The Cottage

by Michael Phillips

  “By then I was aware that my great-great-grandfather’s quest for truth involved a quandary over certain theological issues fundamental in what I have called his quest to understand the heart of God. There was much discussion of these matters in the correspondence with Rutherford, and they found their way into more than one of his sermons as well. The result was that he was eventually charged with heresy and removed from his pulpit.

  “My own great-great-grandfather became for me a mentor out of the past. I realized I needed to follow his example of courage to ask hard questions of his faith and of himself. I knew I needed to search for truth in my heart. I needed to know God, know who He was, know how He worked. I needed to seek God, and find Him. I needed to discover whether or not I truly believed.

  “It was a fearsome thing. It meant letting go of the comfortable existence I had known. It meant relinquishing the past and venturing into the unknown. It might mean, as it had for my great-great-grandfather, criticism and rejection and false judgments against me. Part of me was terrified, not knowing where my steps would lead.

  “But there could be no turning back. The quest had taken hold of me. I could not stop it. Nor did I want to.

  “Eventually one afternoon, walking along an isolated stretch of the shoreline, I fell to the sand on my knees, surely the most unwilling, chastised, humbled, and sore-hearted man in Devonshire, and admitted two things. I admitted to God that I had indeed been an unbeliever, no true Christian, and therefore a hypocrite in the full sense of the word. Secondly, I admitted to myself that I wanted to know Him. I wanted to believe. I wanted to be a true and honorable Christian man.

  “I closed my eyes then and there, eyes full of tears, and I prayed perhaps for the first time in my life—really prayed, God, if you are real, reveal yourself to me, show me who you truly are, and show me what you want me to do.

  “When I rose, I felt no different. But I knew I had crossed a great divide—the divide between a system of ideas and true belief, the divide between church and faith. I cannot say I suddenly believed or had faith in that moment, but I began to believe in that moment. And that was enough.”

  ———

  As the night closed in around the four prayerful men of God in the manse, across the island in the Cottage, Loni lay in her bed, reading in the journal whose story had by now thoroughly begun to captivate her.

  36

  A Legacy Begins—The Introduction

  WHALES REEF, 1924

  By the evening of his unnerving morning walk on the moor, Brogan Tulloch had recovered from his hangover. He had shaved, taken a cold bath, enjoyed an invigorating breakfast about noon, then listlessly whiled away the afternoon with that random lack of purpose so well cultivated in those who do not have to labor after their daily bread.

  He strode into the hotel about eight o’clock, dressed and dapper, once again in fine fettle.

  Though its heyday was past, the luxurious Whales Reef Hotel was still probably the finest hotel in the Shetlands. By some miracle the great hotel had not put the more humble Whales Fin Inn out of business. Most of the locals still preferred to drink their ale and enjoy their fish and chips in the smaller pub at the center of the village. To Brogan, however, the large hotel on the hill was almost a second home. Word had reached him through his sources that a second tour group had arrived in the afternoon, and that a soiree was planned for the evening.

  He made straight for the ballroom. Music there was already in swing. Brogan made a beeline for the bar.

  “A Caffreys, Craig,” he said. “Just something to wet the tonsils. We won’t count this one on my quota for the evening.”

  “Very good, Mr. Tulloch.”

  “Any word on the hotel’s new guests?” asked Brogan.

  “Mostly Londoners, I believe, sir. From what I could observe in the dining room a short time ago, society types I would say.”

  “Any unattached young women?” said Brogan, arching one eyebrow.

  “One or two, I believe, Mr. Tulloch,” said the tender of libations, setting down a pint glass in front of him.

  “Perhaps my fortunes are looking up. That busload that came in yesterday was not exactly what I had in mind, if you catch my meaning.”

  “A bit too scholarly for your taste, Mr. Tulloch?”

  “I think, Craig, that you have captured the essence of it to perfection!” laughed Brogan.

