Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland Part 15

"'Tis true, 'tis _peaty_, 'tis _peaty_ 'tis, 'tis true."

On all sides in the country you see acre after acre of bog, dripping with moisture and exuding black runnels whenever the spade of the peat-cutter begins to slice its fibrous bulk. Should a wayfarer leave the road by mishap after nightfall, he would soon be plunging in the treacherous mora.s.ses. It is well for him to have a lantern swinging at his girdle when the sun has gone down.

Such are the reflections suggested by a view of the country between Lerwick and the little clachan of Quarff.

QUARFF.

Quarff is the headquarters of a minister who is said to be the only extempore preacher in Shetland, if the word can be appropriately applied to one who, being blind, has to prepare his sermons in "the quick forge and working-house of thought" without the succour of books. This gentleman spent long years in the little islets called _Skerries_, and, like a miniature Augustine or Columba, claims to have been the first to preach the sublime truths of Christianity on these limestone formations.

Though blind, he enjoys his pipe, and I had a smoke with him at the fireside. Between the puffs, he indulged in a furious onslaught on the Lord Chancellor and the Wee Frees. Lord Halsbury he considered a poor, benighted creature, who didn't know the difference between a Trades Union and a body of Christians. "_If he ever comes to Shetland_," said the minister, "_he had better bring his woolsack with him, for I won't let him down soft!_" After Lord Halsbury had been adequately trounced, the talk turned on notable things that had happened in the district within the last decade or two. One of the tales (which was very divertingly told) had to do with the trite subject of intemperance, but as it contains one or two novel touches, I here briefly rehea.r.s.e it.

An elder of the place, who, with his trap, had come to grief one market night on the way back from Lerwick, told his session a strange tale to account for the catastrophe. "When I got to Lerwick in the forenoon, I said to the driver: 'Young man, if I mistake not, you have had no tip from me for a long time.' 'That's very true, sir,' said he. 'Well,' said I, 'there's half-a-crown; go and spend it judiciously.' During the day I transacted business with various friends, omitting none of the usual rites. About five o'clock my driver returned, and harnessed the horse for the return journey. At first I thought he had brought his brother with him, but, on rubbing my eyes, I found it was an optical delusion.

As I watched him narrowly, I saw the outlines of a bottle bulging out from his b.u.t.toned coat, and distinctly heard, as he moved to and fro, the gurgling sound of liquid in agitation. He was smiling in self-approval, and when I reproved him for his slowness, he quoted Habakkuk v. 5, 'Hurry no man's cattle,' adding that his authority was the Revised Version. As we went rattling along the road, his tricks were fantastic in the extreme. At a point about two miles from Lerwick, I saw, a little in front of us, a tall individual enveloped in a long waterproof, of which the collar was turned up to cover his ears. The eyes of this person glowed like live coal as he peremptorily demanded a lift. Not waiting for permission, he, with a sudden spring, vaulted on the trap and squeezed himself between the driver and myself. The air grew hot and close. The driver became ten times friskier than before. I determined to unmask the unceremonious stranger, and, putting down my hand, grasped him by the foot. He had no boots on, and what I seized was a cloven hoof. I asked him there and then if he was Beelzebub. 'I am,'

said he, 'and clever and all as you are, it will take all your talents to slip out of my clutches this night.' At this point there is a blank in my souvenirs. I only remember sparks flying and the sensation of falling down from my seat on to a steep embankment. On recovering consciousness, I found myself lying on a crofter's bed, with aching limbs. I told him the story of my escape, and he said, after hearing it: 'We live in troublous times, John, and the Arch-deceiver seems to be off the chain. Watch and pray, or you may fall further next time.'"

"THAT HOLY MAN, NOAH."

Particular stories are suggested by the place where one first heard them. This profound remark is worked out in detail by Sir William Hamilton and Professor Sully. As I look at the map of the road I traversed that day, I am reminded of certain anecdotes retailed by my genial and reverend guide.

