|
THE
story of the Starling was suggested to
Dr. Macleod by the following note which he received from the former editor
of the Reformers’ Gazette in Glasgow :—
"Suffer me to give you the
following story which I heard in Perth upwards of forty years ago. A very
rigid clergyman of that city had a very decent shoemaker for an elder, who
had an extreme liking for birds of all kinds, not a few of which he kept
in cages, and they cheered him in his daily work. He taught one of them in
particular (a starling) to whistle some of our finest old Scottish tunes.
It happened on a fine Sunday morning the starling was in fine feather, and
as the minister was passing by he heard the starling singing with great
glee in the cage outside his door,
Ower the water to Charlie!
The worthy minister was so shocked at this on the Sabbath morning that on
Monday he insisted the shoemaker would either wring the bird’s neck, or
demit the office of elder. This was a cruel alternative, but the decent
shoemaker clung to his favourite bird and prospered. If he had murdered
the innocent, would the Sabbath have been sanctified to him ?—Yours
faithfully, PETER MACKENZIE."
From this brief narrative the tale
was written; and as a literary production, it is remarkable as being
without any love-plot. In his journal the author recorded:
"I am writing the
Starling for Good Words,
to illustrate the one-sidedness and consequent
untruth of hard, logical principle
when in conflict with genuine moral feeling, true faith versus
apparent truth of
reasoning." |
