BULLER
I did not know the Bird was so timid —
NORTH
He is not timid – he is bold; but an Eagle does not like to come all at once within ten yards of an unexpected man – any more than you would like suddenly to face a ghost.
BULLER
What brought him there?
NORTH
Wings nine feet wide.
BULLER
Has he no sense of smell?
NORTH
What do you mean, sir?
BULLER
No offence.
NORTH
He has. But we have not always all our senses about us, Buller, nor our wits either – he had been somewhat scared, a league up Glen Etive, by the Huntsman of Gleno – the scent of powder was in his nostrils; but fury follows fear, and in a minute I heard his bark again – as now I hear it – on the highway to Benlura.
BULLER
He must have had enormous talons.
NORTH
My hand is none of the smallest —
BULLER
God bless you, my dear sir, – give me a grasp.
NORTH
There.
BULLER
Oh! thumbikins!
NORTH
And one of his son's talons – whom I shot – was twice the length of mine; his yellow knobby loof at least as broad – and his leg like my wrist. He killed a man. Knocked him down a precipice, like a cannon-ball. He had the credit of it all over the country – but I believe his wife did the business, for she was half-again as big as himself; and no devil like a she-devil fighting for her imp.
BULLER
Did you ever rob an Eyrie, sir?
NORTH
Did you over rob a Lion's den? No, no, Buller. I never – except on duty – placed my life in danger. I have been in many dangerous-looking places among the Mountains, but a cautious activity ruled all my movements – I scanned my cliff before I scaled him – and as for jumping chasms – though I had a spring in me – I looked imaginatively down the abyss, and then sensibly turned its flank where it leaned on the greensward, and the liberated streamlet might be forded, without swimming, by the silly sheep.
BULLER
And are all those stories lies?
NORTH
All. I have sometimes swam a loch or a river in my clothes – but never except when they lay in my way, or when I was on an angling excursion – and what danger could there possibly be in doing that?
BULLER
You might have taken the Cramp, Sir.
NORTH
And the Cramp might have taken me – but neither of us ever did – and a man, with a short neck or a long one, might as well shun the streets in perpetual fear of apoplexy, as a good swimmer evade water in dread of being drowned. As for swimming in my clothes – had I left them on the hither, how should I have looked on the thither side?
BULLER
No man, in such circumstances, could, with any satisfaction to himself, have pursued his journey, even through the most lonesome places.
BULLER
Describe the view from the summit.
NORTH
I have no descriptive power – but, even though I had, I know better than that. Why, between Cruachan and Buchail-Etive lie hundreds on hundreds of mountains of the first, second, and third order – and, for a while at first, your eyes are so bewildered that you cannot see any one in particular; yet, in your astonishment, have a strange vision of them all – and might think they were interchanging places, shouldering one another off into altering shapes in the uncertain region, did not the awful stillness assure you that there they had all stood in their places since the Creation, and would stand till the day of doom.
BULLER
You have no descriptive power!
NORTH
All at once dominion is given you over the Whole. You gradually see Order in what seemed a Chaos – you understand the character of the Region – its Formation – for you are a Geologist, else you have no business – no right there; and you know where the valleys are singing for joy, though you hear them not – where there is provision for the cattle on a hundred hills – where are the cottages of Christian men on the green braes sheltered by the mountains – and where may stand, beneath the granite rocks out of which it was built, the not unfrequent House of God.
BULLER
To-morrow we shall attend Divine Service —
NORTH
At Dalmally.
BULLER
I long ago learned to like the ritual of the Kirk. I should like to believe in a high-minded purified Calvinist, who could embrace, in his brotherly heart, a high-minded purified English Bishop, with all his Episcopacy.
NORTH
And why should he not, if he can recognise the Divine Spirit flowing through the two sets of sensible demonstrations? He can; unless the constitution of the Anglican Christian Religion wars, either by its dogmas or by its ecclesiastical ordinances, against his essential intelligence of Christianity.
BULLER
And who shall say it does?
NORTH
Many say it – not I.
BULLER
And you are wise and good.
