<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</h2>
<div class="blockquot">
<p><span class="firstword">Superstition</span> in Scotland. Holy wells. Belief in the Devil.
Growth of the rigid observance of the Sabbath. Efforts of
kirk-sessions and presbyteries to enforce Jewish strictness
in regard to the Sabbath. Illustrations of the effects of
these efforts.</p>
</div>
<p class="in0"><span class="firstword">Although</span> ever since the Reformation the
clergy have done their best to eradicate the
pagan superstitions, which were alluded to in
a previous chapter, traces of these superstitions
have survived down to the present day in the
Highlands. Even so late as the beginning of
last century, people in the Lewis continued to
make offerings of mead, ale, or gruel, to the
God of the Sea. A man at midnight between
Wednesday and Thursday walked waist-deep
into the sea, poured out the offering and chanted
the following prayer:</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">108</span></p>
<div class="poetry-container pw20">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">O god of the sea</div>
<div class="verse indent0">Put weed in the drawing-wave</div>
<div class="verse indent0">To enrich the ground</div>
<div class="verse indent0">To shower on us food.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>Those behind the offerer took up the chant and
wafted it along the midnight air.<SPAN name="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">10</SPAN></p>
<p>An interesting account of the surviving
Highland superstitions will be found in two
recently published volumes by the late Rev.
John Gregorson Campbell, parish minister in
the island of Tiree, who devoted himself with
unwearied enthusiasm to collect the fading
customs and traditions of the Hebrides and
the Western Highlands.<SPAN name="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">11</SPAN> In my early wanderings
over Skye I came upon many relics
of the pagan period. At Kilbride, for example,
one is reminded of a pre-Protestant
or even a pre-Christian past by the tall rude
standing stone known as the Clach na h-Annait,
or stone of Annat, a name which, by
some Gaelic scholars, is thought to be that of
a pagan goddess, though by others it is regarded
as a term of the early Celtic Church,
applied to a chapel where the patron-saint
was educated, or where his relics were kept.
Near the obelisk is the Tobar na h-Annait,
or Annat’s well.</p>
<div class="sidenote">FAIRIES IN SKYE</div>
<p>The fairies once formed an active and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">109</span>
important community among the population
of Strath. One of their chief abodes was
underneath a large green mound in the
middle of the valley, called after them Sithein
(Sheean). Such fairy dwellings were looked
upon with veneration; and it was a popular
belief that the ‘people of peace’ who lived in
them liked to have them kept scrupulously
clean. Hence to remove the droppings of
any horses or cattle that had strayed upon
the rich green sward was believed to be a
grateful deed to these beings, who would
manifest their thankfulness by some significant
reward to the thoughtful cotter who took the
pains to do it. With the acknowledged example
of the fairies before them, I never could
quite understand how the West Highlanders
could themselves live in such conditions of dirt
and untidiness as have been so long prevalent
among them.</p>
<p>The top of the Sithein of Strath is crowned
with a few gnarled, stunted, storm-blasted
black-thorns, like a group of shrivelled carlines
stretching out their arms towards the east.
These trees, or rather bushes, have undergone
no appreciable change since I first saw them
half a century ago, and I was told by the
minister that they had not altered at all in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">110</span>
his time, so that they must have stood, much
as they are now, for more than a hundred
years. If one first comes upon these weird
forms in the mist of a stormy evening, when
they seem to remain motionless, though the
wind howls down the valley of Strath Suardil,
one can easily realise how they might be connected
in popular belief with the mysterious
beings of another world. The fairy cattle,
or red deer, live up in the corries of the Red
Hills. On the top of one of these eminences
a carline lies buried under a cairn and the
hill is named after her, Beinn na Cailleach.</p>
<p>Near the house of Kilbride, a spring or
well has been said, for more than two hundred
years, to contain a single live trout. It is
mentioned by Martin in his <cite>Description of
the Western Islands of Scotland</cite>, written at
the end of the seventeenth century, where he
states that the fish had been seen for many
years, and the natives, though they often caught
it in their wooden pails, were careful to preserve
it from being destroyed. The minister assured
me that there was still a trout in the well,
whether the same as that spoken of by Martin,
he could not affirm. I must confess that I
was never able to catch a sight of this
legendary fish.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">111</span></p>
<div class="sidenote">HOLY WELLS IN THE HIGHLANDS</div>
<p>As in Ireland, springs or wells in the
Highlands, not improbably famous even in
pagan times, have often been subsequently
dedicated to Celtic saints, and have long been
credited with medicinal or miraculous healing
powers. There used to be a number of such
wells in Skye, which were visited by the sick
and the maimed, who went round them three
times <i xml:lang="gd" lang="gd">deiseal</i>, that is, with the sun, or from
east to west, and drank of the water or bathed
the injured limb with it. On retiring they
