Grandmother and the Priests

  “We a’ be MacDougalls, Faether,” she answered in her Highland accent. “Every last man and woman and bairn and wean on the isle.” She spoke proudly, and busily poured thick mutton soup into a white bowl at Robert’s elbow. “But none sae proud and guid and strong as Douglass MacDougall, our laird.” Her voice dropped reverently, and for the first time a faint uneasiness came to Robert which as yet had no name. But he plunged his big pewter spoon into his big bowl of soup, which was giving off unbearably delicious odors, and he took up several enormous hot mouthfuls before he would speak again. His feet were warming in the copper; his right shoulder was just slightly steaming from the fire; his thin cheek was very hot. His whole young body rejoiced in all this lamplit comfort. He finished the soup, and saw Mistress MacDougall’s bright blue eye shining on him with approval. She then brought a platter of cold mutton, mustard, hot boiled cabbage and potatoes, hot scones and wheat cakes, and a bottle of whiskey. She poured Robert a glass of whiskey, neat, and he took it and smelled it and rolled it about in his glass.

  “Best in the world,” said Mistress MacDougall, proudly. “It is his lairdship’s ain, and made on the isle.”

  Now, this was illegal, unless the MacDougall had a license from the Sassenach. Robert, without a doubt, guessed that he had no such license, and that if MacDougall’s isle were little known it was not simply because of its arctic isolation. There was such a thing as discretion.

  “Half after four is an unco early hour for first Mass,” he said.

  “The MacDougall hae decreed it, for our convenience,” said the housekeeper in a reproving voice. Her face was like a round red apple, slightly wrinkled, and the bright blue eyes were suddenly cold. “A guid word to ye, Faether. Dinna cross the MacDougall.”

  Robert bridled as well as he could with a mouthful of lamb in his jaws and a big bite of hot buttered scone. “I will cross the MacDougall,” he said, after several swallows, “on a’ occasions he needs it.”

  The housekeeper folded her hands under her apron. She lifted her eyes, but not to the crucifix standing over the granite stone mantel with iron candlesticks upon it.

  “It weel be the worst for ye, Faether,” she said. “The MacDougall” — and she dropped her voice again in that note Robert had heard before, to his uneasiness — “he willna brook interference. He is the laird.”

  “There is a Laird above him,” said Robert. “And He I serve, and not the MacDougall.”

  Mistress MacDougall crossed herself dutifully, but her eye sparkled. She studied Robert as one would study a weak calf, the young priest thought with resentment. She smiled. Nodded. She brought the teapot, pewter and steaming, and filled an enormous cup with tea and produced brownish sugar and a pitcher of cream so thick it hardly touched the sides of the vessel. And there were cakes full of raisins. Robert forgot his resentment for a moment while sampling these delights.

  “Ye hae a guid appetite, thank God, Faether,” said Mistress MacDougall.

  “I’ll be needing it here,” said Robert, eating a fifth little cake.

  “Weel, your clothes — they are nae so warm,” said the housekeeper. “But the MacDougall will hae a care for that. And the vestments. A prince would want no mair lovely, waiting ye in the vestry.”

  “I hae me own,” said Robert, severely.

  Mistress MacDougall shook her head with indulgence. “Ye’ll wear what the MacDougall, the laird, bought in London Town, and not the puir ones I saw in your bag, Faether.”

  Robert was immediately determined that he would wear his own, come the MacDougall or hell, itself. He was not a Scotsman for nothing. His uneasiness returned, fumbling around in his mind for a name. “Do ye all love the MacDougall as you, Mistress MacDougall?”

  Her face changed to an expression more appropriate for the Communion rail than for a human being.

  “Ah, that we do! He is our laird and our master, Faether!”

  “Why?”

  “Why, Faether? His word is law.” Her voice dropped to servility, and Robert’s Scots scalp prickled. Scotsmen were the proudest of all men; servility never sounded on their tongues, but servility sounded now on the lips of Mistress MacDougall.