NORTH
Many thousands – and hundreds of thousands, wiser and better. I can easily suppose a Mind – strong in thought, warm in feeling, of an imagination susceptible and creative – by magnanimity, study, and experience of the world, disengaged from all sectarian tenets – yet holding the absolute conviction of religion – and contemplating, with reverence and tenderness, many different ways of expression which this inmost spiritual disposition has produced or put on – having a firmest holding on to Christianity as pure, holy, august, divine, true, beyond all other modes of religion upon the Earth – partly from intuition of its essential fitness to our nature – partly from intense gratitude – partly, perhaps, from the original entwining of it with his own faculties, thoughts, feelings, history, being. Well, he looks with affectionate admiration upon the Scottish, with affectionate admiration on the English Church – old affection agreeing with new affection – and I can imagine in him as much generosity required to love his own Church – the Presbyterian – as yours the Episcopalian – and that, Latitudinarian as he may be called, he loves them both. For myself, you know how I love England – all that belongs to her – all that makes her what she is – scarcely more – surely not less – Scotland. The ground of the Scottish Form is the overbearing consciousness, that religion is immediately between man and his Maker. All hallowing of things outward is to that consciousness a placing of such earthly things as interpositions and separating intermediates in that interval unavoidable between the Finite and the Infinite, but which should remain blank and clear for the immediate communications of the Worshipper and the Worshipped.
BULLER
I believe, sir, you are a Presbyterian?
NORTH
He that worships in spirit and in truth cannot endure – cannot imagine, that anything but his own sin shall stand betwixt him and God.
BULLER
That, until it be in some way or another extinguished, shall and must.
NORTH
True as Holy Writ. But intervening saints, images, and elaborate rituals – the contrivance of human wit – all these the fire of the Spirit has consumed, and consumes.
BULLER
The fire of the Presbyterian spirit?
NORTH
Add history. War and persecution have afforded an element of human hate for strengthening the sternness —
BULLER
Of Presbyterian Scotland.
NORTH
Drop that word – for I more than doubt if you understand it.
BULLER
I beg pardon, sir.
NORTH
The Scottish service, Mr Buller, comprehends Prayer, Praise, Doctrine – all three necessary verbal acts amongst Christians met, but each in utmost simplicity.
BULLER
Episcopalian as I am, that simplicity I have felt to be most affecting.
NORTH
The Praise, which unites the voices of the congregation, must be written. The Prayer, which is the burning towards God of the soul of the Shepherd upon the behalf of the Flock, and upon his own, must be unwritten – unpremeditated – else it is not Prayer. Can the heart ever want fitting words? The Teaching must be to the utmost, forethought, at some time or at another, as to the Matter. The Teacher must have secured his intelligence of the Matter ere he opens his mouth. But the Form, which is of expediency only, he may very loosely have considered. That is the Theory.
BULLER
Often liable in practice, I should fear, to sad abuse.
NORTH
May be so. But it presumes that capable men, full of zeal, and sincerity, and love – fervent servants and careful shepherds – have been chosen, under higher guidance. It supposes the holy fire of the new-born Reformation – of the newly-regenerated Church —
BULLER
Kirk.
NORTH
Of the newly-regenerated Church, to continue undamped, inextinguishable.
BULLER
And is it so?
NORTH
The Fact answers to the Theory more or less. The original Thought – simplicity of worship – is to the utmost expressed, when the chased Covenanters are met on the greensward, between the hillside and the brawling brook, under the coloured or uncoloured sky. Understand that, when their descendants meet within walls and beneath roofs, they would worship after the manner of their hunted ancestors.
BULLER
I wish I were better read than I am, in the history of Scotland, civil and ecclesiastical.
NORTH
I wish you were. I say, then, my excellent friend, that the Ritual and whole Ordering of the Scottish Church is moulded upon, or issues out of, the human spirit kindling in conscious communication of the Divine Spirit. The power of the Infinite – that is, the Sense of Infinitude, of Eternity – reigns there; and the Sense in the inmost soul of the sustaining contact with Omnipotence, and self-consciousness intense, and elation of Divine favour personally vouchsafed, and joy of anticipated everlasting bliss, and triumph over Satan, death, and hell, and immeasurable desire to win souls to the King of the Worlds.
BULLER
In England we are, I am ashamed to say it, ill informed on —
NORTH
In Scotland we are, I am ashamed to say it, ill informed on —
BULLER
But go on, sir.