always left by the side of the spring, or on its
overhanging tree, some little offering, were it
only a torn bit of rag. On the mainland some
of the holy wells, or saints’ wells, are still
objects of pilgrimage from a distance. Thus
the well of St. Maree, or the Red Priest, on
a little islet in Loch Maree, still attracts its
patients, and the trees that overshadow it are
hung with tags of rag and ribbon which they
have placed there as votive offerings. This
tribute of recognition doubtless dates back to
pagan times. It was adopted by the Celtic
and then by the Roman Catholic Church, and
in spite of the denunciations of the reformers
and their successors, it is rendered still by
presbyterians, who give it from the mere force
of custom. Some years ago, while boating<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">112</span>
along the coast south of the Sutors of
Cromarty, I was struck with the strange
appearance of a tree that overhung the upper
part of the beach. From a distance it seemed
to be decked with blossoms or leaves of black,
white, red, and other colours. On landing I
found that these were bits of rag hung up
by the pilgrims who had come to drink of
the saint’s well that gushed forth under the
shadow of the tree. In the same region
the well of Craiguck, parish of Avoch, has
long been a place of annual resort on the
first Sunday of May, old style. The water
used to be taken in a cup and spilt three
times on the ground before being tasted, and
thereafter a rag or ribbon was hung on the
bramble-bush above the spring.</p>
<p>In connection with this subject, it may
be mentioned here that some years before
his death, the late Mr. Patrick Dudgeon, of
Cargen in Kirkcudbright, told me that he had
cleared out one of these holy or pilgrim wells
on his property, which had fallen into disuse,
though still occasionally visited for curative
purposes. Among the stuff which had gathered
on the bottom of the pool, a large number of
copper coins was found, extending in date from
the reign of Victoria back to the times of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">113</span>
Stuarts. The surfaces of the coins had in
many cases been dissolved to such an extent
as to reduce the metal to little more than the
thinness of writing paper. Yet so persistent
was the internal structure superinduced by
the act of minting that, even in this attenuated
condition, the obverse and reverse could still
be deciphered.</p>
<div class="sidenote">HIGHLAND SUPERSTITIONS</div>
<p>Another superstitious belief of which I found
lingering traces in Skye was that of the water-horse
(<i xml:lang="gd" lang="gd">Each Uisge</i>) and the water-bull (<i xml:lang="gd" lang="gd">Tarbh
Uisge</i>). These fabulous creatures were believed
to inhabit some of the lakes in the
lonely moorland of the south of Strath. I
could not find anybody who had actually seen
one, but the belief in their existence was by
no means confined to ‘the superstitious, idle-headed
eld.’ I was told that the water-horse
had a special fondness for young women, and
would seize them and carry them off into the
lake, whence they were never more seen.
No young woman in the parish would venture
near one of these sheets of water, except in
daylight, and not without fear and trembling
even then.</p>
<p>Relics of old superstitions could be noticed,
sometimes even among the details of domestic
management in the houses of intelligent people.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">114</span>
At Kilbride they would not make butter at
a certain state of the moon. In like manner
they took care that the peats should only be
cut when the moon was on the wane. Though
the reason alleged was that the moon must
influence the milk, just as much as it did the
tides, there could be little doubt that the habit
was a relic of the same pagan belief which
survives in bowing to the new moon and
turning a coin in her honour. The prejudice
against the sow as an unclean animal survived
in full vigour. Not only were no pigs kept
at Kilbride, but, so far as I was aware, no
ham, pork, or bacon ever formed part of the
commissariat of the house.</p>
<p>While the reformed clergy endeavoured to
uproot the ancient superstitions, they at the
same time were engaged in rivetting upon the
people other forms of superstition destined to
exercise much more pernicious effects than
those they replaced. One of these was their
doctrine of the Devil and his doings, and
another the enforcement of the views which
they gradually adopted as to Sabbath observance.</p>
<div class="sidenote">THE SCOTTISH DEIL</div>
<p>Much has been written on the subject of the
Devil and his influence in religion, mythology,
superstition, and literature, as well as on topographical<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">115</span>
features. The subject is discussed
from a historical point of view in the learned
volumes of Professor Roskoff of Vienna; but
there is probably still room for a dissertation
on the part which the Devil has played in
colouring the national imagination of Scotland.
As is well known, all over the country instances
may be found where remarkable natural
features are assigned to his handiwork. Thus
we have ‘Devil’s punchbowls’ among the hills
and ‘Devil’s cauldrons’ in the river-channels.
Perched boulders are known as ‘Deil’s putting
stanes,’ and natural heaps and hummocks of
sand or gravel have been regarded as ‘Deil’s
spadefuls.’ Even among the smaller objects
of nature a connection with the enemy of mankind
has suggested itself to the popular mind.
The common puff-ball is known as the ‘Deil’s
snuff-box’; some of the broad-leaved water-plants
have been named ‘Deil’s spoons’;
the dragonfly is the ‘Deil’s darning-needle.’
