Grandmother and the Priests (10 page)

The terrible ocean was lighted resplendently by the moon, so that the boats appeared to toss in refulgent liquid silver. So intense was the illumination that Robert was forced to close his eyes; it was a nightmare moon that hung in the sky, polished by polar winds, burnished by arctic ice. It faded the stars; it made the whole desolate ocean glitter. Little island after little island came in sight, fell astern and disappeared, and still others lifted themselves blackly, as if made and carved of basalt, and advanced upon the boats, like crawling sea monsters or sluggish turtles, and fell back as did the others.

We’ll never get there; we’ll be lost at sea, thought Robert in despair, and fumbled for his uncle’s rosary. He was now so frightened and undone that he forgot he had a queasy stomach. He listened to the hearty rowing of the men; the boats pushed into the waves, rose upon them, glided down into black and shining trenches, rose again on moon-shining crests.

The MacDougall had been singing alone for some time and now he was singing a doleful love ballad which boomed back from the water. He was happy; his voice broke.

“Or did misfortune’s bitter storms

Around thee blaw, around thee blaw,

Thy bield should be my bosom,

To share it a’, to share it a’!”

Robert turned his swimming head cautiously and thought with some spite that the damsel invited to share that bosom would have yards to choose from, so broad it was, so muscular. In fact, she could set up a cot on it. But there was no doubting, as the MacDougall, continuing to offer his lady-love the might of his arm and his sword and other implements of warfare, sang as a man sings who is in love, and rejoices in it.

He was apparently a man of singular empathy, for he had noticed the terror and the misery of his priest, and the efforts he was making not to disgrace the priesthood, and that he was cold and despairing, for though Douglass beamed encouragingly on Robert he went on singing. Now it was Mary O’Argyle, and Robert could not help thinking that he had an unco fine voice, for all its gigantic echoes.

“ ’Twas your eyes, my gentle Mary — !” sang the MacDougall, and there was actually a tremolo in his throat and his eyes glistened in the moonlight, as if moistened by tears of passion and devotion.

Gentle Mary! thought the priest. In this God-abandoned place of wind and ocean and black islands sliding by in lightless silence? Apparently the crofters went to bed with the sun, and sensible men they are, the priest remarked to himself. Only blankets and quilts could console a man for living in such a spot. The boats went on swiftly over the water.

Just when Robert had finally given up hope, the MacDougall halted his singing in the very midst of describing his lady’s fairness of countenance and pointed to what appeared to Robert to be a huge mass of rock jutting high up from the argent floor of the ocean.

“MacDougall’s isle,” he said, proudly, “and all your souls, Faether.”

“Not — that?” quavered Robert. “It isna but mountain against the moon.”

“MacDougall’s isle,” repeated Douglass, joyously. He lifted his huge hand as if to smite Robert again, in welcome, but halted it in the air as the priest winced back in fright, waiting to be whisked off into the water. The MacDougall coughed apologetically. “It’s me hame, the hame of a’ the MacDougalls, and none can land but he that knows the cove and the way.” He beamed upon the priest. “Not sae long now, Faether. It’s the westlin wind we hae tonight, for a’ the moon, and ye’ll soon be warm by your ain fire in your ain cot, with a good dinner under your ribs.”

Poor Robert shuddered again. “And tomorrow,” said the MacDougall, “I’ll take ye aboot the isle for your folk to see ye and be proud.” He was very good-hearted; he could not see how his folk could possibly be proud of this thin, bony lad who for all his good Scotsman’s craggy profile was too narrow of shoulder.

Simultaneously — and this would have surprised them had they known — both Robert and the MacDougall thought of the poor old Bishop far down south in Edinburgh, and their thoughts were less than kind. They brooded darkly on the Bishop, the MacDougall for sending him such a lad and Robert for being sent to MacDougall’s isle. It’s many the sin I have to expiate, then, thought Robert, and then offered up his real suffering for the sake of the souls in Purgatory, who no doubt would appreciate a breath or two of glacial air, in their present condition. This would freeze the marrow of Satan’s bones, himself, Robert reflected, and wondered if he would ever be warm again.

The boats grated on rough sand, and the isle towered over them, black as midnight, terrible as a fortress, silent as death. Robert made no protest this time when the MacDougall lifted him gently and bodily out of the boat and set down his feet on the slipping sand as carefully as he would have handled a babe. To tell the truth, Robert would have appreciated being carried so easily to his rectory, and would have blessed the MacDougall for his mercy. He started violently, for the pipers had begun again, the torches were relit, the drums thundered. He was going to be piped to his rectory, and for a moment he wished he were dead and quietly buried in some sweet spot under a cypress tree.

There was no carriage to carry him, the MacDougall informed him with that abominable cheerfulness of his. There was not a carriage on the isle, for the streets, half a dozen of them, were too steep for such, and there was no need. A man needed but a horse, and there was a fine horse for the Faether, as gentle as a lamb. “And nae doot it clambers like a goat,” said the weary Robert. The MacDougall thought this a splendid joke and roared, tucked the priest’s arm firmly under his and helped him climb up a rocky little path that was almost vertical and paved by the moon. The pipers and the drummers followed without the least difficulty, but Robert stumbled. He wondered about the Dominican Sisters who had come to welcome him, but stopped wondering when he saw them briskly and forthrightly lifting their skirts high to their boot-tops and climbing as easily as the men, walking just behind the priest and the MacDougall and followed by the music-makers. I will never, vowed Robert vehemently, feel a glow at the sound of drums and bagpipes again, nay, never in this life!