  “That is tyranny!” exclaimed Robert, whose countrymen had signed the Declaration of Independence in America, and whose blood ran proud and free through the Carolinas and in the cities of the New World, and all the colonies, and whose ancestors and kin had fought at Bannockburn and with Robert the Bruce and with Bonnie Prince Charlie, and whose heroic sagas resounded around the world.

  “Tyranny, Faether?” Mistress MacDougall was puzzled. “We owe sae much to the MacDougall, and his faether, and his faether before him, and all his faethers. He is the Law — ”

  “And the prophets, too, nae doot,” said Robert, whose black eye was glittering. “We’ll see aboot this! And Scots ye call yeselves!”

  Mistress MacDougall, with a look that did not promise that the young priest would be alive much longer, said nothing more. Silently, with slight gestures, she introduced Robert to his rectory. By this time he had put on his stockings and boots. His bedroom had a small fire, for which he was grateful, for all he was steaming inside and out. His bed was big and billowing with feather mattress and quilts and plump with huge white pillows and blankets. Here the floor was of wood and not of the smooth black granite of his little parlor. The commode held a white pitcher and bowl and a number of coarse white towels, and there was a rocking chair that could have held a giant, and a table on which stood a tall candle as thick about as a man’s wrist, and burning cheerily. He had glanced in the kitchen with its stone walls and big fire, and at the larder full as his Bishop’s larder had never been full. And the westlin wind roared at the little leaded windows and all was snug inside.

  Robert looked at the big tester bed and was suddenly overcome with the desire to get under all those feathers and blankets. He dismissed Mistress MacDougall, who lived next door with her husband and three sons. He galloped, regrettably, through his prayers, pulled off his clothing, and fell into the white bosom of his feather bed and rolled in it luxuriously. For an instant or two he listened to the wind and then sank into one of the soundest sleeps of his life, for once unaware of the great white moon peering in his tiny window.

  Robert woke to absolute darkness, but to the sound of warning bells in the pierced iron-colored belfry of his church. He fumbled for his box of matches, then felt around for the candle and lit it. Four o’clock, on an icy May morning. The fire had long since died. He understood that Mistress MacDougall would not be at the rectory until after six o’clock Mass. He was on his own until then. He had but half an hour to dress and hurry into his church and prepare.

  Reluctantly, for he was still so young, he climbed out of the embrace of his warm bed, and immediately shivered, even under his flannel nightshirt. He touched the water in the pitcher, wincing. He hurried through his shaving and bathing. Then he looked for the clothing he had dropped so hastily last night and wondered, dismally, how he could wear it in this climate. It had been warm enough even for Edinburgh, which was never warm. Then he discovered that while he had slept his underwear had been replaced by garments which appeared to have been woven of oatmeal, and were as thick as blankets. He bridled, then decided that comfort was not proscribed by the Church and that it was expected that priests take reasonable care of themselves as a duty. The undergarments were not soft, but slightly resembled hairshirts. However, Robert was no sooner inside them and buttoning them than they became like swans-down in that chill. His woolen stockings, so lovingly knitted by his mother, had been replaced by black stockings that were so heavy they could have stood alone. He pulled them on, rapidly. His toes were already cold. His habit had been replaced by one more suitable to the climate, and it, too, could have stood on its own. There was also a jumper of black wool and he hastened into it. He frowned. It was a matter of principle, if not a matter of comfort, to decide that he must complain that day to Mistress MacDougall. And to everyone else who would li
sten, for that matter.

  Warmly dressed though he was, he still shivered when he shut the door of the rectory behind him, for the wind was arctic and as sharp as a razor. If I had worn my own, he admitted to himself, I should have had the lung-fever before night. Shapeless bundles of huge men were already wending their silent way along the black, silent streets when Robert let himself into the kirk. The sacristan was already waiting, an old and vigorous man, and two altar boys so warmly clad that they were without form, their faces perched on top of all that clothing like ripe pears on top of small barrels. They greeted him respectfully. The alb, he discovered, was of thick white wool and not linen. He paused at this. Then, as he was shuddering in the sacristy, he pulled on the alb and said his prayers.

