I’D THOUGHT THAT most people would have lost their appetite for religion after the first two rounds, and at least half of them did head back to their homes for dinner, still discussing the virtues and defects of the rival liturgies. But a good twenty people—not counting our family—came back down through the woods in the late afternoon, and—in some cases, visibly girding their loins—prepared to enter the Meeting House once more, clearly wondering what the hell they were about to encounter.
Rachel and Jenny had rearranged the benches so that they stood in a square, facing into the center of the room. In the center was my small instrument table, now holding a jug of water and a tin cup.
Rachel herself stood by the door to welcome people, with Jenny and Ian at her elbows.
“I bid thee welcome, Friend McHugh, and thy family with thee,” she said to Sean McHugh. “It is our custom that women sit on one side of the room and men the other.” She smiled at Mairi McHugh. “So as thee is the first woman, thee may take thy choice.”
“Oh. Well, then. Er … thank thee? Is that right?” she whispered to her husband.
“How would I know?” he asked reasonably. “Do we say ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ when we’re here?” he asked Rachel, who, with a straight face, told them that they needn’t use Plain Speech unless the spirit moved them to do so, but that no one would laugh if they did.
I heard a murmur of relief from the people behind me, and a slight relaxation as the very large McHugh boys passed gingerly through the door, one at a time.
Jamie and I waited until everyone went in.
“Ye’ll do fine, lass,” Jamie said to Rachel, patting her shoulder as he turned to go in.
“Oh, I don’t mean to do anything,” she assured him. “Unless I am moved by the spirit to speak, in which case, I imagine I’ll say something suitable.”
“That doesna necessarily mean she willna start a stramash,” Ian muttered in my ear. “The spirit tends to be very free wi’ its opinions.”
SUPPER WAS SIMPLE, because there had been no one to stay at home and cook it during the day. I’d made a huge kettle of milky corn chowder in the morning, with onions, bacon, and sliced potatoes to fill it out, and after the usual obsessive checking of hearth and coals had covered the cauldron and left it to simmer, along with a prayer that the house would not burn down in our absence. There was bread from yesterday, and four cold apple pies for pudding, with a little cheese.
“’Snot a pudding,” Mandy had said, frowning when she heard me say that. “Issa pie!”
“True, darling,” I said. “It’s just an English manner of speech, to call all desserts ‘pudding.’”
“Why?”
“Because the English dinna ken any better,” Jamie told her.
“Says the Scot who has ‘creamed crud’ for his dessert,” I replied, making Jem and Mandy roll on the floor with laughter, repeating “creamed crud” to each other whenever they paused for breath.
Germain, who had been eating creamed curd for pudding—and pronouncing it “crud” in the Scottish fashion—since he was born, shook his head at them and sighed in a worldly fashion, glancing at Fanny to share his condescension. Fanny, who had likely not encountered anything beyond bread-and-butter or pie in the dessert line, looked confused.
“Regardless,” I said, ladling chowder into bowls. “Get the bread, will you please, Jem? Regardless,” I repeated, “it’s good to be able to sit down to supper, isn’t it? It was rather a long day,” I added, smiling at Roger and then at Rachel.
“Thee was wonderful, Roger,” Rachel said, smiling at him. “I hadn’t heard of lined singing before. Had thee, Ian?”
“Oh, aye. There was a wee Presbyterian kirk on Skye that I stopped by wi’ my da once, when I went with him to buy a sheep. There’s nothing else to do on Skye on Sunday,” he explained. “Kirk, I mean, not buying sheep.”
“It seems familiar,” I remarked, shaking a large pat of cold butter out of its mold. “That kind of singing, I mean, not Skye. But I don’t know why it should.”
Roger smiled faintly. He couldn’t talk above a whisper, but happiness glowed in his eyes.
“African slaves,” he said, barely audible. “They do it. Call and response, it’s called sometimes. Did ye maybe … hear them at River Run?”
“Oh. Yes, perhaps,” I said, a little dubiously. “But it seems more … recent?” A lift of one dark eyebrow indicated that he took my meaning as to “recent.”
“Aye.” He took up his beer and took a deep swallow. “Aye. Black singers, then others … took it up. It’s one of”—he glanced at Fanny and then Rachel—“one of the roots you see, in, um, more modern music.”
Rock ’n’ roll, I supposed he meant, or possibly rhythm and blues—I was no kind of a music scholar.
“Speaking of music, Rachel, you have a beautiful voice,” Bree said, leaning across the table to wave a bit of bread under Oggy’s nose.
“I thank thee, Brianna,” Rachel said, and laughed. “So does the dog. She added greatly to our first meeting, though perhaps she gave substance to the argument that singing in meeting is a distraction.” She took the bread and let Oggy squash it in his fist. “I was pleased that so many people chose to share our meeting—though I suppose it was mostly curiosity. Now that they know the terrible truth about Friends, they likely won’t come again.”
“What’s the terrible truth about Friends, Auntie Rachel?” Germain asked, fascinated.
“That we’re boring,” Rachel told him. “Did thee not notice?”
“Well, except for Bluebell, it was kind of boring,” Jem agreed, poking his bowl of chowder in search of crispy bits of bacon. “But not in a bad way,” he added hastily, catching Ian’s eye upon him. “Just—you know—peaceful.” He slurped soup and lowered his head.
“That’s the point, is it not? Have we any pepper?” Jamie had salted his soup and passed the cellar down the table, but the pepper mill had rolled away and fallen to the floor.
“Yes, we have. Oh—Bluebell’s got it. Here, dog …” I bent to reach under the table, where Bluey was sniffing cautiously at the pepper mill. She sneezed explosively, several times, and I came up with the snot-spattered pepper mill, which I gingerly wiped on my apron.
“You want to watch that pepper, dog,” Roger rasped, peering under the table. “Bad for your vocal cords.”
Bluebell uttered an amiable garoo, and wagged her tail in reply. Rachel had assured Fanny that Bluebell—who had been left outside during the morning services to ramble in the woods with other dogs who had accompanied their owners—was welcome to come to meeting, too, a courtesy Bluey had repaid lavishly by joining in enthusiastically on the chorus of the simple hymn Rachel had been moved to sing. She’d told me that meetings generally had no music, owing to a presumption that it would interfere with the spontaneousness of worship—but that it was acceptable for one person to sing, if they felt so moved. It had certainly done as much as the captain’s and Roger’s sermons to lift the spirits of the congregation.