Read Online A Field Full of Folk by Iain Crichton Smith - Free Book Online Page A

engraved in letters of stone. The Jews didn’t have dances and church halls: that race, at the time the Bible was made, belonged after all to a small section of humanity at a certain stage of development but how could he explain that to the villagers? They would think he was a Communist, all of them except Scott. He was no rabbi equipped with principles from which all deductions easily flowed. For him to speak to them on equal terms they would have to read all the theology that he had himself read, to have suffered what he had suffered.
    Of course Murdo was a fundamentalist, as his mother had been. She had even objected when he had given out those little envelopes to put the collection in. They didn’t know what demands were made on him all the time from Edinburgh. Did they think about the boat people, the children with large hollow eyes and shrunken bellies in Cambodia, the ships with their cargoes of death? He blinked and his hand trembled. What had this little squabble to do with anything real? He felt himself falling and rising on a nameless grey sea, landing on a strange shore without a name or documents, the brine on his face and body, the yellow-faced guards waiting with their guns poised to blast himself and his companions out to sea again. Anger rose in him like bile. He felt as if he was going to be sick. He steadied himself and took a deep breath and waited it out.
    â€œThe thing is,” said Scott suavely, “what we have to decide as I see it is, ‘was the Sabbath made for man or man for the Sabbath?’ “ The minister knew what he was getting at but he doubted if the others did.
    Poor Murdo was trying to speak again, his face reddening. The minister could understand his point of view: Murdo didn’t like the lack of conscientiousness to be found among the young, the fact that they wouldn’t take the letters down to the fields rather than hand them over to relatives. But that sort of conscientiousness was surely excessive. He tried to remember what church Murdo’s father had gone to but couldn’t.
    â€œWhat we have to decide,” said Drummond, “is whether they will look after the hall. That in my opinion is a good part of the question.”
    Of course that isn’t the question, thought the minister, regarding Drummond’s burnished face, and silver hair so beautifully waved. That wasn’t a theological question, that was only a question of tidiness. The boy and girl who had come to ask him about the hall had been sensible and polite. One in fact was Macrae’s daughter and the other Charles Gowan, a widow’s son. Their case was quite clear, they felt that they were being deprived of entertainment while the village hall was being repaired.
    â€œI think,” he said, putting down his pencil, “that we should put the issue to a vote.” The vote was always the easy way out. It only confirmed whether a majority was present for a particular point of view, it didn’t guarantee whether that point of view was right.
    â€œWho,” he asked, “wants them to have the hall?”
    As he expected, both Scott and Macrae put their hands up.
    â€œThat leaves it to me,” he said. At that moment he thought it might have been much better if he had twenty-four elders as it stated in Revelations, according to Annie. What would she have decided with the wisdom of the East behind her? He smiled wryly and then said, “My casting vote is against giving it to them.” Drummond gazed at him with approval while the other two said nothing. It amazed him that he should have done what he had done. When he had said that his was the decisive vote he had no idea what he was going to do. The decision had been made for him at a deeper level than he had himself understood, the Covenanters were still hiding in the brakes of his mind, their voices still spoke through him. It was as if without his knowing it there were voices speaking inside him,