  This was the fourth Tuesday after Easter. Robert gazed at the vestments laid out for him by the proud altar boys, and he thought not even the Bishop, his uncle, had ever worn vestments so fine, so beautifully embroidered, so gleamingly silky, so delicate. He was almost afraid to touch them. The tiny room seemed small and comfortingly warm to him as he prayed, and he never gave a thought to the thick underwear he was wearing. While he was being arrayed in splendor he peeped through the door of the sacristy.

  The church was small and everything in it, including even the high altar, was of glistening dark granite. The floor was granite and so were the walls, all smooth as a girl’s hand and all shining in the light of the candles. It might be as cold and austere as death in there, but baskets of frail May flowers stood before each statue, and every statue was Italian of the best quality, and the crucifix over the altar was marvelously large and brilliantly executed, worthy of a cathedral. It was still black with night outside, but the candles shone on the tiny beauty of stained-glass windows, like jewels. Robert could see that the linen was of the finest, too, and richly dowered with lace, and gleamed like snow. The pews were already filling with men, and, of course, the Sisters were there in the first pew, the formidable Sisters with prayerful but also watchful expressions. A man coughed hoarsely.

  Then Robert, from his little distance, saw that the vessels glowed and he thought, with no slight awe, that they must at the very least be silver heavily gold-plated.

  This was a said Mass, on a weekday, and there was no organ note. Robert wondered if he had an organ at all, and then, arrayed at last, he thought of the MacDougall, whom he was beginning to dislike — God forgive him — and he was certain there would be an organ for Solemn High Mass on Sundays and Requiem Masses and Nuptial Masses. A slight trembling overcame the young man — his ain church, his ain people, his ain parish, and he had been flung into it all without the slightest briefing or introduction. Then he firmed his knees and valiantly entered the church to the rough sound of people rising. His eyes blurred, and not at the candlelight. He prayed he would be worthy — ”

  “Alleluia, alleluia. Dextera Domini fecit virtutem, dextera Domini exaltavit me . . .”

  His voice rang sharp and strong against the granite, and he was heartened by it. When after Mass he turned to his people, and he was already thinking of them as such, and gave the final blessing, “May Almighty God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, bless you,” he was almost ready to weep. The old Mother Superior saw his emotion, and while she bowed her head she prayed somewhat somberly for him and hoped that he would be ‘up to it’.

  It was still dark outside when Robert emerged from the church. There were no street lamps, of course, but the men carried lanterns which they had thriftily not lit before when the moon still gave illumination. Now they lighted them, ducked their heads and touched their caps to their priest. He was afraid to meet the Sisters face to face just now, remembering his forced, indecent display of naked legs before them the night before, and he hurried to his rectory. There was the palest dim blue-gray in the eastern sky, and the cold had heightened. There was no one in his rectory, and it was only ten minutes after five. He had almost an hour to wait for the next Mass, and he was already savagely hungry. The hearth was neat in the parlor — Mistress MacDougall had apparently not left before he had gone into his bedroom, and then she had taken his old clothing and set out what had been prepared for him — and Robert gritted his teeth. However, she had laid a fire, and he lit it, watching the wood catch under the peaty coal. He would not have his breakfast until twenty to seven, and that would make nearly three long hours from the time of his rising. Then and there Robert resolved that a change would be made, beginning practically at once: women or no women, their bairns or no bairns, the second Mass would be at half-past five and not a second later. Coming down to it, he reflected, he might even insist that the first Mass must be at five. He thought of his big soft bed longingly; he also thought more longingly of breakfast. He no longer felt emotional, which was sinful of him, he decided without too much contrition.

  The cold dawn began to filter through his tight little windows, and his hungry stomach clamored. He lit a fire in the kitchen; he lit one in his bedroom. He prayed. He paced. It was time to go into the church again, and this time he marched under the wan light, and thought how stony and gloomy this hamlet was, perched on its mountain ledge. He had now some vague idea of the terrain and he felt sympathy for — what was his name? — who had attempted to land his jarls on this island and had failed. He didna know what he had missed, by the Grace of God, thought Robert, piously.

