"It wass a beautiful night in London, but I will be thinking that
there iss no living person caring whether I die or live, and I wass
considering how I could die, for there iss nothing so hopeless as to
hef no friend in a great city. It iss often that I hef been alone on
the moor, and no man within miles, but I wass never lonely, oh no, I
had plenty of good company. I would sit down beside a burn, and the
trout will swim out from below a stone, and the cattle will come to
drink, and the muirfowl will be crying to each other, and the sheep
will be bleating, oh yes, and there are the bees all round, and a
string of wild ducks above your head. It iss a busy place a moor,
and a safe place too, for there iss not one of the animals will hurt
you. No, the big highlanders will only look at you and go away to
their pasture. But it iss weary to be in London and no one to speak
a kind word to you, and I will be looking at the crowd that iss
always passing, and I will not see one kent face, and when I looked
in at the lighted windows the people were all sitting round the
table, but there wass no place for me. Millions and millions of
people, and not one to say 'Flora,' and not one sore heart if I died
that night. Then a strange thing happened, as you will be
considering, but it iss good to be a Highlander, for we see visions.
You maybe know that a wounded deer will try to hide herself, and I
crept into the shadow of a church, and wept. Then the people and the
noise and the houses passed away like the mist on the hill, and I
wass walking to the kirk with my father, oh yes, and I saw you all
in your places, and I heard the Psalms, and I could see through the
window the green fields and the trees on the edge of the moor. And I
saw my home, with the dogs before the door, and the flowers that I
planted, and the lamb coming for her mik, and I heard myself singing,
and I awoke. But there wass singing, oh yes, and beautiful too, for
the dark church wass open, and the light wass falling over my head
from the face of the Virgin Mary. When I arose she wass looking down
at me in the darkness, and then I knew that there wass service in
the church, and this wass the hymn--
"'There is a fountain filled with blood.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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