"After leaving college," said he, "I was appointed a.s.sistant to a worthy D.D. who regarded the higher critics as a species of vermin. h.e.l.l with him was not a mere unpleasant state pa.s.sed in _this_ world, but an actual raging bonfire specially prepared for everyone who could not repeat the Shorter Catechism. The parishioners of this worthy man were, in consequence, devoutly orthodox, and had, one and all, a keen nose for bad doctrine. They did not like to be fobbed off with a sermon of the spineless order; they liked bones, blood, and fire--not a mosaic of cheery quotations from Tennyson about the larger hope and about worms not being cloven in vain. They had also a great liking for the patriarchs, especially Noah. By ill luck, I spoke one Sunday on the patriarchs, and handled them pretty roughly. I felt that sacred enthusiasm which every man feels in denouncing the sins of others. I gave the Captain of the Ark a special lick of tar. This sermon caused a mighty commotion in the district. I might as well have a.s.serted that the paraphrases were inspired, or that Sankey's hymns were canonical. I could see that the elders began to look coldly upon me. In barn and byre little groups discussed my preaching, and there was much wagging of the head and shooting out of the lip. A deputation came out of a potato-field to me one day as I was walking along the road, and the leader, an old theological crofter, said bluntly: 'Your sermons are not pleasing us, if you please, sir.' 'Is the doctrine bad?' I asked. 'Not exactly that, but the folk say it's very unseemly.' 'What special sermon do they object to?' 'They think you're not sound on that holy man, Noah.' 'Do they go the length of saying Noah was perfect?' 'They don't just go that length; but, while admitting Noah was human, they desire'

(here the old man raised his head, shut his eyes, and shouted) 'to hear no more from a young inexperienced lad like you, a single word about the patriarch's shortcomings. The man was a patriarch, and therefore a saint. Talk about his virtues as much as you like, but don't fash about his trespa.s.ses, there's a good boy, I speak as your friend.'"

FLADIBISTER.

When my friend had delivered himself of this story, he pointed with his pipe to a little confused collection of low, thatched cottages which we were rapidly approaching on the left, and, oblivious of Noah, went thus musing on: "You are now in the charmed domain of Fladibisteria, of which the core or citadel, as it were, is this village of Fladibister. This is no settlement of Nors.e.m.e.n: no, this is a Celtic nook where second sight and such witchcraft flourished not so many years ago. Did not the minister once rebuke them for their spells and mystic whims by aptly applying to them the words of St. Paul to the Galatians: '_Oh, foolish Fladibisterians, who hath bewitched you?_' There is an atmosphere of tranquillity and Arcadian peace swimming over Fladibister such as is nowhere else to be found in Shetland. The young men of the place roam far over the sea, as mariners and fishers; but like the exiled Jacobite--

'Who sighed at Arno for his lovelier Tees,'

they never feel happy till they are back home here under the roofs of thatch. And what a work their women folks make with them when they return! What feasting and merrymaking! What s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g of fiddle-pegs, nimble motion of elbows and long-sustained dancing and skipping. I don't deny that there is clink of gla.s.ses, too, at times, to aid the pa.s.sage of the hours far past the noon of night."

CUNNINGSBURGH.

Cunningsburgh, the journey to which was shortened by these tales, is one of those places you might pa.s.s through without being aware of it; that is to say, there is no feature about it so startling or abrupt as to impress itself at once on the attention. The district all round is well tilled, and the houses bien and comfortable.

The minister of the place arrests the attention instantly. His genial face and hearty handshake have a more Christianising effect on the soul than a ton of sermons. I have never heard a more kindly voice or seen a face in which tenderness, merriment, and intellectual keenness, were all so harmoniously blended. He does not smoke himself, but has that wise and wide perception of things which leads him to press those who are anxious to smoke, but say they are not, to take out their pipes in his drawing-room. It was easy to see the man he was, by a hasty look at his book-shelves. All the philosophers were represented there, from Plato to the present-day mystical Germans. Lang's _Odyssey_ was side by side with the Icelandic sagas and the Song of the Niebelungs. I did not see many books of Systematic Theology; but the Greek tragedians, the Sacred Books of the East, German and French novels, had all a place in the bookcase of this cosmopolitan clergyman of a remote Shetlandic parish.

"KEEPING OFF."