  He took a satisfying sip of the amber brew. With glass in hand, as was his custom on such occasions, he surveyed the room with a probing eye. As he did, he kept observant watch on the wide stairway that descended from the first floor, where most of the guest rooms were located. He allowed his gaze also to drift toward the corridor from the lobby and the doors to the dining room and several smaller lounges.

  “No more journalists like that fellow who was here last week?”

  “Not that I have been apprised of, sir.”

  “Ah, well, too bad. A personable chap. I rather enjoyed visiting with him. But I suppose the Shetlands are of limited interest to the press.”

  Gradually more of the hotel’s newest guests appeared, in ones and twos and small groups, all dressed for the occasion. It was not difficult for Brogan’s experienced eye to distinguish between those from London’s society and the earlier arrivals, about whom, as Craig had noted, clung the air of academia.

  An hour later the ballroom was nearly full. A few guests were dancing to the lively music of the band from Lerwick. Most, however, were clustered in small groups or seated at tables. Craig at the bar and his two assistants moving about the room with trays in their hands were busy keeping the company well supplied. By now Brogan was mingling freely among the company as if he personally were the host of the evening’s fête, greeting newcomers, introducing himself, and regaling the ladies with stories of local color guaranteed from much experience to charm, fascinate, and amuse.

  Meandering across the floor, a young woman at the bar arrested his attention. He paused and took her in briefly. Though so short that at first glance she might be taken for a teen, she carried herself with a bearing and demeanor of one older. He took her for the early twenties. The dress she wore was a little long to be entirely fashionable in these times of risqué hemlines, extending a full six inches below the knees. It hung gracefully, however, and ideally suited her well-proportioned and shapely body. Though he was observing her in profile and from his vantage point could only see half of it, her face drew him. He would not, at first glance, have called it a beautiful face. He would reserve judgment until after having a closer look. But it was an engaging face . . . captivating assuredly, mysterious perhaps.

  He turned and sauntered toward the diminutive mystery girl. He approached as Craig handed her two glasses.

  “Here you are, miss—two sparkling waters.”

  “Might I perhaps interest you in something a bit more festive?” said Brogan with a jaunty air. “Craig here has several excellent local single malt whiskys I can personally recommend. It will be my treat, if you would care to join me.”

  Hearing his voice, the girl turned and cast on Brogan a curious expression of surprise. She seemed about to speak, then hesitated. Slowly her visage melted into a humorously amused smile. The effect on Brogan, especially in that she uttered not a word, was bewitching.

  She turned, glasses in hand, still saying nothing, and walked away.

  He stared after her hardly knowing what to make of the one-sided exchange. Coming to himself, he strode after her. He was not one to be turned away by a single rebuff. She was just sitting down next to a white-haired woman.

  “I hope I did not offend you,” he said, flashing the smile that had worked its magic so many times in the past. “I did not mean to be forward. I only wanted to ask if you would like to join me for a drink. I am Brogan Tulloch, by the way, son of the chief and laird of Whales Reef.”

  The girl looked up from where she sat. Again her lips broke into the same enchanting smile with a touch of the roguish in it. She seemed abo
ut to speak, yet still hesitated.

  “I confess myself somewhat confused,” she said after a lengthy pause, smiling impishly. “Why such an important man as the son of the chief would want to have a drink with a brash and outspoken American whose grating voice reminds him of fingernails on a chalkboard.”

  At her words, recognition dawned. Brogan’s jaw dropped. He stared blankly at the face that seemed—without glasses and seen clearly rather than through the blurred vision of a hangover—so transformed from that morning.

  “You!” he stammered. For one of the few times in his life, Brogan Tulloch found himself at a loss for words.

  “It is, indeed,” rejoined the girl. She was obviously enjoying his discomposure. “I must say, it is nice to know your name at last, and why you take such a personal interest in visitors to your island. Mrs. Barnes,” she went on, turning to the woman beside her, who was taking in the exchange with great interest, “may I present Mr. Tulloch. Mr. Tulloch, this is Mrs. Harriett Barnes. But I must warn you, she is American too.”