Then the unlucky number thirteen has been
stigmatised as the ‘Deil’s dozen,’ and a perverse
unmanageable person as a ‘Deil’s
buckie.’</p>
<p>In association with witches and warlocks
Satan plays a leading part in the legends,
myths, and superstitions of the country. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">116</span>
general popular estimation of him in Scotland
has never been so admirably expressed in words
as by Burns, more particularly in his <cite>Address
to the Deil</cite>. But even in his day ocular proofs
of the evil spirit’s presence and activity were
becoming scanty, and the poet had to rely
partly on the testimony of his ‘rev’rend
grannie.’ In the interval since that poem was
written, now nearly a century and a quarter ago,
the belief in a personal devil, ready to present
himself as a hairy monster with a tail, cloven
feet, and horns—‘Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or
Clootie’—has still further faded. The late
Dr. Sloan of Ayr, however, told me that in
the year 1835, after he came out from making
the post-mortem examination of a poor miner
who was taken out alive from a coal-pit near the
village of Dailly, after having been shut up for
three weeks without food, but who died three
days after his rescue, he was accosted by some
of the older miners with the question, ‘Did ye
fin’ his feet?’ The doctor had to confess that
he had not specially looked at the man’s feet,
whereat the miners went off with a knowing
expression on their faces, as much as to say,
‘We thought you had not, for if you had, you
would have found them to be cloven hoofs.
We believe that the body was not that of our<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">117</span>
John Brown, but the Devil himself, who had
come for some bad purpose of his own.’</p>
<div class="sidenote">BELIEF IN THE DEIL</div>
<p>Although even the most superstitious cotter
in the loneliest uplands of the country would
hardly expect it to be possible now that the
Devil should waylay him at night, relics of this
belief may be found in the language of to-day,
especially in the imprecations prompted by
anger or revenge. Various versions have been
given of an illustrative incident which I have
been told really occurred at a slim wooden
foot-bridge over the river Irvine in Ayrshire.
An ill-tempered man was crossing the bridge,
when a dog, coming the opposite way, brushed
against his leg. ‘Deil burst ye,’ exclaimed he.
Immediately behind him came a woman, and
as they were nearly across the bridge a small
boy, trying to press past the man on the narrow
pathway, was greeted with the same angry imprecation.
The little fellow drew back, but
was encouraged by the voice of the woman
behind, who called out to him, ‘Never fear, my
wee man, come on here outowre. The Deil
canna harm ye eenoo, for he’s thrang on the
ither side o’ the brig burstin’ a dog.’</p>
<p>Occasionally the apparition of a dark hairy
body crowned with a pair of horns has received
a natural explanation, but not before revealing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">118</span>
the innate belief in the designs and power of
the Prince of Darkness. There used to be a
goat in Greenock which occasionally escaped
from its enclosure, and prowled about the
streets in the dark. On one of these occasions,
in the midst of its perambulations, it came to
an outside stair, which it thereupon ascended.
At the top of the short flight of steps stood
the closed door of a room wherein an elderly
couple were asleep in bed. Nannie, being of
an inquisitive turn, and having some experience
of gate-fastenings, easily succeeded in opening
the door and entering the room. The fire still
gave a low ruddy light, and the goat at once
descried a tin pitcher, at the bottom of which
there remained some milk over from the frugal
supper of the little household. The animal
had forced its nose so well down in order to
lap the last drops, that when it raised its head
it brought up the pitcher firmly clasped round
it, and the handle fell with a thump against
the metal. The crash awoke the old woman,
who in the dim light could see a pair of horns
and a hairy body. Thinking it was the arch
enemy that had come for her, she called out
imploringly, ‘O tak’ John, tak’ John; I’m no
ready yet.’</p>
<div class="sidenote">HISTORY OF SABBATH OBSERVANCE</div>
<p>The adjective ‘devilish’ has in recent times<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">119</span>
come to be used by many in the humbler walks
of life as almost synonymous with wonderful,
extraordinary, supernatural; as may be illustrated
by the ejaculation of a Paisley workman,
who with a companion ascended to the top of
Goatfell in Arran. He had never conceived
anything so impressive as the panorama seen
from that summit, with its foreground of serrated
crests and deep glens. After the first
silence of amazement, he exclaimed to his friend,
‘Man, Tam, the works o’ God’s deevilish.’</p>
<p>It is an interesting study to trace among
the records of kirk-sessions and presbyteries
the gradual growth of strict Sabbath observance
until it became a kind of fetish. The
first reformers enjoyed their relaxation on
Sunday, and for many years after the old
system had been displaced by the new, the
youth of the country continued to play their
pastimes after church hours. Markets were still
held on Sunday, and in many places plays
were performed, especially that of <cite>Robin Hood</cite>.
But after the establishment of the reformed
religion in 1560 these amusements and employments
came to be frowned upon more and
more by the clergy, who by persistent efforts
succeeded in securing a succession of Acts
of Parliament which made Sabbath-breaking<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">120</span>
an offence punishable by a civil magistrate.
