Grandmother and the Priests

by Taylor Caldwell

  Stumbling to the corridor, Robert halted as if shot. A loud and ear-crushing wail had assaulted him, like all the fiends in hell. A crimson flare lit up the windows of the corridor, and Robert knew they were torches. Now war drums joined the wailing and the sound of tramping feet, and Robert understood that a detachment of very large Highlanders, fully equipped with bagpipes (and doubtless with dirks and maces), were impatiently waiting outside and were serenading an arrival. He wondered who it could be. A laird, perhaps, or a great landowner. It did not occur to him in his boyish humility that this wild music and wilder scarlet light and all these drums were for himself.

  The corridor remained empty. The train appeared entirely empty. There was no hail. But the torches flared into a deep crimson and fluttered like flags; the music became more triumphant, more excited. The Highlanders had caught sight of his pale boyish face peering through the corridor window. Now the drums went mad until they rumbled like thunder, and a hoarse and mighty shout went up. By the light of the torches, Robert could now see the Highlanders in full dress, their kilts swirling about the biggest knees he had ever seen in his life; each monolithic face opened in a bellow of greeting; the major-domo tossed his baton, recovered it with a yell. Scotsmen, Robert knew, came in all sizes, but these sizes were immense. Not a man was under six feet tall, and most were much taller, so that their enormous bearskin hats towered to a giant height.

  “No, no, it canna be for me,” Robert prayed, as the men marched up and down before, not below, the corridor window and the guard beamed at him and ducked his head, and then pulled the bag from his hand, seized his elbow with deference and led him to the door. “Ah, and it’s the MacDougall himsel’ who’s come for you, sir,” said the guard, himself amazed that all this savage greeting and uproar could be for one so thin and black and shabby and hardly more than a lad.

  “Oh, no,” murmured Robert. Then he uttered a cry himself, for he was literally seized by a pair of tremendous hands and lifted down from the steps as though he were a child, and a feeble, frail one at that. The hands set him down, and not short himself, he had to peer up into a handsome face all gray dancing eyes, big nose and laughing mouth filled with enormous white teeth. “Aye, and it’s a welcome to you this braw nicht, Faether!” said a booming voice, and Robert knew that it was the MacDougall in full regalia who had handled him as an infant.

  The bagpipes screamed, the drums roared, the torches danced, and the men marched about their laird and their priest, their knees pumping high and hard, their heels coming down like earthquakes on the hard and stony soil. The MacDougall put his Titan’s hands on his hips and surveyed his priest critically, smiling from ear to ear. “And they wouldna send me a graybeard!” he shouted. “They sent me a puling laddie with a face like milk! Niver ye mind, Faether! We’ll be fattenin’ ye up!” And with this he smote Robert heartily on the back and then caught him deftly in midflight and set him gingerly on his feet again.

  Robert coughed and strangled and blinked, then when he could catch his breath he remembered that he was a priest ‘for a’ that’, and entitled to respect even though this was the MacDougall in person. “Ye’ll keep your hands to yoursel’,” he said, with feeble severity, swallowing his last cough.

  The small parade marched about him. The bitterest of winds tore at his shawl and his hat and trousers; his knees trembled with cold, his eyes moistened at the flare and glare of the torches, his ears rang. Never had he seen such a plaid as was now displayed to him as in acres. His own plaid, allegedly Royal Stuart, paled like the moon before the sun. It was the most gorgeous plaid he had ever gazed upon, and he winced. If the MacDougalls did nothing else, they believed in the wildest colors. Tassels swung from side to side; boots pounded, shawls danced in the wind like sails. And there was a rifle slung from every mighty shoulder.

  The MacDougall, reproved by his young priest, bowed deeply from the waist, but not before Robert had seen the glint of deviltry in those fine eyes. “It’s but a welcome for you, Faether,” he said. “And glad we are to see you. Lads!” he cried, and the lads, any of whom could have posed for a statue of Atlas, stopped abruptly, and raised a shout that lifted the hair on Robert’s skull. Hills roared it back; it even drowned out the yelling sea.

  His bag disappeared. Now he dimly saw that he stood very close to the ocean. Black rocks, like miniature mountains, poured with water and foam. Robert’s nose and hands promptly lost all sensation. There were boats drawn up in the tiniest of coves, and there, near the boats, Robert saw six Dominican Sisters, tall and grim, their hands folded primly in their sleeves, their coifs glittering in mingled moonlight and torchlight. All, he thought vaguely, well booted for this weather.

  He suddenly wanted to lie down somewhere and go to sleep and wake to his little room in the Seminary or in his uncle’s manse. He was exhausted. He did not remember climbing into a boat which rocked under him. His head was whirling and aching and he was shuddering and certain he was about to expire of cold. Then the great waves were tossing under him and there were other boats following, and he groaned. The men were singing now, some barbaric ballad concerning the freedom of Scotia and particularly of the MacDougalls.

  Though a Scotsman, Robert was no sailor. The smallest lake on a summer day could make his stomach heave. He said to himself, wildly, that it wouldna do for a new priest and his calling if that priest leaned over the side of the boat and expelled remnants of cold lamb and oat cakes and jam. He particularly regretted the last two lemon tarts he had eaten a couple of hours ago. He clung to the side of the boat, praying urgently that he would not be sick. And the MacDougall sat like a giant beside him and smiled at him in the moonlight, and the men sang. The MacDougall, all by himself, sang the choruses.

  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?”