Grandmother and the Priests (38 page)

The next night Father Weir, a tall lean Scotsman, said, “I often think of the tale of Father MacBurne and the Doughty Chieftain, of which he told us last year. He was a despot, if I remember, that chieftain, but a benevolent one. One wonders which is worse. A benevolent despot believes that he is wiser than his people; a cruel despot despises them. Yet, in their effects, they are the same.

“I once knew a cruel despot, and he was, of course, the unhappiest of men, for it is not in the nature of man, unless he is a devil — and there be so many devils! — to oppress his fellows.

“Ian MacVicar was a cruel despot, but he was a man with a soul, and so he was desperately unhappy. He was also proud and disdainful. He had little love in his life. But I must tell you of him.”

“I was a very young and na
ï
ve priest, and shy indeed, when I was sent to my first parish in the Highlands,” said Father Weir. “I hae a bad chest then, and it was thought it would do me good in the country air near the sea. My mother filled my valise with heavy woolens she had knitted and woven, and sent me off with two pairs of thick socks on my feet, and two pullovers on my chest. I was as thin as an eel, but my clothing fattened me. I smelled of camphorated oil, for my mother, God rest her soul, was a believer in it, and so I was sent off drenched in it under a layer of red flannel — also on my chest. I remember my face well, over all that, pinched and flushed, my eyes trembling with shyness.

“I was all atremble, too, at the thought of a parish of my own, with no superior to rescue me. My parish was poor; all Scottish parishes were poor in those days. There were thirty Catholic families in a hamlet of some six hundred others. The others were Scots Presbyterians. Their occupation was sheep, and trading, and fighting for amusement, and drinking, when the puir souls could afford it, for the nights were long and cold and there was not even a Punch and Judy there or a pantomime to bring merriment to the folk. Oh, but there were some braw fights on a Saturday; all things served, particularly religion. But Sunday was a death, spent in the kirk or sleeping or recovering from the raw whiskey festivities of the night before.

“The Scotsman, if a Catholic, does not approach his religion in the spirit of joy and fulfillment as does his Irish brother. He is as dour as his Presbyterian neighbor, and so I knew I was in for it, my father having been a Highlander. When he beats his breast at Mass he does a hearty job of it, not the little tap of the Englishman. It sets him to coughing for the rest of the celebration. The choir groans; it does nae chant. The Highlander, in the Confessional, is scrupulosity itself, to the point of eccentricity. I think few Scots Catholics are in hell; they would bore the devil, himself, with a constant recitation of their sins.”

The hamlet was even worse than the boyish priest had expected in his more depressed moments. It hung almost on the lip of a great cliff, and all the houses were of dull gray stone with thatched or slate roofs, and all the tiny cobbled streets, five of them, circled tightly about each other. To the right of the hamlet the brown and heathery hills rose, gloomy and harsh, and here the sheep grazed. Even in summer, when Father Weir arrived, it was very cold, the sun rarely shone, the sky massed itself over the hamlet in heavy dun blankets. The odor of the sea and the pines never left the harsh and blowing air, and added their own particular somberness to the locality. The prevailing colors were black, gray and brown, not to be lightened by the little flower gardens struggling to survive in that weather. The only center of gaiety was the pub, uninspiringly named ‘The Thistle’. All in all, it was far bleaker than any hamlet in Scotland which Father Weir had ever seen. It was very clean and very, very poor. It was also fierce.

The ‘wee kirk’, named, of course, St. Andrew’s, was so small as to appear toylike, and clean and bleak inside. Even the high altar was bleak, and the crucifix had been cleaned so often that all the gilt had disappeared and only bare wood remained. The statues were tiny, the homespun linens rough if starched within an inch of their coarse lives. The floor was stone, the wooden pews narrow and incredibly uncomfortable, the kneelers unpadded, as was the Communion rail. There was but one stained-glass window. This one, however, was strangely beautiful and expensive. “Squire MacVicar hae done that,” said the priest’s off-and-on housekeeper, a fat middle-aged lady who was co-owner of the local pub with her husband. For a moment the priest was cheered. A parishioner rich enough to present the kirk with a window like that not only had taste but was pious and kind-hearted. The housekeeper ruined his hopes by observing that the Squire was not Catholic.

“Then, why hae he done it, Mrs. Logan?”

The housekeeper shrugged and did not answer. Being Scots, himself, the priest knew that he would receive no more information from this source. He might be able, within a year or two, to discover why the Squire had been so generous and so tolerant, but he doubted it. Three were more likely, picked up from many sources in fragments.

The rectory consisted of one fairly large room which was to serve as parlor and study, a bedroom hardly large enough for a sheep dog to turn about it, and a kitchen with brick walls and a large fireplace on which all the cooking was done. The fireplace was the only source of heat for the whole miniature cottage, and so if he was not to freeze to death promptly the priest would have to permit the kitchen door to be open at all times. This did not make for confidential chats in the parlor, and Father Tom suspected that Mrs. Logan would have her ear cocked all the time. There was nothing a woman loved more than to hear something spicy and juicy, preferably scandalous. The Scots might be reticent about solid information but they were gossips.

