O Caledonia

“Do as you would be done by” went the credo, and it meant “Ask for nothing and you will be given nothing and no one will ask you for anything either.” On Sundays those of the devout who had transport joined the small congregation in the village church and there Mr. McConochie the minister addressed them on the wrath of God. “Be ye ashamed,” he thundered, leaning forth from the pulpit propped on his arms like Mr. Punch, “for ye were born in sin.” Forgiveness there might be in the next world, but not in this, and there would be the Day of Judgement and the separation of sheep from goats to get through first. “And ye’ll no pull the wool over God’s eyes.” The damned sat bleakly upright on the hard bare pews, unflinchingly accepting his verdicts. There was no colour in that church, no flowers, no stained glass, only plain white walls and small windows into the shifting clouds. It was a far cry from Grandpa’s church, where high cheekboned knights of Christendom leant on their swords in noble contemplation and the damsels they had rescued rolled ecstatic eyes heavenwards and the waning sealight beyond them changed violet to mauve, azure to viridian, while the air was sweet with lilies and roses and Grandpa spoke of love and peace and rejoicing. However, this hill church suited Nanny, whose hat, Janet noticed, bristled with more hatpins than any other of the fierce felt hats in the assembly. Every Sunday, Hector would drive them down, explaining how much he wished he could join them and then, regardless of the weather, they would walk back.

The joy of release from Mr. McConochie’s angry glare and booming voice made all consideration of climate irrelevant. Janet and Rhona frisked ahead, Rhona skipping, Janet pretending to be a horse, cantering and bucking, while Francis, Nanny’s favourite, walked beside her carrying their hymn books and regaling her with imitations of the cooking and cleaning staff at Auchnasaugh. Up the windswept road they went, through bare moorland where sheep rose suddenly from the heather and scudded off and only a few stunted rowan trees clung to the steep slope. The mist left cobwebs clinging moist and delicate on the heather, and strands of wool flickered about the thistles. If they looked back they could see the village, unfriendly with its low grey houses, one shop, the church, and the Thistle Inn, packed in a graceless huddle down the hill; beyond it the land rose again in barren pastures outlined by drystone walls, until pasture gave way to empty moors. But for Janet it was the view ahead which held all the enchantment she had ever yearned for; in the distance the hills lapped against each other to the far limits of the visible world; nearer the great forest climbed to meet the moor, ancient rust-trunked pine and delicate silver birch, swaying and tossing over grass so green and fine that only harebell and wood anemone could grow there without seeming crude, even blasphemous.