Delinquents were everywhere brought up
before kirk-sessions and subjected to church
discipline, while, if they proved impenitent
sinners, they might be handed over to the civil
power for more condign treatment. Nevertheless,
in spite of the stringency of these
regulations, the ecclesiastical authorities had to
undertake a long struggle before they finally
uprooted the effects of the usage of many
centuries, and succeeded in impressing on the
mind of the general community the belief that
what they called ‘violating the Sabbath-day’
was an act of moral turpitude that could only
be expiated by exemplary punishment and
public confession of penitence. Under the
head of this violation were included some of
the most natural and innocent habits. Men
were warned that not only must they refrain
from all ordinary week-day work, but that they
must not take a walk on Sunday, either in
town or country, save to and from church.
They must not sit at their doors, but remain
within. They were expected to maintain a
solemn demeanour; laughing, whistling, or any
other sign of gaiety or frivolity being rigidly
proscribed. They might not bathe, or swim,
or shave. They were forbidden to visit<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">121</span>
each other, to water their gardens, to ride on
horseback, or to travel in any other fashion.
They must attend each church service; if they
failed to appear, they were searched out by
church officers deputed for the purpose, and
were subject to ecclesiastical censure. In
short, the first day of the week was one
on which all mirth was expelled from the
face and all joy from the heart, and when
a funereal gloom settled down upon everybody.</p>
<div class="sidenote">SABBATH-BREAKING AS A CRIME</div>
<p>Sabbath-breaking, as defined by this inquisitorial
code of observance, was exalted
into a crime more heinous even than theft.
Thus, an entry in the Register of the Presbytery
of Dingwall, of date 30th July, 1650,
records that the case of Alexander M‘Gorrie
and his wife, within the parish of Kilmorack,
had been referred to the Presbytery for censure,
the charge being ‘profanation of the
Sabbath by stealling imediatelie efter the
receaueing of the sacrament.’</p>
<p>The diligence with which the ecclesiastical
authorities pursued their quest after Sabbath-breakers
is well illustrated by the Register
of the Kirk-Session of St. Andrews. During
the latter half of the sixteenth century infinite
trouble appears to have been taken to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">122</span>
establish what the Session was pleased to
term ‘the cumlye ordour of this citie.’ The
fleshers (butchers) proved especially incorrigible.
Though they had been often cited and
admonished, they had ‘nocht obeyit the sam,
bot contemptuusly refusit to obey.’ At last
these recalcitrant parishioners were made the
subject of a stringent decree whereby, if they
did not thereafter keep holy the Sabbath day,
they, their wives, children, and servants would
be debarred from all benefit of the Kirk, and
might further be excommunicated. Nevertheless,
even the vision of these dire pains and
penalties did not prevent an occasional transgression.
Some years later one of the fleshers
was summoned for putting out skins upon
the causeway on Sunday—a practice which
had formerly been general in his craft. He
admitted the accusation, but stated that the
fault had been committed, without his knowledge,
by his servant. He was required to
dismiss that servant, and to undertake that
none of his servants in future should do the
same, otherwise he would have to pay the
penalty himself. There is an interesting entry
in the Register, showing how far back the
attractions of golf can be seen to have led
men to neglect their duties. On the 19th<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">123</span>
December, 1599, it is recorded that the
brethren ‘understanding perfytlie that divers
personis of thair number the tyme of sessioun
passis to the fieldis, to the goufe and uthir
exercise, and hes no regard for keiping of
the sessioun, for remeid quhairof it is ordinit
that quhatsumevir person or personis of the
session that heireftir beis fund playand, or
passis to play at the goufe or uthir pastymes
the tyme of sessioun, sall pay ten s. for the first
fault, for the secund fault xxs., for the third
fault public repentance, and the fourt fault
deprivation fra their offices.’</p>
<div class="sidenote">GROWTH OF SABBATARIANISM</div>
<p>It is curious to note that rigid enforcement
of Sabbath observance was not effected on
the north side of the Highlands for somewhere
about a century and a half after it had been
secured in the Lowlands on the south side.
The proximity of the wilder Celtic population,
on the one hand, and the existence of a considerable
leaven of Episcopalian Protestantism
in the community, on the other, probably had
a large share in retarding the progress of the
movement. The northern clergy themselves
were not averse to sharing in the innocent
amusements of their people. Marriages and
funerals continued to be performed on Sunday,
and to be accompanied, even in the case of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">124</span>
the lyke-wakes, with festivities that sometimes
reached a scandalous excess. Against these
customs, which had come down from Catholic
times, the kirk-sessions and presbyteries waged
incessant war, but probably not until the
extinction of the rebellion of 1745 and the
abolition of the heritable jurisdictions, with
the consequent freer commingling of the north
with the south of Scotland, did the Sabbatarian
spirit which had become rampant in the Lowlands
reach the intensity with which it has
maintained its sway in the north for the last
three or four generations.</p>
<p>It has been suggested that this increasing
strictness of observance arose from the desire
of the clergy to obtain a greater hold on the
minds and consciences of the people. According
to this view they are believed to have
found that the restoration of the Jewish
Sabbath, with its prohibitions and injunctions,
would serve their purpose, and ‘being precluded
by various circumstances of their
situation from having recourse to the expedients
of the Catholic priests to gain
possession of the minds of the votaries, they
have exerted all their power by its means to
attain this object.’ It has been further asserted
that ‘these are the reasons why we hear<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">125</span>
more of the heinous crime of Sabbath-breaking
than of all other vices together.’<SPAN name="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">12</SPAN></p>
<p>Obviously it was not in human nature to
keep always within the strict letter of such
an artificial code of conduct. Joyousness of
heart, so long as it was unquenched, could
not be restrained from smiles and laughter,
or from showing itself in song. The temptation
to the young and happy to escape from
imprisonment within the four walls of a house
into the country, amongst birds and flowers
and trees, must have been often wholly irresistible.
