God's Highlander by E. V. Thompson

Coll Kennedy was the first to speak.
    â€˜It’s a good shepherd who can return such long-lost sheep to the fold, brethren. We came to Eskaig to induct a new minister. Shall we go inside and perform our duty?’

    Avoiding looking at the Eskaig elders, the ministers of the presbytery filed inside the small church, followed by a congregation large enough to occupy a full half of the pews. Soon only Wyatt and the elders remained outside the church, Angus Cameron standing apart from the others, an ageing and disconsolate figure.
    Acting on a sudden impulse, Wyatt crossed to the senior Eskaig elder. ‘I don’t expect you to sign the call for me, Mr Cameron, but won’t you at least come inside for the service? You’re an elder. It’s your church….’
    â€˜Yes, I’m still an elder and I’ve supported the Church in Eskaig all my life….’ There was deep bitterness in Angus Cameron’s voice. ‘I never thought I’d live to see the day when papists and unbelievers would be welcomed into the kirk where I was baptised and married, and where I expected to have a prayer said for me when I died. I’ll not set foot inside this kirk again until Eskaig has a minister who’s been called by the elders – his call witnessed by decent God-fearing folk.’
    Angus Cameron had suffered an unexpected and humiliating defeat, but when he turned his back on the small grey-stone church and walked away he maintained a fragile dignity.
    All except two of the elders followed Angus Cameron, and those who stayed seemed uncertain of what to do. Then, with glances directed at the ground beneath their feet, they walked past Wyatt and into the church. With one last regretful glance after Angus Cameron and his companions, Wyatt followed, to accept his call as minister of Eskaig.

Eight
    O VER THE NEXT few weeks Wyatt steadily consolidated his position as Eskaig’s pastor. Cottars still came down from the surrounding hills to attend Sunday services in the lochside church, but their numbers were not as great as they had been for Wyatt’s induction day. He knew, too, that when winter weather closed in on the Highlands they would remain in their cottages, cut off from the outside world. But now the villagers from Eskaig were beginning to return to their church. On Sundays when Wyatt stood in his pulpit and looked down at the upturned faces of his congregation he was able to count all but two of the Eskaig elders in the congregation.
    Wyatt had won his unsought battle with Angus Cameron, but the absence from church of the most senior of the Eskaig elders gave him no pleasure. However, Wyatt had little time to fret about the stubborn Angus Cameron. There were many other matters to claim his attention. The boundaries of Wyatt’s parish were no more than lines drawn with a pen on a far from accurate map in the offices of the Moderator of the Church of Scotland. In secret glens among the mountains, far from roads and tracks, were men and women who had never been visited by a minister and children who had never seen the inside of a church. It was a situation Wyatt was determined to rectify. His was a Highland parish, peopled by a hardy and independent people. Wyatt was determined that God would be as proud of them as he was.
    There was also work of a more mundane nature to be undertaken. Preacher Gunn had been a weary and dispirited old man for the last few years of his life, and the garden of the manse had been sadly neglected. Wyatt set out to restore it to some form of order.
    One warm evening he was clearing brambles from what he intended
would one day be a vegetable patch. It was hot work, and Wyatt was working stripped to shirt and trousers.
    Suddenly, Wyatt heard a shout. Looking up from his work, he wiped perspiration from his eyes and saw young Ewan Munro running towards him along the loch-side track. The speed with which the boy moved was proof that his leg had healed well.