The walls of the cottage — that is, the two rooms outside the kitchen — were of grim dark wood, which were not lightened when the young priest hung his large crucifix where a fireplace ought to have been, and his rather bad daguerreotypes of his parents and a very bad and crude lithograph of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The furniture of the parlor consisted of one uncushioned settee (near where the fireplace ought to have been), two straight chairs as still as a frozen Scotsman, and a bare wooden table. There was also a rickety bookcase, with a few moldering books, mostly in Latin. Father Tom put his own collection of books beside these relics, and tried to feel less depressed.

His family was poor, even for Edinburgh folk, but they had at least indulged themselves in some comforts, such as fat feather beds. The young priest discovered that the bed in his rectory was made of planks of wood on which a straw mattress, prickly and thin, had been laid. The blankets felt like haircloth. He immediately sat down and wrote his mother to send his old feather bed and some blankets. He had another thought; he searched for sheets. There weren’t any. So he added sheets to his list. Towels? Three brown articles resembling sackcloth, so he added towels to the list; he hoped his mother would not be too alarmed for her lamb, so he wrote, “It is not a rich hamlet, and I do like plenty of linens and little comforts.” He hoped his mother would include some of her cakes and that his father, who was a thoughtful man and a past Highlander, would send a bottle of whiskey. He would need it on the raw nights.

His reticent parishioners did not call on him the first night, but Mrs. Logan informed him that they had ‘seen to’ the larder in his honor. Brightening, for he had an excellent appetite, the young priest examined the larder. It contained a smallish ham, a joint of mutton, a bag of brownish oat flour, three glasses of marmalade, a sack of potatoes, another of turnips, and a box of slightly wilted brussels sprouts. There was also a goodly sacking of the perpetual oatmeal, a box of very dry and stiff kippers, a dozen eggs and one fresh fowl, a tin of cheap tea, and a big lump of butter. The parishioners, Mrs. Logan informed the priest with pride, would keep him in groceries — with some prodding from herself — and he ‘wouldna starve’. Thankfully, thinking of his stipend, the priest expressed his gratitude. Then he noticed two fat and handsome bottles of the best Highland whiskey. “Ah, that,” said Mrs. Logan, with more pride. It was a gift from Squire MacVicar, who didna touch the stuff himself, he being a teetotaler; he had bought it from the pub at a handsome price.

Squire MacVicar was taking on exciting and delightful qualities. He would, said the young man, call on the Squire almost immediately. Mrs. Logan shook her head. “I wouldna do that, Faether,” she said. “He doesna like priests and Catholics.” Then why? Mrs. Logan shrugged again, tolerantly. Now the Squire was mysterious, and like all Scots the priest loved mysteries.

“He’s a hard man, but a saint,” said Mrs. Logan, with unusual loquacity. A Scots Presbyterian saint was a unique idea, and the priest pondered on it while he ate his plain but plentiful meal of oat cakes, tea, a slice of ham, marmalade and a bit of seed cake which Mrs. Logan had contributed to the general welfare of the priesthood.

Ten people, all very old men and women and too aged to be very curious, came to Vespers that long evening. If they saw their new priest they gave no sign of it. The priest returned to his cottage. It rained coldly and heavily that night. And the rain came in along the eaves and about the ancient windows and left puddles on the flagged floors.

“There’s nae much ye can do aboot it, Faether,” said Mrs. Logan resignedly. “The cottage is very auld.”

“Why havena the men repaired it?” asked Father Tom, forgetting his self-deprecatory shyness in his indignation.

“Aye, Faether, they have. But it’s an auld hoose. It doesna leak, the roof, but only in the westlin wind.”

Father Tom thought of himself in this cottage all through the howling north winters, with the westlin wind. He had no doubt that winter winds blew steadily from the west in this latitude, with a touch of polar ice added. Mrs. Logan, who had a very snug house indeed, herself, informed him that the men ‘hae been sae busy’ with the sheep and the lambing. Father Tom, feeling unusually in command of a situation, because of this fine new indignation he was experiencing, said, “It’s nonsense you say, Mistress Logan. The lambs are all mutton now.” The men had had plenty of time before he came to mend the roof. He knew what had detained them: the cost. He, Father Weir, had A Chest, and he wouldna die for a’ them, because of a pound or two. The warmth in his cheeks and his body did not diminish and he almost strode to the little tool-house behind the church, searching for a ladder. He found it, brought it to the cottage and climbed it and inspected the steep roof. Ah, just as he had thought! Many thick slates were missing, at least fifteen of them, in strategic places. He examined the others; sound. His father built houses from the ground up, and he had taught his son the art of laying slate as well as mortaring brick walls.

