Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

192 ST. KILbA.
could scarcely be concealed in the very limited number
ofpockethandkerchiefs which the island contained. But
that it was nevertheless a fact, nobody doubted. Every
body had witnessed it, from Martin to Macaulay ; every
body believed it, from Macaulay to the present day, the
whole island was agreed upon it, and who then dared to
doubt. If testimony could prove any thing, here was
surely sufficient warranty for this catch cold ;
that pecu-
liarly British disease which keeps one half the nation in
continual sniffling and the other in continual apprehen-
sion; which supplies the conversation that, when it has
exhausted all the " skyey influences," is so apt to lan-
guish for want of fuel. But human testimony is a
strange thing ; I thank ^Esculapius that I can never sit
on a jury. Our dragomen put the question to all the in-
habitants individually and collectively: all agreed to
the fact with universal acclamation, and the Minister's
wife repelled the bare notion of a doubt with as much
indignation as she would have done one respecting the
truth of the Shorter Catechism. Every body believed
it, every body could swear to it. Could instances be
produced :—that was not to be found in the record,
but the fact was unquestionable. If such was the fact,
where was the cold now: every body looked at every
other's nose; but not a drop of dew distilled, and
not a sneeze consented to rouse St. Kilda's echoes.
But what necessary concatenation is there between evi-
dence and belief. All St. Kilda believed in its own be-
lief, and when it ceases to believe, the catch cold will re-
tire to that limbo whither the ghosts have long since fled.
But there are believers of another class, grave and
wise personages who imagine that they have no latent
regard for the occult and the marvellous, who would fain
show cause; whose faith is that of the vulgar, but who
are willing to have it thought that they believe as philo-