Lapses from the strict rules of
conduct laid down for observance were inevitable;
and since, as Butler observed nearly
two centuries and a half ago,</p>
<div class="poetry-container pw25">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent12">In Gospel-walking times</div>
<div class="verse indent0">The slightest sins are greatest crimes,</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="in0">such lapses, when repeated, tended to harden
the mind in transgression. Sabbath-breaking
being held up as so heinous a sin, the transition
came to be imperceptibly made to the breaking
of the moral laws, which according to the
current dogmatic teaching did not seem to
be more imperatively binding. ‘Hence it
is,’ as has been pointed out, ‘we continually
find culprits at the gallows charging the sin<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">126</span>
of Sabbath-breaking, as they call it, with the
origin of their abandoned course of life; and
there can be no doubt that they are correct
in so doing.’<SPAN name="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">13</SPAN></p>
<p>This excessive zeal for a strict observance
of Sunday has been regarded as a special
characteristic of Calvinistic communities. But
it does not seem to have reached anywhere
else the height of intolerance which it maintained,
and to a great extent still maintains,
in Scotland. Doubtless the prevalent Sabbatarianism
was in Sidney Smith’s mind when
he called Scotland ‘that garret of the earth—that
knuckle-end of England—that land of
Calvin, oat-cakes, and sulphur.’ And it may
have been Byron’s recollections of sanctimonious
Sundays in Scotland, as well as in
England, that inspired his exclamation:</p>
<div class="poetry-container pw25">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">‘Whet not your scythe, Suppressors of our vice!</div>
<div class="verse indent0">Reforming Saints! too delicately nice!</div>
<div class="verse indent0">By whose decrees, our sinful souls to save,</div>
<div class="verse indent0">No Sunday tankards foam, no barbers shave;</div>
<div class="verse indent0">And beer undrawn, and beards unmown, display</div>
<div class="verse indent0">Your holy reverence for the Sabbath-day.’<SPAN name="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">14</SPAN></div>
</div></div>
</div>
<div class="sidenote">SABBATARIAN CODE</div>
<p>An octogenarian friend has told me that he
believes he was the first man in Edinburgh to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">127</span>
make a practice of taking a Sunday walk. He
remembers that on some of these occasions he
was accompanied by a well-known professor
in the University, who besought him not to
get back to the town until the church-goers
had safely returned to their houses from
afternoon service, as he was afraid of the
public odium he might draw down not only
on himself, but on the University. I myself
recollect when it was a common practice to
pull down the window blinds on Sunday, in
order that the eyes of the inmates might be
hindered from beholding vanity, and that
their minds might be kept from wandering
away from the solemn thoughts that should
engage them. There was one lady who
carried her sanctimonious scruples so far
that she always rose a little earlier than
usual on Sunday morning, and took care, as
her first duty, to carry a merry-hearted and
loud-throated canary down to the cellar that
its carol might not disturb the quiet and
solemnity of the day. It was considered sinful
to use any implement of ordinary week-day
work. Hence though a servant might
perhaps scrape away with her fingers the earth
from the roots of potatoes in the garden, if
these were unexpectedly wanted for the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">128</span>
Sunday dinner, on no account could a spade
or graip be used to dig them up expeditiously.
In the same spirit, a lad might be employed for
half an hour on a Sunday morning in laboriously
carrying armfuls of turnips or other vegetables
for feeding the cattle, but he could not be
allowed to use a wheelbarrow with which he
could have done the whole work in a few
minutes. As it was a heinous offence to write
letters on Sunday, people used to sit up till
midnight; what would have been a sin before
the clock struck twelve, became quite legitimate
thereafter.<SPAN name="FNanchor_15" href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">15</SPAN></p>
<p>Happily this rigidity is gradually being
relaxed, except perhaps in parts of the Highlands.
How it looks to an observer from
outside may be illustrated from some of my
own personal experiences.</p>
<div class="sidenote">A ROSS-SHIRE SABBATH</div>
<p>In the summer of the year 1860, I
found that the strict maintenance of the
Highland view of Sabbath observance might
have had serious consequences for myself. In
company with my old chief, Sir Roderick
Murchison, I had walked on a Saturday from
the head of Loch Torridon, through the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">129</span>
wild defile of Glen Torridon, to Loch Maree.
