you, Steve?'
'No I don't. To be honest with you I figure a country soul is as good as a city soul any day. Let's go save some.'
'But Steve, those poor city folks… OK so they called us Jesus freaks… but we haven't hardly started…'
'Those city folks just hated our guts as soon as they saw us. A soul is a soul, Beth. Now maybe we got a real chance to save some, thanks to our friends here.'
'Steve's right, Beth,' added Delia. 'Our people may be a bunch of heathens, but they'll hear you out, that I promise you. But we'd like to take you home with us tomorrow – quite early.'
Beth managed a wan smile at them both. Then suddenly her usual ebullience reasserted itself.
'OK, OK!' she cried. 'I'm being obsessive. You guys are so kind.'
And suddenly she was hugging a rather startled Delia and giving a pleased and relieved Steve a kiss.
Introducing Sulis
THEIR DEPARTURE FROM Glasgow next morning was, as a result of their hosts' anxiety to get home as soon as possible, rather hectic. Beth was starting to see the virtue in the small amount of luggage she had been allowed. They took a limo to the airport to say goodbye to the Redeemers Choir, who were heading off to Austria to give another concert, this time with the Vienna Boys' Choir.
At the airport, the Morrisons' Rolls Royce awaited them. While Lachlan was showing Beth a review of the concert in the Scotsman newspaper and Delia was supervising Beame in the stowing away of the luggage, Steve found himself examining the car. He had assumed it was a Rolls Royce, but the silvery lady on the radiator looked wrong. There were enough Rolls Royces around Dallas for him to be familiar with the classic radiator and the winged lady leaning forever into the wind. This lady seemed to be rising from a silver stream. Lachlan noticed him examining the little effigy and smiled.
'You're very observant, Steve,' he said.
Beame came forward to elaborate.
'Normally, sir, that figure would be the Spirit of Ecstasy,' he said. 'That's what the Rolls Royce people like to call her. But this here is our Goddess Sulis. The Laird,' he nodded towards Lachlan, 'had her made special.'
'Sulis is our Celtic name for her,' added Lachlan. 'The Romans, when they were here, called her Minerva. She doesn't suffer fools gladly. Among her many roles, she is the goddess of the bright, intelligent people we like to think we are.'
The car threaded its way through the city of Glasgow before entering rich farmland as they headed south east.
For Beth, the rolling hills and woodlands of Scotland on that sunny day were like a fairyland revealed. It was the kind of landscape the Disney people had used in heart-warming movies with the likes of Julie Andrews singing her great British heart out. Little sheep dotted around small fields on either side of the narrow, hedge-lined roads on which undersized cars sped along as if racing against the clock. The greenness of everything was broken only by brilliant white clumps of early May blossom.
The air was so clear after the showers of the previous night that as every prospect revealed itself, it was like the Lord had suddenly given Beth the power to see all the way to what her camera's guide called infinity. Whatever that turned out to be. Of course Beth knew it was just a camera term, but she liked to think it was somewhere like the end of the Yellow Brick Road. And if, come to think of it, Lachlan and Beame were almost as weird as the Lion and the Tin Man, they certainly seemed just as friendly. While Delia, who sometimes looked as if she could play the Wicked Witch of the West quite convincingly, nevertheless smiled and smiled and smiled as if she knew the best joke in the world but wasn't telling.
They talked first about the concert and Beth's voice. Lachlan wanted to know how she had trained it and why she had chosen to change the way she used her voice so radically. Beth explained how it had dawned on her only slowly how much bigger her voice was than the tasks it
'No I don't. To be honest with you I figure a country soul is as good as a city soul any day. Let's go save some.'
'But Steve, those poor city folks… OK so they called us Jesus freaks… but we haven't hardly started…'
'Those city folks just hated our guts as soon as they saw us. A soul is a soul, Beth. Now maybe we got a real chance to save some, thanks to our friends here.'
'Steve's right, Beth,' added Delia. 'Our people may be a bunch of heathens, but they'll hear you out, that I promise you. But we'd like to take you home with us tomorrow – quite early.'
Beth managed a wan smile at them both. Then suddenly her usual ebullience reasserted itself.
'OK, OK!' she cried. 'I'm being obsessive. You guys are so kind.'
And suddenly she was hugging a rather startled Delia and giving a pleased and relieved Steve a kiss.
Introducing Sulis
THEIR DEPARTURE FROM Glasgow next morning was, as a result of their hosts' anxiety to get home as soon as possible, rather hectic. Beth was starting to see the virtue in the small amount of luggage she had been allowed. They took a limo to the airport to say goodbye to the Redeemers Choir, who were heading off to Austria to give another concert, this time with the Vienna Boys' Choir.
At the airport, the Morrisons' Rolls Royce awaited them. While Lachlan was showing Beth a review of the concert in the Scotsman newspaper and Delia was supervising Beame in the stowing away of the luggage, Steve found himself examining the car. He had assumed it was a Rolls Royce, but the silvery lady on the radiator looked wrong. There were enough Rolls Royces around Dallas for him to be familiar with the classic radiator and the winged lady leaning forever into the wind. This lady seemed to be rising from a silver stream. Lachlan noticed him examining the little effigy and smiled.
'You're very observant, Steve,' he said.
Beame came forward to elaborate.
'Normally, sir, that figure would be the Spirit of Ecstasy,' he said. 'That's what the Rolls Royce people like to call her. But this here is our Goddess Sulis. The Laird,' he nodded towards Lachlan, 'had her made special.'
'Sulis is our Celtic name for her,' added Lachlan. 'The Romans, when they were here, called her Minerva. She doesn't suffer fools gladly. Among her many roles, she is the goddess of the bright, intelligent people we like to think we are.'
The car threaded its way through the city of Glasgow before entering rich farmland as they headed south east.
For Beth, the rolling hills and woodlands of Scotland on that sunny day were like a fairyland revealed. It was the kind of landscape the Disney people had used in heart-warming movies with the likes of Julie Andrews singing her great British heart out. Little sheep dotted around small fields on either side of the narrow, hedge-lined roads on which undersized cars sped along as if racing against the clock. The greenness of everything was broken only by brilliant white clumps of early May blossom.
The air was so clear after the showers of the previous night that as every prospect revealed itself, it was like the Lord had suddenly given Beth the power to see all the way to what her camera's guide called infinity. Whatever that turned out to be. Of course Beth knew it was just a camera term, but she liked to think it was somewhere like the end of the Yellow Brick Road. And if, come to think of it, Lachlan and Beame were almost as weird as the Lion and the Tin Man, they certainly seemed just as friendly. While Delia, who sometimes looked as if she could play the Wicked Witch of the West quite convincingly, nevertheless smiled and smiled and smiled as if she knew the best joke in the world but wasn't telling.
They talked first about the concert and Beth's voice. Lachlan wanted to know how she had trained it and why she had chosen to change the way she used her voice so radically. Beth explained how it had dawned on her only slowly how much bigger her voice was than the tasks it
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