  What he had thought of as a mountain was a large, rough crag, on a shelf of which the hamlet huddled with its meager, narrow and winding streets. The rest of the island, though hardly flat, and though still almost inaccessible, did have mountain meadows and other tillable land and little lakes and ponds and springs. There was a fringe of fishing vessels tied up below, near the cove, and now as the dawn brightened icily Robert could hear the far hailing of the men, virile and powerful against the bitter air. He peered down and saw the monstrous Atlantic, ashen and turbulent, rushing with crests. And nothing else. Apparently this was the farthermost island. The Bishop had been mistaken; the big ships from Glasgow could never land here; they must stand far out at sea and send in their big flat boats for the salt herrings, the slates, the woolens and the tweeds and whatever else this abandoned spot could produce. How did, in all wonder, the MacDougall and his people truly exist in this watery and stony wilderness? Ah, he, Robert, had it! They produced whiskey in their mountain stills, all illegal, and they smuggled it out! The fine appointments in the church were now explained. And possibly, thought Robert, entering the church again, there was more than whiskey smuggled. Firearms from Norway, without the slightest doubt, to be sold quietly to the other islands and to the mainland, itself. What was it he had heard on the train? ‘They’ could never ‘do the MacDougalls in’. Especially not the MacDougall, and Robert darkly reflected that he was enough for one company of men at least.

  The MacDougall, himself, was at the last Mass, among all the awed and respectful women and half-grown children, surrounded by his men. (Did they not work? Or were they his bodyguard?) The MacDougall was piety, itself. He came to the Communion rail and gave Robert a brief and sparkling gray glance, as chill and untamed as the ocean. Robert was slightly unnerved, meeting that glance. It had none of the hearty friendliness of the night before, and when he opened his mouth to receive Communion it was the mouth of a bear.

  He was waiting for Robert when the young priest emerged from the church, and his great men stood near him, the rifles slung on their shoulders. But now the MacDougall was as gay as a youth and as affectionate. The Faether would do him the honor of partaking dinner with him that night, and learn more of his parish, and inspect the horse waiting now in the stables of the laird. Robert wanted to refuse. The MacDougall reached out a huge hand and rested it briefly on the priest’s shoulder. The lads would call for him that evening. As for the rest of the day, the Faether could inspect the schools and consult with the Mother Superior, Mother M. Dominic, who was by the way of being his, the MacDougall’s, second cousin.

  Robert looked at the hand on his shoulder without
moving, and said nothing. The MacDougall became silent. Robert still stared at the hand. The MacDougall removed it and laughed. “The auld Faether was ma ain faether’s cousin,” he said.

  “I am nae cousin to ye, sir,” said Robert. The great bodyguard looked at him in astonishment.

  “Sad, that,” said the MacDougall. His handsome red lips were smiling and without falsity. “We are a’ MacDougalls here.”

  “Inbreeding,” said Robert, coldly.

  “Nae mair than the Irish,” said the MacDougall. He studied Robert. “There’s a wee touch of the Irish in ye, Faether, perhaps?”

  “If ye’ll excuse me,” said Robert, and marched into his house and banged the door after him. He could hear the noise echo back from the great crag that loomed over the hamlet, and he wondered wretchedly if he would ever get used to it. Mistress MacDougall was already bustling in the kitchen and there was a fine odor of oatmeal, baking scones and kippered herring and tea in the air, and Robert, whose cheeks were quite flushed with mingled cold and anger, suddenly was intensely interested. He decided it was ‘beneath’ him to speak of his exchanged clothing. He sat down and ate one of the heartiest, if not the heartiest, breakfasts of his life, and Mistress MacDougall was proud of his appetite. She became garrulous enough to tell him of some of the folk in the hamlet, and the farmers on their rocky acres, and the sheep, but every other sentence fawned on the MacDougall until Robert was sick of it.