Along the mountain slopes that sweep upwards
from the southern side of that valley, I
noticed so many features of interest, some of
which, if further and more closely examined,
might help to clear up problems of Highland
geology for the solution of which we were
seeking, that I felt I must ascend these
mountains and look at their crests and corries.
But we were pressed for time, and although
next day was Sunday I determined to devote
it to the quest. The morning broke auspiciously,
and ushered in one of the most superb
days which I have ever been fortunate enough
to meet with in the West Highlands. As it
was desirable to save time and fatigue by
driving some six miles to the point of the
road nearest to the ground to be traversed,
a request was made for a dog-cart. But the
answer came, that it was the Sabbath, and
nobody would drive a ‘machine’ on the Lord’s
Day. There was no objection, however, to
allow the use of a dog-cart, nor to charge for the
same in the bill (for Highland innkeepers, like
Dryden’s Shimei, ‘never break the Sabbath
but for gain’); we must, however, do the driving
ourselves. It was accordingly arranged
that Sir Roderick’s valet should drive me to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">130</span>
the place and return with the vehicle, leaving
me to make my tramp and find my way back
to the inn on foot. The fresh buoyant air of
the mountains; the depth of the glens with
their piles of old moraines; the ruggedness and
dislocation of the cliffs and slopes; the utter
solitude of the scene, broken only now and
then by the bound of a group of red deer,
startled from a favourite corrie, or by the whirr
of the snowy ptarmigan; the ever-widening
panorama of mountain-summit, gorge, glen, and
lake, as each peak was gained in succession;
and then from the highest crest of all, the
vista of the blue Atlantic, with the faint far
hills of the Outer Hebrides and the nearer
and darker spires of Skye—all this, added to
the absorbing interest of the geology, filled
up a day to the brim with that deep pleasure
of which the memory becomes a life-long
possession. The sun had sunk beneath the
western hills before I began to retrace my
steps, and night came down when there still
lay some miles of trackless mountain, glen,
river, and bog between me and the inn where
my old chief was expecting me at dinner.
Fortunately, in the end the moon rose, and I
arrived at the end of the journey somewhere
near midnight.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">131</span></p>
<div class="sidenote">A SUTHERLAND SABBATH</div>
<p>The delay in my return gave Murchison
not a little uneasiness. As hour after hour
passed, he grew so impatient that he began
to insist on some of the people of the inn
turning out with lanterns as a search party.
His remonstrances, however, were met with a
sullen indifference, very unlike the usual attentiveness
of the household. ‘It was the Sabbath
day,’ they said, ‘the gentleman shouldn’t have
gone out to walk on the Lord’s Day.’ In
short, the gentleman, had he been lost, would
have deserved his fate, and would have furnished
to the pulpits of the district a new and
pregnant illustration of the danger of Sabbath-breaking!</p>
<p>Some fifteen years later, being in the east
of Sutherland, I greatly desired to visit the
two remarkable cones of Ben Griam, which,
rising far over out of the desolate moorland,
form such a prominent feature in the landscape
of that region. Had they stood within easy
reach of the little inn where I was staying, I
would have walked over to them in order to
spend a quiet Sunday in examining them and
in meditation over the marvellous story of
past time which they reveal. But the distance
being much more than a Sabbath day’s
journey, I applied to my host for a dog-cart<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">132</span>
to take me by road to the nearest point from
which I could strike across the moor on foot.
He confessed that none of his servants would
drive me, and that he did not wish to shock
the prejudices of his neighbours in the parish,
but that if I would wait until the people were
in the kirk, he would drive me himself. As
we passed along the lonely road he gave me
his history, which had no ordinary interest.
Born in the district, he had gone south early
in life, and eventually became an engine-driver
on one of the main railways. He was next
attracted, by the offer of better pay and
prospects, to enter the service of the Chemin
de Fer du Nord and drove the first train
between Paris and Calais. He continued in
the service of that railway for many years,
made his home in France, and finally retired
with a pension from the French Government.
As he had no longer any daily occupation, a
longing for the old country came on him and
grew so strong that he in the end broke up
his home in France and took the inn where
I found him. But he soon discovered that
his long stay in a freer theological atmosphere
than that of Calvinistic Sutherland had taught
him to look on life from a very different point
of view from that still maintained by his fellow-countrymen.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">133</span>
He found them, he said, narrow-minded,
prejudiced, and bigoted, disposed to
look askance on him and what they thought
his laxity of belief, and to show in many
little spiteful ways the antagonism between
them. The old home was no longer the place
that had dwelt all these long years treasured
in his memory, and he seemed disposed to
regret that he had ever come back to it.