He went down the ladder briskly. It was a fine morning, cold, clear and brilliant, with a touch of autumn in the air — and a cold clear wind blowing sharply. There had been twenty people at Mass, most of them old, but he had said a number of Masses when he and one altar boy and the sacristan had been entirely alone. He literally marched into the kitchen and demanded a barrow and asked where the slate dealer had his shop. Mrs. Logan, who had confided only last night that the new priest was “aye young and no bother, and I’ll manage,” was taken aback by Father Tom’s doughtiness, which was really only as thick as the pastry on a tart.

It seemed that the gentleman who sold slates, bricks, stones and mortars had his shop down Bannoch Road, on which the kirk and the rectory stood. “Take the left turning, Faether,” said Mrs. Logan, rather shocked to see the priest trundling a barrow through the streets. Father Tom set out, the barrow making a wonderful rumbling on the cobbles. There were very few people on the street; the men were at work, the women about their houses, the children helping or playing in the small gardens. Yet Father Tom had the peculiar idea that every stiff lace curtain quivered as he passed each house, and he was quite right. The Presbyterians were startled and shook their heads. The Catholics were embarrassed and curious. The bleak and bare little street was filled with the cold sunlight, and there was a nasty wind whisking about. Father Tom was grateful for his mother’s two pullovers under his habit, and even for the red flannel-saturated with camphor — on his chest. It came to him suddenly that despite the rain last night, and the chill today, he hadn’t coughed since his arrival. He was quite preoccupied at this sign of improvement, so preoccupied in fact that the barrow unseeingly crashed into a bicycle on the road and an alarming cry rose.

Father Tom stopped instantly. He had been staring at his white hands, while he trundled, thankful for the new strength in them, and so he had not been watching. A bicycle now lay on its side on the high kerb and a very small young man, in black, was sitting beside it, having been tossed there at the collision. His black hat had been knocked from his head, and he was now brushing it off with his elbow and regarding its state with dismay.

“I’m very — very s-sorry!” exclaimed Father Tom, who frequently stuttered, especially when encountering strangers. “I didna see you — ” He went to the small man’s rescue, and was greeted by one of the sweetest smiles he had ever seen in his life. The stranger appeared to be about his own age, twenty-two, but much smaller, and even much frailer. He had fine reddish hair, large shy blue eyes, a gentle mouth and the big nose of the true Highlander.

“Nay, it wasna your fault, sir,” he said, kindly, as Father Tom agitatedly swept him off with his handkerchief. “I take it ye are the new priest?”

“Weel, yes,” said Father Tom, blushing. The other young man was blushing, also. “Could ye be one o’ my parishioners?” asked Father Tom.

The other young man blushed even brighter, and, exactly like Father Tom, he stammered. “Nay, nay — it is to say — it is — I am the minister!” he said on a fast burst, as if about to choke.

They stared at each other in their intense shyness, their faces deeply red. Then they laughed, at first faintly, then with relief at recognizing a brother. They shook hands timidly. “Bruce Gregor,” said the minister. “
Not
Mac
Gregor!” He paused, and the youthful pink face became very firm. “Not the Clan o’ MacGregor!”

His vehemence startled Father Tom. “Oh?” he murmured. “Not — not the Clan o’ MacGregor.”

“Not!” said the minister, folding his short thin arms firmly over his chest and casting a defiant look up into the priest’s higher face.

“I — I see,” said Father Tom, dubiously.

The minister’s arms unfolded, his face became crimson, his mouth trembled, and he shook a finger at the young priest. “I’d nae be a MacGregor to save me soul!” he said, and did not stammer now. His blue eyes flashed with passion, then seemed to become moist and all the sudden fire went out of him.

“The Clan o’ MacGregor — it — it is a Catholic clan,” said Father Tom, shrinking a little as he thought he had been insulted.

The minister started, then the moisture increased in his eyes. He stammered painfully, “It isna — it — it isna that, laddie! No, not that. It’s ma father-in-law. A MacGregor.”

Father Tom was so surprised his mouth fell open. He had thought the minister to be fresh from a Seminary, and less than twenty. Yet, he was married.

“Your father-in-law — he is Catholic, Mr. Gregor?”

“Not that. I fear he hasna God. He willna come to the kirk at a’, since I married my Betsy.” He stopped, in miserable confusion.

“Dear me,” said Father Tom, aching with sympathy.

The minister tried to smile. He blew his nose on an immaculate handkerchief which was just as darned as the young priest’s own handkerchiefs.

“I wouldna care if it wasna for Betsy, his one lass,” said the minister. “It is the sore heart she has, and she but seventeen.” He colored brightly again and looked aside. “And with a wee wean coming, too.”

“Dear me,” repeated Father Tom.

“Oh, but I’ll not be keeping you, sir,” said the small minister, ashamed of his brief passion. He looked at the barrow.

“Slates,” said Father Tom. “The hoose leaks.”

Mr. Gregor sadly shook his head. “As ours,” he said. “Pots and pans in the bedroom.” He thought he had said something slightly indecent to this celibate brother, and his blush came readily again.

“And there’s nae a one to mend yours?” said Father Tom, who had had a vague impression that most ministers were ‘comfortable’.