Witch Wood. Buchan John

nettles.

      Indoors the place was not commodious, and even on that warm August day a chill struck upward from the earthen floors. The low-ceiled lobby had no light but the open door. To the right of it was the living-room with a boarded ceiling, a wooden floor, and roughly plastered walls, where the minister’s eight-day clock (by John Atchison, Leith, 1601) had now acclimatised itself. To the left lay Isobel’s kitchen, with a door leading to the brew-house, and Isobel’s press-bed at the back of it, and a small dog-hole of a cellar. The upper story was reached by a wooden staircase as steep as a ladder, which opened direct into the minister’s bedroom—an apartment of luxury, for it had a fireplace. One door led from it to the solitary guest-chamber; another to a tiny hearthless room, which was his study or closet, and which at the moment ranked in his mind as the most miraculous of his possessions.

      David ranged around like a boy back from school, and indeed with his thick sandy hair and ruddy countenance and slim straight back he seemed scarcely to have outgrown the schoolboy. He spilt the browst in the brewhouse and made a spectacle of himself with pease-meal in the girnel. Isobel watched him anxiously out of doors, when he sampled the fruit of the apple trees, and with various rejected specimens took shots at a starling in the glebe. Then in response to his shouts she brought him a basin of water and he washed off the dust of his morning ride. The August sun fell warm on the little yard; the sound of the burn in the glen, the clack of the kirkton smithy, the sheep far off on Windyways, the bees in the clove gillyflowers, all melted into the soothing hum of a moorland noontide. The minister smiled as he scrubbed his cheeks, and Isobel’s little old puckered apple-hued face smiled back. ‘Ay, sir,’ she said, ‘our lines is fallen intil a goodly place and a pleasant habitation. The Lord be thankit.’ And as he cried a fervent amen and tossed the towel back to her, a stir at the front door betokened his first visitors.

      These were no less than three in number, neighbouring ministers who had ridden over on their garrons to bid the young man welcome to Woodilee. Presently stable and byre were crowded with their beasts, and the three brethren had bestowed themselves on the rough bench which adjoined the bleaching ground. They would have their dinner at the village ordinary—let not Mr Sempill put himself about—they would never have come thus unannounced if they had thought that they would be pressed to a meal. But they allowed themselves to be persuaded by the hospitable clamour of Isobel, who saw in such a function on her first day at the manse a social aggrandisement. ‘Mr Sempill would think black burnin’ shame if the gentlemen didna break breid…. There was walth o’ provender in the house—this moment she had put a hen in the pot—she had a brace of muirfowl ready for brandering that had been sent from Chasehope that very morn….’ The three smiled tolerantly and hopefully. ‘Ye’ve gotten a rare Abigail, Mr Sempill. A woman o’ mense and sense—the manse o’ Woodilee will be well guidit.’

      The Reverend Mungo Muirhead had a vast shaven face set atop of a thick neck and a cumbrous body. He had a big thin-lipped mouth which shut tight like a lawyer’s, a fleshy nose, and large grey eyes which at most times were ruminant as a cow’s, but could on occasion kindle to shrewdness. His complexion was pale, and he was fast growing bald, so the impression at first sight was of a perfect mountain of countenance, a steep field of colourless skin. As minister of Kirk Aller he was the metropolitan of the company, and as became a townsman he wore decent black with bands, and boasted a hat. The Reverend Ebenezer Proudfoot from the moorland village of Bold was of a different cast. He wore the coarse grey homespun of the farmer, his head-covering was a blue bonnet, his shoes were thick brogues with leather ties, and he had donned a pair of ancient frieze leggings. A massive sinewy figure, there was in his narrow face and small blue eyes an air of rude power and fiery energy. The third, Mr James Fordyce from the neighbouring parish of Cauldshaw, was slight and thin, and pale either from ill-health or from much study. He was dressed in worn blue, and even in the August sun kept his plaid round his shoulders. In his face a fine brow was marred by the contraction of his lean jaws and a mouth puckered constantly as if in doubt or pain, but redeemed by brown eyes, as soft and wistful as a girl’s.