NORTH
What place is there for Forms of any kind in the presence of these immense overpowering Realities? For Forms, Buller, are of the Imagination; the Faculty that inhales and lives by the Unreal. But some concession to the humanity of our nature intrudes. Imagination may be subordinated, subjugated, but will not, may not, forego all its rights. Therefore, Forms and hallowing associations enter.
BULLER
Into all Worship.
NORTH
Form, too, is, in part, Necessary Order.
BULLER
Perhaps, sir, you may be not unwilling to say a few words of our Ritual.
NORTH
I tremble to speak of your Ritual; for it appears to me as bearing on its front an excellence which might be found incompatible with religious truth and sincerity.
BULLER
I confess that I hardly understand you, sir.
NORTH
The Liturgy looks to be that which the old Churches are, the Work of a Fine Art.
BULLER
You do not urge that as an objection to it, I trust, sir?
NORTH
A Poetical sensibility, a wakeful, just, delicate, simple Taste, seems to have ruled over the composition of each Prayer, and the ordering of the whole Service.
BULLER
You do not urge that as an objection to it, I trust, sir?
NORTH
I am not urging objections, sir. I seldom – never, indeed – urge objections to anything. I desire only to place all things in their true light.
BULLER
Don't frown, sir – smile. Enough.
NORTH
The whole composition of the Service is copious and various. Human Supplication, the lifting up of the hands of the creature knowing his own weakness, dependence, lapses, and liability to slip – man's own part, dictated by his own experience of himself, is the basis. Readings from the Old and New Volume of the Written Word are ingrafted, as if God audibly spoke in his own House; the Authoritative added to the Supplicatory.
BULLER
Finely true. We Church of England men love you, Mr North – we do indeed.
NORTH
The hymns of the sweet Singer of Israel, in literal translation, adopted as a holier inspired language of the heart.
BULLER
These, sir, are surely three powerful elements of a Ritual Service.
NORTH
Throughout, the People divide, the service with the Minister. They have in it their own personal function.
BULLER
Then the Homily, sir.
NORTH
Ay, the Homily, which, one might say, interprets between Sunday and the Week – fixes the holiness of the Day in precepts, doctrines, reflections, which may be carried home to guide and nourish.
BULLER
Altogether, sir, it seems a meet work of worshippers met in their Christian Land, upon the day of rest and aspiration. The Scottish worship might seem to remember the flame and the sword. The persecuted Iconoclasts of two centuries ago, live in their descendants.
NORTH
But the Ritual of England breathes a divine calm. You think of the People walking through ripening fields on a mild day to their Church door. It is the work of a nation sitting in peace, possessing their land. It is the work of a wealthy nation, that, by dedicating a part of its wealth, consecrates the remainder – that acknowledges the Fountain from which all flows. The prayers are devout, humble, fervent. They are not impassioned. A wonderful temperance and sobriety of discretion; that which, in worldly things, would be called good sense, prevails in them; but you must name it better in things spiritual. The framers evidently bore in mind the continual consciousness of writing for ALL. That is the guiding, tempering, calming spirit that keeps in the Whole one tone – that, and the hallowing, chastening awe which subdues vehemence, even in the asking for the Infinite, by those who have nothing but that which they earnestly ask, and who know that unless they ask infinitely, they ask nothing. In every word, the whole Congregation, the whole Nation prays – not the Individual Minister; the officiating Divine Functionary, not the Man. Nor must it be forgotten that the received Version and the Book of Common Prayer – observe the word Common, expressing exactly what I affirm – are beautiful by the words – that there is no other such English – simple, touching, apt, venerable – hued as the thoughts are – musical – the most English English that is known – of a Hebraic strength and antiquity, yet lucid and gracious as if of and for to-day.
BULLER
I trust that many Presbyterians sympathise with you in these sentiments.
NORTH
Not many – few. Nor do I say I wish they were more.
BULLER
Are you serious, sir?
NORTH
I am. But cannot explain myself now. What are the Three Pillars of the Love of any Church? Innate Religion – Humanity – Imagination. The Scottish worship better satisfies the first Principle – that of England the last; the Roman Catholic still more the last – and are not your Cathedrals Roman Catholic? I think that the Scottish and English, better than the Roman Catholic, satisfy the Middle Principle – Humanity, being truer to the highest requisitions of our Nature, and nourish our faculties better, both of Will and Understanding, into their strength and beauty. Yet what divine-minded Roman Catholics there have been – and are – and will be!
