, but all sincerely
wept, and thanked God she had lived in plenty and died in peace.
Within the manse the
large family of sons and daughters managed, somehow or other, to find
accommodation not only for themselves, but also for a tutor and
governess. And such a thing as turning any one away for want of room was
never dreamt of. When hospitality demanded such a small sacrifice, the
boys would all go to the barn, and the girls to the chairs and sofas of
par- lour and dining-room, with fun and laughter, joke and song, rather
than not make the friend or stranger welcome. And seldom was the house
without either. The "kitchen-end," or lower house, with all its indoor
crannies of closets and lofts, and outdoor additions of cottages, barns,
and stables, was a little world of its own, to which wandering pipers,
parish fools, and beggars, with all sorts of odd-and-end characters
came, and where they ate, drank, and rested. As a matter of course, the
"upper house" had its own set of guests to attend to. The traveller by
sea, whom adverse winds and tides drove into the harbour for refuge, or
the traveller by land; or any minister passing that way, or friends on a
visit; or, lastly and but rarely, some foreign "Sassanach" from the
Lowlands of Scotland or England, who dared then to explore the unknown
and remote Highlands as one now does Montenegro or the Ural
Mountains—all these found a hearty reception.
One of the most welcome
visitors was the packman. His arrival was eagerly longed for by all,
except the minister, who trembled for his small purse in presence of the
prolific pack. For this same pack often required a horse for its
conveyance. It contained a choice selection of everything which a family
was likely to require from the lowland shops. The haberdasher and
linen-draper, the watchmaker and jeweller, the cutler and hairdresser,
with sundry other crafts in the useful and fancy line, were all fully
represented in the endless repositories of the pack. What a solemn
affair was the opening up of that peripatetic warehouse! It took a few
days to gratify the inhabitants of manse and glebe, and to enable them
to decide how their money should be invested. The boys held sundry
councils about knives, and the men about razors, silk handkerchiefs, or,
it may be, about the final choice of a silver watch. The female servants
were in nervous agitation about some bit of dress. Ribbons, like
rainbows, were unrolled; prints held up in graceful folds before the
light; cheap shawls were displayed on the back of some handsome lass,
who served as a model. There never were seen such new fashions or such
cheap bargains! And . then how "dear papa" was coaxed by mamma; and
mamma again by her daughters. Each thing was so beautiful, so tempting,
and was discovered to be so necessary! All this time the packman was
treated as a friend. He almost always carried pipe or violin, with which
he set the youngsters a-dancing, and was generally of the stamp of him
whom Wordsworth has made illustrious. The news gathered on his travels
was as welcome to the minister as his goods were to the minister's
family. No one•in the upper house was so vulgar as to screwy him down,
but felt it due to his respectability to give him his own price, which,
in justice to those worthy old merchants, I should state was generally
reasonable.
The manse was the grand
centre to which all the: inhabitants of the parish gravitated for help
and comfort. Medicines for the sick were weighed out from the chest
yearly replenished in Edinburgh or Glasgow. They were not given in
homoeopathic doses, for Highlanders, accustomed to things on a large
scale, would have had no faith in globules, and faith was half their
cure. Common sense and common medicines were found helpful to health.
The poor, as a matter of course, visited the manse, not for an order on
public charity, but for aid from private charity, and it was never
refused in kind, such as meal, wool, or potatoes. There being no lawyers
in the parish, lawsuits were adjusted in the manse; and so were
marriages not a few. The distressed came there for comfort, and the
perplexed for advice; and there was always something material as well as
spiritual to share with them all. No one went away empty in body or
soul. Yet the barrel of meal failed not, nor did the cruse of oil waste.
A "wise" neighbour once remarked, "That minister with his large family
will ruin himself, and if he dies they will be beggars." Yet there has
never been .a beggar among them to the fourth generation. No saying was
more common in the mouth of this servant than the saying of his Master,
"It is more blessed to give than to receive."