  Quickly recovering himself, Brogan smiled. “A pleasure, Mrs. Barnes,” he said, taking her hand. “May I welcome you to Whales Reef. And perhaps I might take the liberty of making a request of you.”

  “Uh, why yes . . . yes, of course.”

  “Would you be so kind as to introduce me to this charming, and I must say witty, young lady beside you?”

  “But I . . . that is, I assumed the two of you were already acquainted,” said Mrs. Barnes. She stared back and forth in confusion between the two young people.

  “We encountered one another on the moor this morning,” replied Brogan. “Unfortunately, our meeting occurred before I was altogether myself. We did not have the chance to exchange names.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Mrs. Barnes. “Then, Mr. Tulloch, may I present my traveling companion, Miss Emily Hanson.”

  “Miss Hanson,” said Brogan, dripping with aplomb, “it is a pleasure to meet you officially at last. And now that I am in my right mind, I hope you will accept my sincere apology for my lack of gentlemanly comportment this morning.”

  Before Emily could reply, the party of three was interrupted by the approach of a man several inches shorter than Brogan, to all appearances in his early thirties. His rumpled hair spilled down over wire spectacles, and he was draped in an ill-fitting and well-worn wool suit. He glanced back and forth between Emily and Mrs. Barnes.

  “Excuse me, Miss Hanson,” he said nervously, his voice betraying thick Glaswegian. “They are finally playing a waltz—I’m afraid it’s the only dance I know. Would you perhaps care to join me?” he added, his eyes flitting briefly toward Brogan.

  “I would be delighted, Dr. MacDonald,” replied Emily. “It is the only dance I know as well. My father won’t allow me to dance to anything modern.”

  She stood and walked in the direction of the band. The man hurried after her, seemingly as surprised as he was pleased.

  Brogan stared after them as they made their way toward the dance floor, then turned to Mrs. Barnes. “And who might that be?” he asked. “The fellow is obviously not English.”

  “That is Dr. MacDonald—professor of natural history from Glasgow University,” replied Mrs. Barnes. “He is the guest lecturer for our tour.”

  “He will be with you all week?”

  “I believe so. We will travel throughout the islands. He will be speaking to us all about the wildlife and history of the Shetlands. Perhaps you will join us for some of our lectures, Mr. Tulloch.”

  “Ah, right—we shall see, Mrs. Barnes. To tell you the truth, I had about all of that sort of thing I want at the university. How long will you be here on Whales Reef?”

  “One more day—tomorrow and tomorrow night. Then we return to the main island, what do you call it?”

  “Shetland. Just Shetland.”

  “Oh, and then we take a bus north to the other two big islands.”

  “Yell and Unst.”

  “Yes, and travel about . . . I think we spend a night on each of them. Then we shall be back for our last three nights here again.”

  “By then you should know every inch of our little island.”

  “Emily certainly will. She’s more interested in the wildlife and birds and whales and plants than I am. I lost my husband three years ago, you see.”

  “I am sorry to hear that, Mrs. Barnes.”

  “One learns to fill the time. And he left me more money than any woman has a right to, and I have no children. I consider it my duty to spend as much of it as I can!” she added, laughing. “Since I enjoy traveling, I join tours to out-of-the-way places. Emily is working on some sort of college paper—that’s why she is with me.”

  “A scholar, is she?” said Brogan. He was amused at the thought.

  “I suppose something like that. That’s probably why Dr. MacDonald was taken with her from the start. Not exactly the sort of man I might have chosen for her, but who am I to stick my nose in?”

  “You and she are not related? I assumed you her grandmother or aunt or something?”

  “I have only known Emily a month. My niece is dean of the college where Emily is enrolled. She thought we would get along nicely.”

  “And has that been the case?” asked Brogan.

  “Very much. She is a most pleasant girl, though not very social.”

  Brogan nodded. After a few parting pleasantries, he moved away to pursue his lighthearted fraternizations elsewhere.