In secluded townships like Cunningsburgh where life's round has much of the monotony of fashionable society, and involves a still recurring succession of similar duties, the minister is indeed a power. If he is a man of broad and enlightened mind, his influence for good is incalculable. The Kirk-Session is a permanent Court of Justice, taking cognisance of minor matters of morality, and enforcing its decisions by religious sanctions. To be barred from partic.i.p.ating in the communion rites might not seem a very alarming punishment to the easy-going Lowlander; but to a Shetland peasant, being _keepit off_, as it is technically called, is a terrible and humiliating penalty. A crofter came to the manse to complain about his wife's unruly and satirical tongue. "But what can I do to her?" said the minister, "she's your wife, and you must a.s.sert your authority." "I've tried everything," said the man, "but she still continues to be a troubler in Israel." The minister professed his inability to interfere. "I can do nothing at all," he said. "Yes you can," said the crofter, with a wink and a fearful whisper, "_You can keep her off!_"

THE INDIGNANT ELDER.

Since the Reformation the people have lived and thriven under the jurisdiction of the Session. In the records of the Session one finds a chronicle of the sins, eccentricities, and merriments of the people for the last two or three centuries. Several incidents based on these minutes will make what I say abundantly clear. The Quarrel of the Elder and the Minister's Housekeeper, for example, convulsed a still remoter parish in much the same overmastering way as the Dreyfus Trial agitated Paris. Herodotus is the only author I can think of who could have done justice to this northern _affaire_. Let me briefly summarise it. Between the minister's garden and that of one of his elders ran what was termed a hedge. The shrubs which formed the base of this hedge were so ill-grown that the minister's fowls could easily go, clucking and sc.r.a.ping, from one garden into the other. Evidence was given to prove that the cabbages and pot-herbs in the elder's plot were torn and spoiled in parts. Every morning he stood at a gap in the hedge and sang aloud like a skipper in a storm or Achilles at the trench of the Greeks: "I am being ruined and brought to poverty by the minister's hens." This cry grated upon the ears of the manse housekeeper, who by and by thought it her duty to go out and reason with the elder. "It's no' the minister's hens ava that's to blame, it's the craws o' the firmament."

"It's the hens." "No, the craws." "Hens I declare!" "You're a _deceitful impostor_!" said the housekeeper. Now, no self-respecting elder could stand that. Boiling with wrath as he was, he remembered his ecclesiastical status, merely remarking that there was work for the Session at last. By nightfall he had been in every croft within the Session's jurisdiction, laying off his tale in each, and as he got practice and more vehemence with constant repet.i.tion, he attained extreme fluency and impressiveness before the day was done. An unspeakable joy came over the community at the prospect of a delicious scandal. To avoid the breach being healed by an apology, many of the crofters sought to envenom the quarrel by refusing to believe that the elder was altogether right. "Crows," they said, "had been known to play havoc with cabbage. Elders were but human, and so, hasty in laying charges on insufficient evidence. The case was certainly one for the Church courts. The housekeeper must have a good defence to make, and would no doubt make it at the proper time and in the proper place. We must hear both sides." One may see by this that the spirit which animates a great nation (the desire, namely, to divert itself with the contentions of those who come before the public eye), animates also the smallest communities in the realm. The great pa.s.sion-stirring process, _Hens versus Crows_, lasted for some seven months. Over and over again the hedge was examined. Now the elder thought he had the best of it, only to be damped by a revulsion of feeling in favour of the housekeeper. The finding of the Session was adverse to the lady. The fact that she had practically called the elder a son of Belial could not be got over. The minister, holding the scales of justice, was forced, in spite of himself, to declare against her. Considering her position, some mildness was shown in p.r.o.nouncing her condemnation and the penalty.

Having regard to the dignity of the offended man, nothing less than the sentence of _keeping off_ could meet the ends of ecclesiastical law. But one "keeping off" was deemed adequate. The elder was avenged. At the ensuing communion, he was seen to smile and rub his hands diabolically, as he glanced towards the back of the church, where sat, outside the pale of the privileged elect, the unhappy and vanquished housekeeper, who had called him an impostor.

TORQUIL HALCROW.

