Little Rivers [25]
later, and to them my father pledged himself for the evening sermon.
The senior elder of the Established Kirk, a snuff-taking man and
very deliberate, was the last to appear, and to his request for an
afternoon sermon there was nothing left to offer but the services
of the young probationer in theology. I could see that it struck
him as a perilous adventure. Questions about "the fundamentals"
glinted in his watery eye. He crossed and uncrossed his legs with
solemnity, and blew his nose so frequently in a huge red silk
handkerchief that it seemed like a signal of danger. At last he
unburdened himself of his hesitations.
"Ah'm not saying that the young man will not be orthodox--ahem!
But ye know, sir, in the Kirk, we are not using hymns, but just the
pure Psawms of Daffit, in the meetrical fairsion. And ye know,
sir, they are ferry tifficult in the reating, whatefer, for a young
man, and one that iss a stranger. And if his father will just be
coming with him in the pulpit, to see that nothing iss said amiss,
that will be ferry comforting to the congregation."
So the dear governor swallowed his laughter gravely and went surety
for his son. They appeared together in the church, a barnlike
edifice, with great galleries half-way between the floor and the
roof. Still higher up, the pulpit stuck like a swallow's nest
against the wall. The two ministers climbed the precipitous stair
and found themselves in a box so narrow that one must stand
perforce, while the other sat upon the only seat. In this "ride
and tie" fashion they went through the service. When it was time
to preach, the young man dropped the doctrines as discreetly as
possible upon the upturned countenances beneath him. I have
forgotten now what it was all about, but there was a quotation from
the Song of Solomon, ending with "Sweet is thy voice, and thy
countenance is comely." And when it came to that, the
probationer's eyes (if the truth must be told) went searching
through that sea of faces for one that should be familiar to his
heart, and to which he might make a personal application of the
Scripture passage--even the face of Sheila.
There are rivers in the Lewis, at least two of them, and on one of
these we had the offer of a rod for a day's fishing. Accordingly
we cast lots, and the lot fell upon the youngest, and I went forth
with a tall, red-legged gillie, to try for my first salmon. The
Whitewater came singing down out of the moorland into a rocky
valley, and there was a merry curl of air on the pools, and the
silver fish were leaping from the stream. The gillie handled the
big rod as if it had been a fairy's wand, but to me it was like a
giant's spear. It was a very different affair from fishing with
five ounces of split bamboo on a Long Island trout-pond. The
monstrous fly, like an awkward bird, went fluttering everywhere but
in the right direction. It was the mercy of Providence that
preserved the gillie's life. But he was very patient and
forbearing, leading me on from one pool to another, as I spoiled
the water and snatched the hook out of the mouth of rising fish,
until at last we found a salmon that knew even less about the
niceties of salmon-fishing than I did. He seized the fly firmly,
before I could pull it away, and then, in a moment, I found myself
attached to a creature with the strength of a whale and the agility
of a flying-fish. He led me rushing up and down the bank like a
madman. He played on the surface like a whirlwind, and sulked at
the bottom like a stone. He meditated, with ominous delay, in the
middle of the deepest pool, and then, darting across the river,
flung himself clean out of water and landed far up on the green
turf of the opposite shore. My heart melted like a snowflake in
the sea, and I thought that I had lost him forever. But he rolled
quietly back into the water with the hook still set in his nose. A