Page:Footsteps of Dr. Johnson.djvu/256

 it was a good deal more open to view than a hawthorn-brake. In one of the boats we had noticed a man distinguished from all the rest by a tall black hat, pictate gravem ac meritis. To him had been entrusted the clean white collars and neckties of the rowers. Many of the men knelt down while their wives fastened them on for them and smoothed their hair. One man even went so far as to put on his shirt in public. The women too, who were almost all in black, had their dresses to arrange, for in the boats they had kept their skirts tucked up. Some of the girls even had to get their bustles adjusted. Carlyle or his wife once made merry over their maid-of-all-work at Chelsea, who with two or three kitchen-dusters made the best substitute she could for that monstrous and most "considerable protuberance." What would he have said had he seen the lasses in Skye thus making themselves as ridiculous as even the finest lady in town?

When at length every one was ready, the whole party moved slowly along the road towards the church. Others came driving up in light and heavy carts, while across the moors we could see single wayfarers, or more often three or four together, coming in by different paths. There was greeting of old friends and shaking of hands. The church stood on the road-side, a plain building with the manse close by. In it was gathered that part of the congregation which spoke English. On the other side of the road the ground fell away to a little brook which had eaten its way through the dark-coloured peat, and here made a sudden bend. On the other side of the water, within the bend, there was a grassy slope ending in a low ridge, and dotted with little hillocks. Here the people sat down on the ground, facing an erection which looked like a large sentry-box. It was occupied by the minister, who addressed the people in Gaelic, speaking in a kind of musical recitative which carried the voice far, and must have made every syllable distinct. It often had a very pleading and plaintive sound. Below him stood two long rows of tables, and a cross table, all covered with white cloths. On the other side of the stream by the roadside twenty carts or more were standing, while the horses were quietly grazing on the moor tethered each to an iron peg. One horse nibbled through the cord, and came up to the outskirts of the meeting, but a lad left his seat and caught it. In the background the dreary moorland sloped upwards, blackened here and there with heaps of peat drying in the sun and wind. I thought