  37

  The Price of Obedience

  Though most in the village of Whales Reef were by then in their beds, at the manse the parish minister was completing his story to his audience of three.

  “I continued to read the writings of my great-great-grandfather,” Rev. Yates was explaining. “Gradually by his example my reading began to change. I saw that it now became imperative that I go to the source.

  “For the first time in my life I began to read the New Testament—I mean really read it. I started with the Gospels. If my quest was to know God, then where else was I to begin but with the account of the Man who said He knew God, and said He came to show men that God was their Father? I saw that I must take up the New Testament as if I had never seen it before.

  “The account, as biographies of the world’s great men go, was scanty and incomplete. But it was enough to reveal what kind of man Jesus was—the principles by which He lived, His ways of looking at things, how He conducted himself with people, and His thoughts about God and His brothers and sisters of humanity.

  “I began to read the four Gospels with an eagerness it would be impossible to describe, as a starving man seeking food. They were no longer mere weekly readings from the prayer book. The words came alive off the page. I saw that Jesus taught no doctrinal system. He told people how to behave and think. Suddenly it was all so simple. Jesus told His followers what to do. Our job was to obey His instructions and commands. Nothing more, nothing less.

  “To explain all that followed would take hours, and I fear I am already taking up too much of your time.”

  “Please,” said Noak, “think nothin’ o’ that, sir. Ye canna ken hoo much I am enjoyin’ yer story. ’Tis touchin’ my hert where I hae had my own hypocrisies tae deal wi’ as David kens better than any man alive. Please, jist tell us a’ if we’re here till midnight!”

  Yates chuckled. “I hope I shall not keep you that long, Mr. Muir. Well then, suffice it to say that from that moment on I became a student of the New Testament. Before many days had passed I knew that in the man Jesus Christ I was also coming to know His Father, the being we call God. The more I read of Christ’s words, the more I realized that I wanted to do what the words said. I wanted to obey Him, think like Him, treat others as He treated them. I wanted to call myself a Christian.

  “But how was I to do that? How was I to begin being a true Christian when all my years in the church, all my so-called religious training, had only succeeded in leading me down a blind alley toward spiritual emptiness? The ans
wer was startlingly simple. It was the great truth to be found literally in every verse of the Gospels—by doing what Jesus said.

  “I would begin by obeying the first thing that came across my path where I could do something that Jesus told His disciples to do, whether it be to pray for one who had hurt me or turn the other cheek or help one who was less fortunate or give to the poor or express gratitude or trust God for my tomorrow. That’s when I first said to myself, I am a Christian. I will do these things. I am a follower of Jesus Christ. I will obey what He tells me to do.

  “By then I had been a minister for eighteen years. But I had only been a true Christian, a follower, a doer of what Jesus said a few days—or I should say, an attempted doer. What an infant I was! I had read the New Testament in prayer-book readings many times, yet I was now reading it for the first time as my life’s guidebook, to receive my marching orders for each day. More than all the rest I devoured the red letters of the Gospels. I needed to know what Jesus told His disciples to do before I could do it.

  “The first thing that came across my path to do,” said Yates with a smile, “was so small and insignificant it is almost embarrassing to mention it. Yet for me it was a revelation, because it was the first thing I had ever done in my life where consciously, as a choice, I tried to obey something Jesus told His followers to do.”

  “I would like to hear about it,” said David.

  Again Yates smiled at the memory. “I was in the market in Devonshire where I had been staying. It was late in the day and the aisles were crowded. I was distracted, standing looking at the cans of soup on the shelf. A man bumped me from behind, pretty hard. I nearly lost my balance. As I recovered myself, I was shocked when he spoke rudely to me. ‘Why don’t you watch what you’re doing!’ he snapped. Then just as quickly the words I had read that morning rose in my mind, Return evil with good. Though my natural reaction might have been to scowl at the man to make sure he received a full dose of my annoyance, I turned and smiled and said, ‘I’m so sorry. That was careless of me.’