Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

ST. IvILUA. • 191
We were prepared to bring away some valuable relics ; the
staves were ready ruled, the dragoman appointed : but
alas, there was neither fiddle nor Jew's harp in the
island, and it was not remembered when there had been
either. The Muses, whom the Abbe Cartaud calls Ju-
piter's Opera Girls, seemed to have carried their functions
to warmer regions. There was a day when he who
had slept on the top of Conochan awoke a poet, as was
equally true of Snowdon in the days of King Blegored,
Hesiod also became one, by eating two of the laurel
leaves that grew on Parnassus : you may trace the de-
scent of the tale if you can. In the meantime the poetry
has followed the music ; and thus common fame main-
tained its well-earned reputation. We enquired for super-
stitions with equal success. Martin and the ghosts had
vanished together. The Cuckoo, who only used to come
to prognosticate the death of Macleod or the Steward,
had fled with his notes to other climes.
It was vexatious to be thus disappointed. I there-
fore watched with great anxiety, to hear and see the
whole island join in one universal and wide chorus of
sneezing. To my infinite grief, no sneezing was heard,
and " none did cry God bless him." But there would be
no merit in believing the evidence of our senses : the per-
fection of faith is to believe against them ; Jerusalem is
in the east though you were at Mecca or Bagdad, and the
Church cannot err. Here my new friends showed that nei-
ther Jansenist nor Mesmerist, Rosweyde, nor Mahomet,
could have produced a morsel too hard for their digestion.
Their stomach of faith is assuredly not less strong than
that stomach of the flesh which enables them to dispose
of so many tons of Solan goose every year. You know
very well, the whole world knows, that whenever a stran-
ger lands in St. Kilda, all the inhabitants " catch a cold ;"
an event which, comprising a hundred and three noses,