A striking characteristic
of the manse life was its constant cheerfulness. One cottager could play
the bagpipe, another the fiddle. The minister was an excellent performer
on the latter, and to have his children dancing in the evening was his
delight. If strangers were present, so much the better. He had not an
atom of that proud fanaticism which connects religion with suffering, as
suffering, apart from its cause. [A minister in a remote island parish
once informed me that, "on religious grounds," he had broken the only
fiddle in the island! His notion of religion, I fear, is not rare among
his brethren in the far west and north. We are informed by Mr Campbell,
in his admirable volumes on the "Tales of the Highlands," that the old
songs and tales are also being put under the clerical ban in some
districts, as being too secular and profane for the pious inhabitants.
What next? Are the singing-birds to be shot by the kirk-sessions?]
Here is an extract from a
letter written by the minister in his old age, some fifty years ago,
which gives a very beautiful picture of the secluded manse and its
ongoings. It is written at the beginning of a new year, in reply to one
which he had received from his first-born son, then a minister in a
distant parish:-
"What you say about the
beginning of another year is quite true., But, after all, may not the
same observations apply equally well to every new day? Ought not daily
mercies to be acknowledged, and God's favour and protection asked for
every new day? and are we not as ignorant of what a new day as of what a
new year may bring forth ? There is nothing in nature to make this day
in itself more worthy of attention than any other. The sun rises and
sets on it as on other days, and the sea ebbs and flows. Some come into
the world and some leave it, as they did yesterday and will do
to-morrow. On what day may not one say, 'I am a year older than I was
this day last year?' Still I must own that the first of the year speaks
to me in a more commanding and serious language than any other common
day; and the great clock of time, which announced the first hour of this
year, did not strike unnoticed by us.
"The sound was too loud
to be unheard, and too solemn to pass away unheeded. `Non obtusa
adeogestamus pcctora Poeni.' We in the manse did not mark the day by any
unreasonable merriment. We were alone, and did eat and drink with our
usual innocent and cheerful moderation. I began the year by gathering
all in the house and on the glebe to prayer. Our souls were stirred up
to bless and to praise the Lord: for what more reasonable, what more
delightful duty than to show forth our gratitude and thankfulness to
that great and bountiful God from whom we have our years, and days, and
all our comforts and enjoyments? Our lives have been spared till now;
our state and conditions in life have been blessed; our temporal
concerns have been favoured; the blessing of God has cooperated with our
honest industry; our spiritual advantages have been great and
numberless; we have had the means of grace and the hope: of glory; in a
word, we have had all that was requisite, for the good of our body and
soul; and shall not our souls and all that is within us, all our powers
and faculties, be stirred up to bless and praise His name?
"But to return. This
pleasant duty being gone through, refreshments were brought in, and had
any of your clergy seen the crowd, (say thirty, great and small, besides
the family of the manse,) they would pity the man who, under God, had to
support them all! This little congregation being dismissed, they went to
enjoy themselves. They entertained each other by turns: In the evening,
I gave them one end of the house, where they danced and sang with great
glee and good manners till near day. We enjoyed ourselves in a different
manner in the other end. Had you popped in unnoticed, you would have
seen us all grave, quiet, and studious. You would see your father
reading The Seasons;' your mother, 'Porteus' Lectures;' your sister
Anne, `The Lady of the Lake;' and Archy, ''Tom Thumb!'
"Your wee son was a new
and great treat to you in those bonny days of rational mirth and joy,
but not a whit more so than you were to me at his time of life, nor can
he be more so during the years to come. May the young gentleman long
live to bless and comfort you! May he be to you what you have been and
are to me! I am the last that can honestly recommend to you not to allow
him get too strong a hold of your heart, or rather not to allow yourself
deal too much upon him. This was a peculiar weakness of my own, and of
which I had cause more than once to repent with much grief and sore
affliction. But your mother's creed always was, (and truly she has acted
up to it,) to enjoy and delight in the blessings of the Almighty, while
they were spared to her, with a thankful and grateful heart, and to part
with them when it was the will of the gracious Giver to remove them,
with humble submission and meek resignation."
I will have something
more to say afterwards about this pastor and his work in the parish. |