Torquil Halcrow's case presents features of a different order. For some reason a _fama_ spread abroad respecting him to the effect that his language and demeanour left much to be desired, and that not even the presence, or at least proximity, of women operated to mellow the strength of his vocabulary. Nothing definite was openly formulated against him, but Torquil became aware that in certain quarters his reputation was being slowly undermined. It is precisely this vague kind of aggression on a man's character that is the most difficult to combat.

He took the bull by the horns in a most heroic way. _He got up a public testimonial to himself, and went round canva.s.sing for signatures._ The testimonial ran thus:--"We, the undersigned women of the parish, have pleasure in bearing witness that we have known Torquil Halcrow for twenty years, and never have we known him do an unseemly act or utter an unworthy expression." Thereafter followed a list of forty names.

Furnished with this doc.u.ment, he strode up to the manse, fluttered it in the minister's face with a gesture of triumph, laid it down on the study table, then turned on his heel and walked away. The minister, when he examined the paper minutely, found that Torquil, in the belief that the heading of the testimonial was not sufficiently strong, had added this further clause in his own handwriting: "_but many a precious word of truth and gracious spiritual comfort have we heard proceeding from his lips_."

I have already referred to the beautiful and pathetic saying of Mr.

Barrie that every window-blind is the curtain of a tragedy. I thought of that dictum as the minister of Cunningsburgh pointed to one cot after another in the neighbourhood, and narrated the calamities that had fallen upon them within recent years. Here, an old widow was mourning the loss of a son who had gone to the deep-sea fishing and would never return: his bright young life had been swallowed up in the insatiable ocean, and she was left lamenting in her indigence. There, it was a father who had been engulfed in the roost; or again, the illness of a mother had cast a blight for years upon this other household. Sometimes I have seen two old people, all their sons dead, living a kind of stupefied half-life, automatically moving about, poor and wretchedly clad, unable to understand anything except the welcome heat of the sun and the animal comfort of a little food. There are many sad things in this world: none is more sad than the sight of two old people outliving their progeny and wandering about in decrepit second childhood with no more substance than a dream. The sea is mainly answerable for the great and deep tragedies of the Shetlands: it is like a pitiless monster, howling in anger at their doors and claiming its yearly prey. No native writer has as yet attempted to make vocal for us the immense dumb sorrows of these fisher folks in the way Loti has done for the seafarers of Brittany.

PHILOLOGY.

Jakobsen, the Danish philologist, spent some years recently in collecting the remains of the old Norwegian speech that still linger in the conversation and the place-names of the islanders. Perhaps the most interesting point brought out by Jakobsen is the prevalence in comparatively recent times of lucky words, which the fishermen used when at the deep-sea fishing, and only then. This practice is undoubtedly a relic of pagan ages when the sea-depths were regarded as the dominion of dread water spirits, who keenly watched those who intruded in their realms. The strange feature about this deep-sea speech is that its expressions were purely Norse, whereas the home idiom of the fishers was overwhelmingly English. The pagan beliefs respecting the hostile powers of the sea found expression in old words handed down from a pre-Christian epoch. These old words may have been originally liturgical or worship words, for the sea was an object of veneration and awe to the Nors.e.m.e.n who, in the conquering days, made their home on its angry waters. It was believed that the jealous powers of the ocean were vehemently hostile to Christianity, and hence the Shetland fishers, up till quite recently, carefully avoided any direct mention of _church_ or _minister_ when on the water: the _haaf_ or lucky words being respectively _benihoose_ (prayer-house) and _upstander_. Even the domestic animals had special _haaf_ appellations. This conception of the sea as filled with weird mysterious beings of unspeakable malignity, ever ready to whelm the boat of an unwary intruder, carries the mind back to the old alliterative lay of _Beowulf_, the contest of that hero with the wallowing ocean-monsters, and the grim subterranean glow in the sea-home of Grendel's mother. The Shetlanders have only too much reason to brood over the cruelty of the sea. On July 20, 1881, during a terrific squall, sixty-three breadwinners were engulfed in the thwarting currents of the Sound of Yell.

A SANDWICK GENTLEMAN.

