The Catechist

Scenes on the Coasts of Sutherland and Ross

Inverness Courier 27 January 1841 Part D

 “The breeze bore us merrily along over the broken water on the bar: but Helmsdale had not been left half a mile behind, when the heavy sails flapped against the mast, the boat gradually lost way, and we were left, rising and falling upon the long smooth swell that rolled in from the offing". 

"Suddenly an old man, whose patriarchal appearance we had already noted, stood up in the boat, and reverently doffing his broad bonnet, motioned his arm for silence; all were hushed, and the plunge of the boat,  as she descended into the trough of the sea, the occasional rattle of the blocks against the mast, and the cheeping of the rudder as it swayed backwards and forwards with the roll, were the only sounds that broke the silence. Stretching forth his arms over the expectant group which surrounded him, the old man, in a low and choked voice, solemnly began a Gaelic prayer. He was, we understand, the catechist of the remote moorland parish from whence the emigrants were proceeding”.

The Crofter’s Grace by Raphael Tuck

 

“He was an old and feeble man, and although there were many around him whose embrowned rigid features, and even grey grizzled looks, gave evidence of many summers of toil and hardship, he might have had watched over their whole career. Many an eye was now turned upon him with deep feelings of reverence and love. He had been the personal and the tried friend of the little group around him:” 

 A minister of the Free Church of Scotland preaching the Gospel in a boat.

“He had been a visitant at their homes; he had taught their children; he had long held converse with themselves:  and had led their prayers in the kirk and by their own firesides: and now he was to come to bless them altogether for the last time and to pray that they migh’ know as happy days in the far land whither they were going as they had enjoyed in their peaceful native glen”.

"His language we did not understand, but he seemed to wax fervent and eloquent; while the convulsive twitches, which, ever and anon, passed over the faces of the seemingly iron-featured men around him told how deeply his words ere sinking into their hearts; while the women gazed wistfully into his face, and then at the hills on shore, and wept in silence. At length the prayer was ended. A light whale boat, which lay dancing like a duck over the long unbroken ridges of heaving water, pulled close alongside: the old man was placed on board her, and she shot rapidly away to the shore” 

Through Wind and Rain William McTaggart 1875

 

To be continued…