BULLER
Pause for a moment, sir, – here comes Seward.
NORTH
Seward! Is he not with us? Surely he was, all hour or two ago – but I never missed him – your conversation has been so interesting and instructive. Seward! why you are all the world like a drowned rat?
SEWARD
Rat I am none – but a stanch Conservative. Would I had had a Protectionist with me to keep me right on the Navigation Laws.
NORTH
What do you mean? What's the matter?
SEWARD
Why, your description of the Pools in Cladich-Cleugh inspired me with a passion for one of the Naïads.
NORTH
And you have had a ducking!
SEWARD
I have indeed. Plashed souse, head over heels, into one of the prettiest pools, from a slippery ledge some dozen feet above the sleeping beauty – were you both deaf that you did not hear me bawl?
NORTH
I have a faint recollection of hearing something bray, but I suppose I thought it came from the Gipsies' Camp.
BULLER
Are you wet?
SEWARD
Come – come – Buller.
BULLER
Why so dry?
NORTH
Sair drooket.
BULLER
Where's your Tile?
SEWARD
I hate slang.
BULLER
Why, you have lost a shoe – and much delightful conversation.
NORTH
I must say, Seward, that I was hurt by your withdrawing yourself from our Colloquy.
SEWARD
Sir, you were beginning to get so prosy —
BULLER
I insist, Seward, on your making an apology on your knees to our Father for your shocking impiety – I shudder to repeat the word – which you must swallow – P – R – O – S – Y!
SEWARD
On my knees! Look at them.
NORTH
My dear, dearer, dearest Mr Seward – you are bleeding – I fear a fracture. Let me —
SEWARD
I am not bleeding – only a knap on the knee-pan, sir.
BULLER
Not bleeding! Why you must be drenched in blood, your face is so white.
NORTH
A non sequitur, Buller. But from a knap on the knee-pan I have known a man a lamiter for life.
SEWARD
I lament the loss of my Sketch-Book.
BULLER
It is a judgment on you for that Caricature.
NORTH
What caricature?
BULLER
Since you will force me to tell it, a caricature of – Yourself, sir. I saw him working away at it with a most wicked leer on his face, while you supposed he was taking notes. He held it up to me for a moment – clapped the boards together with the grin of a fiend – and then off to Cladick-Cloock – where he met with Nemesis.
NORTH
Is that a true bill, Mr Seward?
SEWARD
On my honour as a gentleman, and my skill as an artist, it is not. It is a most malignant misrepresentation —
BULLER
It was indeed.
SEWARD
It was no caricature. I promised to Mrs Seward to send her a sketch of the illustrious Mr North; and finding you in one of the happiest of your many-sided attitudes —
NORTH
The act is to be judged by the intention. You are acquitted of the charge.
BULLER
To make a caricature of You, sir, under any circumstances, and for any purpose, would be sufficiently shocking; but HERE AND NOW, and that he might send it to his Wife – so transcends all previous perpetration of crimen læsæ majestatis, that I am beginning to be incredulous of what these eyes beheld – nay, to disbelieve what, if told to any human being, however depraved, would seem to him impossible, even in the mystery of iniquity, and an insane libel on our fallen nature.
SEWARD
I did my best. Nor am I, sir, without hope that my Sketch-Book may be recovered, and then you will judge for yourself, sir, if it be a caricature. A failure, sir, it assuredly was, for what artist has succeeded with YOU?
NORTH
To the Inn, and put on dry clothes.
SEWARD
No. What care I about dry or wet clothes! Here let me lie down and bask in this patch of intenser sunshine at your feet. Don't stir, sir; the Crutch is not the least in the way.
NORTH
We must be all up and doing – the Hour and the Men. The Cavalcade. Hush! Hark! the Bagpipe! The Cavalcade can't be more than a mile off.
SEWARD
Why staring thus like a Goshawk, sir?
BULLER
I hear nothing. Seward, do you?
SEWARD
Nothing. And what can he mean by Cavalcade? Yet I believe he has the Second Sight. I have heard it is in the Family.
