SABBATH IN THE GLEN

Evening Star, Issue 21623, 19 January 1934, Page 11

SABBATH IN THE GLEN

A HIGHLAND PASTORAL The auld kirk lay in a hollow, so that as you walked along the ■white road towards the village the first yon saw was the top of its ivy-covered tower cresting the hill like the green bonnet of a shy old lady peeping over to watch your arrival (writes (Douglas Galbraith in an exchange). Slowly the rest would Come into view—the roof, then' the windows, then the Eorch, and then the gravestones uddled like sheep and stretching down to where the burn grumbled its way to the sea. The houses of this tiny village in the Scottish lowlands clustered round the kirk, and beside its gate stood the blacksmith’s shop, with a confusion of ploughs and harrows cluttering the grass between it and the road. ( There were ancient elm trees round the church. Roots nested there and safe in the holy ground, stirred the air with raucous calls. You would not see many flowers planted in this churchyard, but there were laurels' and rhododendrons, and over some of the graves the red and white bells of the fuchsia swung delicately in the breeze. In the springtime there would come a riotous procession of snowdrops and daffodils and wild hyacinths and hawthorn, so that you caught your breath and your heart beat a little faster when you came through the gate. A great river of gravel flowed evenly from the gates up to the two railed-in enclosures on each side of the weatherbeaten porch. Here the Laird’s forbears were laid to rest; and there were tablets, too, m memory of others of them who had died ‘‘ away out foreign.” On hot summer afternoons the small boys of the village would lie on their stomachs on the grass,, with the bees droning drowsily about their ears, and, wide-eyed, spell out from the tablets the names of captains and colonels and admirals who had died in far-dis-tant lands, and whose memory was kept beside the old kirk that they, too, had known as boys. ‘ Over the porch was the date 1/01. Strange to think that there was mourning in the kirk after Culloden, and that the bell had pealed joyously when the news came of Waterloo. To think that old “ Boney,” whose name had so often frightened the children to sleep, was beaten at last! Later heroes, returned from the battle, would swagger into church, so that the girls could hardly attend to the service for peeping from under their bonnets at the scarlet jackets. Even now if you sat on the seat in the porch in the gloaming ghostly figures would pass in the half-light, with a jingle of spurs or a rustle of crinoline; and maybe there would be a faint perfume of lavender. SUNDAY MORNING. What a stir there used to be on the Sabbath morning! There were stables and a long covered shed between the church and the manse gate, and here all was bustling activity as the folk arrived for the service. Some of the farmers came driving up with, highstepping ponies and smart g(gs. Others would have just the old spring cart and the hairy-legged horse .that

took the milk to the creamery during the week. The farm servants came on foot, some of them having walked five or six miles, maybe with a tired bairn trudging manfully at. their side. If their way lay across the fields you would sometimes see that they came barefoot, and. then put oh their boots and stockings at the stile near the kirk. A few came on bicycles, but bicycle riding was still regarded as a desecration of the Sabbath. The laird drove in an open carriage with a well-matched pair of chestnuts, ; When the farmers had stabled their horses they would pass the time, of = day as they walked slowly over to the kirk. Not any great talk yet. That was to come later, after the service; but there might, perhaps,, be a word about a lame mare or a malediction on those evilsmelling contraptions of motor cars which were beginning to appear .on the roads, to pollute the clean air ' and frighten the horses. The farmers were known not by . their names but by the names of their farms. So you would hear Auchenleck. hailing ; Craigie Mams or Douneside chaffing- Glenpark. , ■ _ The church service was very simple. The precentor led the singing, and the small harmanium—still looked on suspicion by some of the older members wheezed out its accompaniment. As they settled down for the sermon* and manipulated a surreptitious peppermint, the folk would take a canny look round to see who were present. After the sermon, which was usually long, a stranger would watch with wonderment as the black-coated -elders picked up long poles with a box on the end, and strode off down the aisles. Wonder would turn to admiration when the poles were deftly thrust, along each pew, and the box dangled beneath each nose until the copper or silver coin was dropped into it. Only the laird, in his own gallery, did not have his visitation; for the laird always laid a golden sovereign on his Bible. - • ■ Tbe benediction pronounced, the congregation “ skailed ” out into the spring sunshine. Then there were greetings and hand-shakings. The men would talk of sowing and harrowing of cows calving, and ewes lambing! The laird himself, like as not, would stop for a chat and join in the talk of the seasons. Perhaps one of the farmers would give him a report of the young pheasants on a distant moor or the trout in the pools up the river. Even the minister, stopping politely to talk to the women of the choir, would be straining his ears to catch the talk of the farms and the fields. THE “ CRACK.” ’ Nowadays the future world, to many, takes the form of a “spot” with a good dancing floor, a decent band, and a side-room for bridge. To these fanner folk, if they ever thought much about heaven, it probably appeared as a comfortable meeting-place where they might talk to their heart’s content of horses and> calves and the price of oats and superphosphate. God would be a friendly person, like the laird, who would join in the “ crack ” at times in a dignified way, and take an intelligent interest in agriculture. Slowly the groups dispersed toward the stables, and, as the men brought the ponies out, the women would snatch a last bit of gossip about births and marriages, or, maybe, about the shortcomings of their servant lassies. The young men of the parish hovered about the gate, self-conscious in their Sunday best, but holding a strategic position for bucolic flirtationThere is a story of a woman who had great difficulty in keeping a maid. Each one, just as she got into the ways, of the house, would leave her to get married. So tho woman decided to pick the plainest looking girl she could find for her next maid. The Sabbath came and the mistress and her maid were coming out from the church. The usual group of lads was at the gate to inspect the newcomer. As they passed, on© of them, bolder than, the rest, whispered: “ Well mistress, ye have got yourself a nest egg this time.”. Times have changed now. The laird has passed. Taxation has driven his heirs from the castle, and the war profiteer who now owns the estate plays golf or billiards on Sunday mornings. The blacksmith’s shop is a garage,'and where you heard the chattering of, the hammer on the anvil there is to-day the harsh clank of the petrol bowser.