During all the foregoing discussion in the Cunningsburgh manse and garden, our driver had been wondering what subjects of talk could possibly be keeping us from continuing our journey to Sandwick. The two ministers--the original one and the Cunningsburgh man also--at length mounted the trap with me, and we all went joyfully on the final lap. The object of the journey was to visit Mr. Sinclair of Sandwick, a gentleman well worth going fifty miles to see. Mr. Sinclair has many qualities that make a man notorious. He went to Australia in an emigrant ship many years ago, and wrote a book upon it, in which he playfully remarks that he got the full value of his pa.s.sage money, inasmuch as there was a birth, a death, and a suicide, between Plymouth and Melbourne. Another of his distinctions is great dexterity in playing the violin, his favourite pieces being "The Scalloway La.s.ses" and "The Auld Wife ayont the Fire." The t.i.tle of the last-named piece rather staggered me, until I was informed by one of the ministers, who is a scholar and an antiquarian, that it relates to a time when the fire was in the middle of the room and when the smoke escaped by a hole in the roof, or in default of that, by the door. Mr. Sinclair rendered these pieces with infinite gusto, and, like all true artists, got as much pleasure as he gave. He had also the most diverting way of e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.n.g. the word _hooch_ I have ever heard in my journey through life. It gives me pleasure to add that he wrote a poem on fifty whales that were driven from the sea by the local fishermen into Sandwick Bay. These whales were all beautifully cooped in the narrow inlet and stranded on the beach, when lo! the local landowners, citing some old statute, claimed from the fishermen a share of the spoil. Mr. Sinclair, indignant and astute at once, took upon himself the championship of the fishermen, and managed matters so admirably that the lords of the soil were completely worsted in the Edinburgh law-courts. Flushed with such signal success, he put the whole story into metre. A printed and framed copy of the poem hangs in a conspicuous place in his sitting-room. At our special request, he favoured us by singing the impa.s.sioned stanzas. It was a unique treat to hear him do so. There he was in the centre of the room holding the framed verses in his hand, gazing fondly thereat even as a mother regards her child. When the chorus came on, he laid down the poem, and lifted up his voice with glorious enthusiastic force. Inspiration was in his eye, his grey locks became dishevelled, his arms swung rhythmically to the beat of the melody. The entire interview was intense: it was one crowded hour, of which time is unable to cancel the memory.

LOCAL TALES.

The evening was a glorious one, and we _walked_ back some miles of the way. The Cunningsburgh minister was full of stories. He alluded laughingly to one of his flock who, when under the influence of drink, was powerful in prayer. "_When he gets a dram he goes to his knees at once._" The anecdote seemed to me to run counter to the views of the hymnologist who says "Satan trembles when he sees, the weakest saint upon his knees." Another of his stories had reference to two old crofters, both over eighty, who began one evening to talk of the follies of the young fisher-lads when they took to dram-drinking. One of the two remarked: "I wonder now what folly we two old men would commit if we chanced to get intoxicated, say at a funeral." "Well," said the other h.o.a.ry-headed and infirm octogenarian, "I have no idea what you would do, but I am certain of this, that if I ever got the least bit touched, I would go and make love to the la.s.ses at once." Thereupon the two feeble old fellows skirled a wicked laugh, and nearly gasped out their slim residue of life in unseemly merriment.

Both ministers a.s.sured me that the belief in fairies still lingers on among the Shetland peasantry. Up on the hill-side the trow is supposed to wander about, and the little fellow can be seen skipping on the moon-light sward, by all who have eyes and the necessary faith. It is believed that he haunts the road-side even when the moon is not shining: consequently, when the crofters have to go out of doors at night, they protect themselves from his spells by carrying with them a blazing peat gripped with tongs. This smokes and sparkles in the darkness and the trow does not like it. It is easy for the electric-lighted citizens of Glasgow and Edinburgh to laugh at the simple folk-lore of fisher and crofter; but no one, however learned and sceptical, can quite escape from the mystic influence of fairy-lore if he lives through a winter among believing dalesmen. Let him look on the long silvery glimmer of a sea-voe, and hear the natives tell of trows chasing the ebbing Neptune down there on the dim sea-strand in a night of haze, before he says (with Theseus, in the _Midsummer Night's Dream_):

"I never may believe These antick fables, nor those fairy toys."