NORTH
Hear nothing? Then both of you must be deaf. But I forget – we Mountaineers are Fine-Ears – your sense of hearing has been educated on the Flat. Not now? "The Campbells are coming," – that's the march – that's the go – that's the gathering.
BULLER
A Horn – a Drum, sure enough – and – and – that incomprehensible mixture of groans and yells must be the Bagpipe.
NORTH
See yonder they come, over the hill-top – the ninth mile-stone from Inverary! There's the Van, by the Road-Surveyor lent me for the occasion, drawn by Four Horses. And there's the Waggon, once the property of the lessee of the Swiss Giantess, a noble Unicorn. And there the Six Tent-Carts, Two-steeded; and there the Two Boat-Carriages – horsed I know not how. But don't ye see the bonny Barges aloft in the air? And Men on horseback – count them – there should be Four. You hear the Bagpipe now – surely – "The Campbells are coming." And here is the whole Concern, gentlemen, close at hand, deploying across the Bridge.
BULLER
Has he lost his senses at last?
SEWARD
Have we lost ours? A Cavalcade it is, with a vengeance.
NORTH
One minute past Seven! True to their time within sixty seconds. This way, this way. Here is the Spot, the Centre of the Grove. Bagpipe – Drum and Horn – music all – silence. Silence, I cry, will nobody assist me in crying silence?
SEWARD AND BULLER
Silence – silence – silence.
NORTH
Give me the Speaking-Trumpet that I may call Silence.
SEWARD
Stentor may put down the Drum, the Horns, the Fifes, and the Serpent, but the Bagpipe is above him – the Drone is deaf as the sea – the Piper moves in a sphere of his own —
BULLER
I don't hear a syllable you are saying – ah! the storm is dead, and now what a BLESSED CALM.
NORTH
Wheel into line – Prepare to —
Pitch Tents.
Enter the Field of the Sycamore Grove on Horseback – ushered by Archy M'Callum– Harry Seward – Marmaduke Buller – Vallance Volusene – Nepos Woodburn. Van, Waggon, Carriages, and Carts, &c., form a Barricade between the Rear of the Grove and the road to Dalmally.
Adjutant Archy M'Callum! call the Roll of the Troops.
ADJUTANT
Peter of the Lodge, Sewer and Seneschal —Here. Peterson ditto, Comptroller of the Cellars —Here. Kit Peterson, Tiger there —Here. Michael Dods, Cook at that Place —Here. Ben Brawn, Manciple —Here. Roderick M'Crimmon, King of the Pipes —Here. Pym and Stretch, Body-men to the young Englishers —Here, Here. Tom Moody, Huntsman at Under-cliff Hall, North Devon —Here. The Cornwall Clipper, Head Game-keeper at Pendragon —Here. Billy Balmer of Bowness, Windermere, Commodore —Here.
NORTH
Attention! Each man will be held answerable for his subordinates. The roll will be called an hour after sunrise, and an hour before sunset. Men, remember you are under martial law. Camp-master M'Kellar —Here. Let the Mid Peak of Cruachan be your pitching point. Old Dee-side Tent in the centre, right in Front. Dormitories to the east. To the west the Pavilion. Kitchen Range in the Rear. Donald Dhu, late Sergeant in the Black Watch, see to the Barricade. The Impedimenta in your charge. In three hours I command the Encampment to be complete. Admittance to the Field on the Queen's Birth-day. Crowd! disperse. Old Boys! What do you think of this? You have often called me a Wizard – a Warlock – no glamour here – 'tis real all – and all the Work of the Crutch. Sons – your Fathers! Fathers – your Sons. Your hand, Volusene – and, Woodburn, yours.
SEWARD
Hal, how are you?
BULLER
How are you, Marmy?
NORTH
On the Stage – in the Theatre of Fictitious Life – such a Meeting as this would require explanation – but in the Drama of Real Life, on the Banks of Lochawe, it needs none. Friends of my soul! you will come to understand it all in two minutes' talk with your Progeny. Progeny – welcome for your Sires' sakes – and your Lady Mothers' – and your own – to Lochawe-side. I see you are two Trumps. Volusene – Woodburn – from your faces all well at home. Come, my two old Bucks – let us Three, to be out of the bustle, retire to the Inn. Did you ever see Christopher fling the Crutch? There – I knew it would clear the Sycamore Grove.