That Sunday was a day of sunshine, of white
floating clouds, and of blue distances stretching
away from the purple moors to the sea on
the one side and to the inland mountains on
the other—a day to be alone with Nature
and one’s own thoughts. My reverie on Ben
Griam, which led me far into the backward of
time, was touched now and then with thoughts
of the strange fetichism of to-day that has
turned the Sunday from a day of joyfulness
to one of gloom.</p>
<div class="sidenote">HIGHLAND BIGOTRY</div>
<p>That this relentless intolerance of any innocent
and instructive employments, other than
that of church-going, still persists in certain
quarters with undiminished rigour was brought
painfully to my notice only six years ago in
Skye. A reading party of bright young men
from one of the English Universities had settled
down for steady work and recreation at a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">134</span>
well-known hotel, and the landlady, anxious
to obtain for them more space and quiet than
they could find under her own roof, arranged
for the use of a large room in a house which
had been temporarily taken by a Free Church
clergyman who had been displaced during
the progress of the controversy respecting
the union of his church with the United
Presbyterians. On the first Sunday, the young
men spent the morning partly in reading and
partly in examining under the microscope
some of the natural history specimens they
had been collecting during the week. The
sight of these instruments, opened on the
Lord’s Day, was too much for the minister’s
wife. Next morning my hostess received a
letter from her requesting that the young men
might be removed, bag and baggage, as she
could not submit to such profanation under
her roof. She concluded by beseeching that
the innkeeper’s children might be sent to her
as a consolation, ‘that she might hear their
innocent prattle.’ The landlady showed me
this letter, but was anxious that, at least
while they were her guests, the students should
know nothing about it, as she would not like
them to think that this intolerance was a fair
sample of Highland opinion.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">135</span></p>
<div class="sidenote">SABBATARIAN INCONSISTENCY</div>
<p>I have sometimes been astonished to see
how this superstitious veneration for the
Sabbath has blinded intelligent men and
women, otherwise liberal and enlightened in
their views, to the real meaning and use of
the day. Having been taught from their
youth to deem certain things unlawful and
reprehensible if done on that day, they studiously
refrain from these, but at the same time
they unconsciously allow themselves to say and
do other things which on due reflection they
would admit to be no better than those which
they condemn, if not indeed much worse. I
once spent a Sunday in a Highland Free
Kirk manse, and in the afternoon was entertained
by the minister’s wife, who was as
kindly in disposition as she was narrow in
her views. We discussed the whole parish.
Some Roman Catholics had come to the
district, which filled her mind with dismay.
She was grieved, too, that a well-known
dignitary of the Church of England had called
the day before on her husband, a broad-minded
and accomplished scholar, and had carried him
off to examine some ecclesiastical ruins in the
neighbourhood. She gave me an account
of various marriages which were in contemplation,
and of the changes that were imminent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">136</span>
in the tenancy of the farms. At last I asked
her to excuse me as I had some letters to
write which I was anxious should go by the
early post in the morning. ‘What?’ she
exclaimed in surprise, ‘Do you mean to say
that you write letters on the Sabbath?’ I could
not resist the temptation to assure her that
I thought writing to my friends and relatives
on that day was at least as allowable as to
spend the afternoon over parish gossip.</p>
<p>A story is told of a young clergyman on
the mainland who had not been long placed
in his charge when rumours began to circulate
about his orthodoxy. Some of his friends
hearing these reports set themselves to enquire
into the grounds for them. But they could
only elicit vague hints and suggestions. At
last they came upon an old woman who declared
roundly that the minister was ‘no soun’.’
‘Not sound! what makes you think that?’
‘Weel then,’ she answered, ‘I maun tell ye.
I wass seein’ him wi’ my ain een, standin’ at
his window on the Lord’s Day, dandlin’ his
bairn.’</p>
<div class="sidenote">QUEEN VICTORIA AND SABBATARIANISM</div>
<p>An incident which illustrates the strictness
of Sabbath observance in the North Highlands
has been told me by a friend. During one of
her tours in the Highlands Queen Victoria<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">137</span>
visited Ross-shire. When spending a Sunday
at Loch Maree, the Royal party, tempted by
the beauty of the day, made an expedition by
boat to one of the islands of the loch. This
‘worldly acting’ upon the Lord’s day caused
a great scandal in the neighbourhood, and
eventually the Free Church Presbytery took
up the matter and addressed a letter to the
Queen ‘dealing with’ her for her conduct.