His first sensation when he climbed up the lip of the hill and was on fairly level ground, considering, was that he had arrived in a small world exclusively built of glittering black stone and blazing silver light. Cobbled roadway, small broad houses, walls, buildings of all sorts, were of glistening, sparkling, darkest granite; the slates were dark on the roofs. But the windows shone with lamps in honor of the arriving priest, and shawled men and women raised a shout of welcome to which Robert, still staggering from the boat trip, could not reply except by a lifting of a very tremulous hand. He saw the spire of his church down the street, brilliant with light, and its sturdy small bulk, and he knew his rectory was nigh, for which he heartily thanked God. He stumbled on the cobbles, but the MacDougall held him firmly, and the pipers piped, the torches threw red shadows on the dark houses, and the drums pealed back from mountain and house front. Robert caught a glimpse of more little narrow streets winding off from this one, each window gay with light. He prayed that no one would enter his rectory with him, no one ‘see’ to him, but that they would be merciful and just let him collapse on his bed or even on the floor.

For all his thinness and youth, he was strong and wiry, but the long day’s journey, the intense cold, and, above all, the long boat trip had left him dwindled. His stomach still heaved; the street rocked under him. Then a door was thrown open and red firelight and lamplight streamed out like loving arms to embrace him and he was in his rectory. He looked at the fire, tore his arm from the MacDougall and ran to the fire and stood bowed before it as close as he could get without absolutely charring himself. And this was the month of May, merry May, flowery May, lovely May — the month of the Queen of Heaven!

The pipers kept up their howling outside, and the drums still drummed, but the walls were as thick, almost, as a man’s arm is long from elbow to fingertip, which was a blessing Robert was to appreciate later. Consequently, the pipers’ valiant music was muted within the little parlor, which was most cosily furnished with rocking chairs and tidies and woolen woven rugs in bright colors, and broad tables and a number of good lamps. And a huge fire, above all. The Sisters came in with the MacDougall, who was bellowing something, and a small plump body with white hair came bouncing into the parlor, all gray calico and white apron.

“Mistress MacDougall!” said the MacDougall in his big, virile voice. “A footbath, hot, for the wee lad, at once. He’s fair frozen!”

Mistress MacDougall, elderly and violently rosy, curtseyed to the shivering priest, and bounced back into the tiny kitchen, nodding and beaming. Robert crouched closer to the fire. His stomach had stopped heaving; it was making healthy and plaintive sounds, demanding supper. Robert glanced over his shoulders and shrank at the sight of the formidable Sisters, not one who did not tower almost as tall as himself, and all of whom, if one was to judge from their dour expressions, had even this early a poor opinion of the new priest. The Mother Superior, a lady of giant proportions, and very grim, gazed at him through steel-rimmed half-spectacles and Robert thought: And there’s a one who can make a mince of a man with a glance.

The MacDougall, who never stopped talking, it seemed, and on whom the Sisters bestowed wintry but affectionate smiles, helped the old housekeeper carry in a steaming copper of hot water, then thrust Robert into a chair before the fire. It did no good to protest; off came his boots, his long darned black stockings, and then his trouser legs and underwear were rolled up in a twinkling and his white thin calves exposed to the unmoved gaze of the Sisters. The MacDougall seized those calves in one mighty hand and pushed Robert’s feet into the copper. Now Robert bellowed, long and loud, without restraint. The MacDougall listened approvingly. “It’s a braw voice,” he admitted, and the Sisters, for the first time, looked without grimness at Robert, who was certain the flesh was being melted from his bones in the hot water. Billows of steam rose to his very nostrils, but after an agonized moment or two his cold flesh expanded gratefully.

“Weel, we’ll be leavin’ ye to your good dinner and the fire, laddie,” said the MacDougall, after he was sure Robert was not going to bubble in the copper. “It is Mass tomorrow at half after four, for the men must be at their work, and there is Mass at six for the women and the bairns. A guid night to ye, then, laddie, and a guid sleep. It is late een now, eight on the hour.”

He strode out, followed by the unspeaking Sisters, and the pipers started up once more, and the door banged. “Laddie!” thought Robert, with indignation. And I a priest! He was angry, too, at being called ‘wee’, he who was above six feet, himself, though not a monster like that MacDougall. He suddenly yelled, for Mistress MacDougall was pouring fresh hot water from a kettle into the copper. “Enough, woman!” he screamed.

Mistress MacDougall set up a table at his side. He had not yet heard her voice, but he knew that his countrywomen were as sparing of words as were his countrymen. Except for the MacDougall, he thought with considerable bitterness. If he’s nae talking he’s singing, and God knows which is worse, an unfair thought which Robert regretted at once. It came to him that no one but the MacDougall had said a word to him, though the pipers had shouted loud enough. The Mother Superior had not even given him welcome, though she ought, by rights, to have said a few phrases.

Not a talker, himself, Robert still wished for some human communication. He said to his housekeeper, “Ye be a MacDougall, too, Mistress?”

“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.