To the ear and eye of the philological Jakobsen, the Shetlanders both in speech and looks are remarkably like the Norwegians of the Saettersdal.

In that part of Norway the trow is also a very popular terror. Children of a disobedient and obstreperous turn are afraid to venture near a wood at nightfall for fear of a little bogie with a red cap, who may suddenly slide down a pine-tree and s.n.a.t.c.h them off.

FOULAH AND FAIR ISLE.

I do not altogether envy the candidate for parliamentary honours who has to _nurse_ a remote insular const.i.tuency like Orkney and Shetland. I met Mr. Cathcart Wason in Lerwick, and learned that he had been going the round of the islands and had even paid a visit to the isolated and mountainous rock of Foulah. Now this was a very daring feat indeed, for I have heard of a young man who went once to visit his friends there and was kept a prisoner for five months owing to the squalls. The papers complimented Mr. Wason on his intrepidity: he went over from Walls in a smack, and did not make his address too lengthy, for fear the weather might change and Westminster be deprived of his eloquence for a s.p.a.ce.

Mr. Wason is a very tall gentleman, but in Foulah he met his peers in point of stature. The islanders are a fine set of men, hardy and G.o.dly.

They are adroit fowlers and nimble cragsmen. It gives one a queer sensation to hear that the face of their sheer precipices used to be (like level land elsewhere) apportioned equitably among the various families. If A did not wish to catch birds on his aerial lot, he could let it to B and claim a certain percentage of the spoil. The population of the island is about 250: owing probably to intermarriage, there are many childless homes.

I do not know if Mr. Wason has ever been to the Fair Isle, but I understand an Ex-Moderator of the Church of Scotland visited the little community there in 1903. There are two ways of getting to this islet: (1) by means of a sailing boat which leaves Grutness for Fair Isle once a fortnight with the mails; if the weather is bad, this mode of communication is suspended, as in winter no sane man would venture through the roost in such a boat; (2) by taking a pa.s.sage on board the S.S. _Pole Star_, which calls on the first of every month with stores for the lighthouse. She is a strong, swift boat, and makes the journey from Stromness, seventy miles away. I may remark that a lecturer wishing to speak in the Fair Isle need not trouble himself about placards or handbills: the whole population will be on the sh.o.r.e to welcome him when he lands, and he could conveniently intimate his subject then, if he has any breath left in his body. The Fair Isle possesses a church organ and a non-surpliced choir. The islanders have a great appet.i.te for sermons, as the following story, told by Mr. Russell, amply proves. "The minister of Dunrossness went one summer to dispense the communion in the Fair Isle, and a storm came on which detained him there for about eight days.

The weather also prevented the boats from going to the fishing. As the people had no pressing work to do at the time, and as it was only on rare occasions that they enjoyed the presence of the parish minister, they were anxious to avail themselves of his services while he was among them. _Accordingly, at their desire, he preached every day during his stay. In all, he preached thirteen times._ He had taken the precaution of bringing a good stock of sermons with him. Before this was exhausted, the weather providentially improved, so that he was able to get home."[26]

The cherished legends of one's youth get sorely demolished in the course of travel and investigation. The school-books used to say that the Shetlanders were taught to knit by Spanish women saved from the wreck of the Armada. The islanders stoutly deny any indebtedness, and declare that there never was the slightest friendship between their ancestors and the crews of King Philip's galleons.

[26] The prayers of as many righteous men as possible are requested for the inspectors of schools who have to examine and report on the state of education in the Orkneys and Shetlands. I had the pleasure of conversing with one of these hard-worked officials in November, 1906. He spoke very warmly of the improved educational benefit of the libraries that have been sent from Paisley to the isles and skerries. This gentleman inspects the Fair Isle school once every two years. On the occasion of his last visit, he was rowed from Lerwick in a "sixern," and had a most tempestuous time going through the _roost_. Two of his oarsmen sickened, and were helpless. On getting ash.o.r.e at last, he forgot all his sorrows and soaking, when he heard heartsome strains of welcome being played on the _insular pianola_.