Our good Queen was naturally much disquieted
that she had unwittingly offended any section
of her faithful subjects, and consulted one of
her chaplains, a distinguished minister of the
Church of Scotland, who was then at Balmoral,
as to what she ought to do. He counselled her
not to take any notice of the letter, and allayed
her anxiety by recounting to her the following
incident illustrative of the attitude of mind of
the Highlanders towards all departures, however
trivial, from their notions of strict Sabbath
observance. The story greatly amused
the Queen, and at her request it had to be repeated
to other members of the royal household.</p>
<p>A Highland minister, after the services of
the Sunday were over, was noticed sauntering
by himself in meditative mood along the
hillside above the manse. Next day he was
waited on by one of the ruling elders, who<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">138</span>
came to point out the sin of which he had
been guilty, and the evil effect which his
lapse from right ways could not fail to have
in the parish. The clergyman took the rebuke
in good part, but tried to show the remonstrant
that the action of which he complained
was innocent and lawful, and he was about
to cite the famous example of a Sabbath walk,
with the plucking of the ears of corn, as set
forth in the Gospels, when he was interrupted
with the remark: ‘Ou ay, sir, I ken weel
what you mean to say; but, for my pairt, I
hae nefer thocht the better o’ them for breakin’
the Sawbbath.’</p>
<p>A member of the Geological Survey was,
not many years ago, storm-stayed in a muirland
tract of South Ayrshire upon a Saturday,
and gladly accepted the hospitality of a farmer
for the night. Next morning he asked the
servant if she thought her master could oblige
him with the loan of a razor. In due time
the razor arrived, but was found to be so
wofully blunt that the maid had to be summoned
again to see if a strop was available.
She soon came back with this message,
‘Please, the maister says this is the Sawbbath,
and ye’re jist to put pith to the razor.
Ye canna get the strop.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">139</span></p>
<div class="sidenote">FAST-DAY SUPERSTITION</div>
<p>The late Lord Playfair, when he was Professor
of Chemistry in the University of Edinburgh,
told me that, passing his nursery-door
one Sunday, he overheard the nurse stilling a
child in this fashion: ‘Whisht, whisht, my bonnie
lamb; it’s the Sawbbath, or I wud whustle
ye a sang, but I’ll sing ye a paraphrase.’</p>
<p>The sacredness of the Sabbath, by a
natural transition, came to be also attributed
to the Fast Day, which heralded the half-yearly
Communion-Sunday. A Fife shepherd,
who was in the Grassmarket of Edinburgh on
a week-day, found that his dog had strayed
to some distance, and was making off in a
wrong direction. He begged an acquaintance
whom he had met to whistle for the animal.
‘Whustle on your ain dowg,’ was the indignant
reply. ‘Na, na, man,’ said the perturbed
drover. ‘I canna dae that, for you
see it’s our Fast Day in Kirkcaldy.’</p>
<p>Nobody has satirised the Scottish perversion
of the day of rest with more effective
sarcasm than Lord Neaves in his <cite>Lyric for
Saturday Night</cite>:</p>
<div class="poetry-container pw20">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">We zealots made up of stiff clay,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The sour-looking children of sorrow,</div>
<div class="verse indent0">While not over-jolly to-day,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Resolve to be wretched to-morrow.</div>
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">140</span>
<div class="verse indent0">We can’t for a certainty tell</div>
<div class="verse indent2">What mirth may molest us on Monday;</div>
<div class="verse indent0">But at least to begin the week well,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Let us all be unhappy on Sunday.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">What though a good precept we strain</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Till hateful and hurtful we make it!</div>
<div class="verse indent0">What though, in thus pulling the rein,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">We may draw it so tight as to break it!</div>
<div class="verse indent0">Abroad we forbid folks to roam,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">For fear they get social or frisky;</div>
<div class="verse indent0">But of course they can sit still at home,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And get dismally drunk upon whisky.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>A habit which has been followed for
generations to the sound of the ‘drum
ecclesiastic’ is not easily thrown off. The
Sabbath look of funereal sadness may still be
seen on many a sturdy Presbyterian face.
But happily the gloomy intolerance is passing
away. In no respect is the freer air
of the modern spirit more marked than in
the relaxation of the old discipline in regard
to the keeping of the Sabbath in lowland
Scotland. A country walk on that day is no
longer always proclaimed to be a violation
of one of the ten commandments, innocent
laughter is not everywhere denounced as
a sin, nor does it appear that the growth of
Sunday cheerfulness leads to any depravation
of character, or to a less keen feeling for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">141</span>
whatsoever is of good report. There is now,
however, a tendency for the pendulum to
swing perhaps too far on the other side.
Welcome though the disappearance of the
old gloom may be, there would be a questionable
gain if what should be a day of quiet
rest and refreshment were turned into one of
frivolous gaiety and dissipation.</p>
<div class="sidenote">SINFULNESS OF DANCING</div>
<p>In other directions a relaxation of the old
rigour in regard to the innocent enjoyments
of life is to be welcomed. But these various
signs of greater charity and enlightenment
have made much less rapid progress in the
Highlands and Islands. In these regions the
influence of the protestant clergy, as it was
longer in bringing the people into subjection,
still maintains much of the vehemence which
has elsewhere died down. The intolerance
appears to be decidedly more marked in the
Free Church communion than in that of the
Establishment. One of the latest examples
of it which has come under my own observation
was that of a lady who went to a dance.
For this enormity she was reprimanded by the
Free Church minister to whose congregation
she belonged. Things at last became so unpleasant
that she left his ministrations and
went to the parish kirk.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">142</span></p>
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