      At the hour of noon they sat down to meat. Mr Muirhead said a lengthy grace, which, since he sniffed the savour from the kitchen, he began appropriately with ‘Bountiful Jehovah.’ All the dishes were set out at once on the bare deal table—a bowl of barley kail, a boiled fowl, the two brandered grouse, and a platter of oatcakes. The merchant in the Pleasance of Edinburgh had given his son a better plenishing than fell to the usual lot of ministers, for there were pewter plates and a knife and a fork for each guest. The three stared at the splendour, and Mr Proudfoot, as if to testify against luxury, preferred to pick the bones with his hands. The homebrewed ale was good, and all except Mr Fordyce did full justice to it, so that the single tankard, passed from hand to hand, was often refilled by Isobel. ‘Man, Mr David,’ cried Mr Muirhead in high good-humour, ‘this is a great differ from the days of your predecessor. Worthy Mr Macmichael had never muckle but bannocks to set before his friends. But you’ve made us a feast of fat things.’

      David inquired about his predecessor, whom he remembered dimly from his boyhood as a man even then very old, who ambled about the parish on a white shelty.

      ‘He was a pious and diligent minister,’ said Mr Muirhead, ‘but since ever I kenned him he was sore fallen in the vale of years. He would stick to the same “ordinary” till he had thrashed it into stour. I’ve heard that he preached for a year and sax months on Exodus fifteen and twenty-seven, the twelve wells of water and three score and ten palm trees of Elim, a Sabbath to ilka well and ilka tree. I’ve a notion that he was never very strong in the intellectuals.’

      ‘He wrestled mightily in prayer,’ said Mr Proudfoot, ‘and he was great at fencing the Tables. Ay, sirs, he was a trumpet for the pure Gospel blast.’

      ‘I doubt not he was a good man,’ said Mr Fordyce, ‘and is now gone to his reward. But he was ower auld and feeble for a sinful countryside. I fear that the parish was but ill guided, and, as ye ken, there was whiles talk of a Presbytery visitation.’

      ‘I differ!’ cried Mr Muirhead. ‘I differ in toto. Woodilee has aye been famous for its godly elders. Has it not Ephraim Caird, who was a member of Assembly and had a hand in that precious work of grace done in the East Kirk of St. Giles’s two years syne? Has it not Peter Pennecuik, who has a gift of supplication like Mr Rutherford himself? Ay, and in the Bishops’ War you’ll mind how Amos Ritchie was staunch to uphold the Covenant with the auld matchlock that had been his gudesire’s. There’s no lack of true religion in Woodilee.’

      ‘There’s no lack of carnal pride, Mr Mungo. The folk of Woodilee are ready enough for any stramash in kirk or state. But what of their perishing souls, I ask? Are they striving to get a grip of Christ, as a bird scrapes with its claws at a stone wall? And do they bring forth works meet for repentance?’

      ‘There was no clash of cauld morality in worthy Mr Macmichael,’ said Mr Proudfoot sourly.

      ‘Is there the spirit of God in the people? That’s what I want to ken. There’s ill stories in the countryside anent Woodilee. The Black Wood could tell some tales if the trees could talk.’

      Mr Muirhead, having finished his meal and said a second grace, was picking his teeth in great good-humour.

      ‘Hoot toots, Mr James, you’ll give our young brother a scunner of the place, to which it has pleased the Almighty to call him, before he has had a look at it himself. I’m not denying that the Wood is ower near Woodilee. It’s a wanchancy thing for any parochine to have a muckle black forest flung around it like a maud. And no doubt the Devil walks about like a roaring lion in Woodilee as in other bits. But there’s men of God here to resist him. I tell you, sirs, there have been more delations to the Presbytery for the sin of witchcraft in Woodilee than in any other parish on the water of Aller.’

      ‘And what does that prove, Mr Mungo?’

      ‘That there’s wealth of prayerful and eident folk to confound the Adversary. This is no season to despair of Kirk and Covenant, when this day they hold the crown of the causeway. You’ll no have heard of the astonishing mercy vouchsafed to us in England? A post came to Kirk Aller yestreen, and it seems that three weeks syne there was a great battle beside the city