LONELY WIVES OF THE HEBRIDES.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLII, Issue 12823, 15 April 1916, Page 3 (Supplement)

LONELY WIVES OF THE HEBRIDES.

A GLIMPSE OF WILDEST SCOTLAND.

In a few minutes the cluster of heather-thatched huts was" : roused. Barefooted bairns chased from door to door, and a stream of women, hastily wrapping on their plaids, issued and joined in little groups which trended slowlv toward tlie tiny harbor. Out on the white-flecked blue a small craft had been descried, . steering skilfully among the skerries which protect the inner loch from the Atlantic storms. "It's the postal boat, 1 ' went the word. "And," added in troubled tones an aged fishwife, "it's no hor day whateffer." On those wild! islands the mail arrives at best once a week m winter, but a series of storms may interrupt its coming for a month. Telegrams are passed out from the mainland post offices without delay, and. in these days of a nation at war the women of the - Hebrides can only fear news brought so swiftly. Their men-folks are either with the fleet or in the ranks, for the war spirit, fostered by Spartan living and dangerous callings, is strong in the Gael. And so with anxious faces the women come down to the landing-place. Out in the ofling the little boat curtseys up the last tongue of brokeu water and leans over as her sail is again loosed to the breeze. In a few minutes* she is running past the little breakwater and curves smoothly into the pool where a few small craft are laid up for the winter. Bare'or foot and head, the kilted bairns are taking great interest, for the coming of-a telegram is a marvel to them. It is a crowd of women and children that races the postmaster as he lets go the tiller and gropes in his wallet- for the. orangeenveloped message. There is no need for words, for questions. Nearly the entire village has assembled. The gulls scream and laugh heartily overhead, but the group is silent, "anxious. --Many a white.face shows stark against the hood of tartan; an ancient crone, half blind, is praying in a soft whisper; and here and' there a hand clutched within the plaid is maybe telling the beads~and praying that the danger brought so near may yet pass hence. For the face of the postmaster is dour and sad. lb is the darkest message of all that he is carrying, and the children feeling the chill presence of woe, shrink back as he. steps over the gunwale of his boat. Every woman there is known to him. Year bv year he has sailed into this loch, has 'brought, joy and pleasure into homes on the rocky slope, and now lie must deliver a heart-thrust to one of these waiters. Not one in the crowd is without concern in .his message, for each and all are interrelated, and the affair of one becomes the affair of all. "Without a word the postmaster hands' his envelope to one. She falters, grips it tighter—"l canna," she whispers, "I canna open it." So the man's brown finger splits the paper, and to her eves alone is shown the message, the svmpathetic official lines which regret, to state that Sergt. No. something, in a Highland regiment, has met his death in action. \ The women of the Hebrides face such news with brave resignation. The. great campaign is but an evil mirage to them, but they are accustomed to the terror, the presage fo death. Every hour, in the wild seas, their men are standing in jeopardy, and alas! widows and wee orphans are too regularly found in our fisher communities. Hardv and strong are these wives and mothers, with nerve wrought painfully to iron bv nights and days of waiting when the "storm has scattered the fishing fleet and'their bread-winners arc thev know not whither. So it may be that the shock of disaster seems less severe —one cannot know and "pray against the hour of peril from gas and shrapnel, from high explosive and rifle fire, but ah! that po.vtmaster sailing calmly outward after delivering his terrible message. Then the tear falls, the heart is torn with anguish, yet the woman of the Isles is a firm believer that all trials are from the Infinite Wisdom, and therefore to be faced without flinching. -More anxious every day become the women of the Isles, for every sun setting over the blue Atlantic brings nearer and more near that inevitable day of reckoning when our Fleet will be called into action on the North Sea, that day of our nation's glory, which will sink away into dark hours of personal loss in many a grey home in the west.

'•Yes," mumbled the old fishwife, as she watched the postmaster's craft slant through the blue waters, "that dav ye'U no' come with one telegram, but with a handful; and there'll he mony a sore heart here for years to come."

Lonely this tiny settlement of fisherfolk, sterile their island home, but in. other places there are isolated dwellings—in the remote glens—to whom the loneliness of war-time must be terrible. Some are situated near enough the roads to come down on mail days to meet the postman, but others are too far away for that. And dreary and stormv is winter in the western isles and wilds, but cheerful in their anxiety are the women. One not understanding the hidden heart might mistake the serenity of face and speech, yet one sees them glance through the snow-squalls, through the drifting seamist, across the clear strait to the snow-capped mountains of the mainland. It- is the terror of new"s, of the swift message which tells of Death, which makes for ever lonely the hearth and the home.