The Recreations of a Country ParsonBoyd, Andrew Kennedy Hutchison
General
The Recreations of a Country Parson
Boyd, Andrew Kennedy Hutchison
Clergy -- Anecdotes; Country life -- England; Rural clergy -- England
is no work for fair fingers; neither is the pulling the captured
fish off the hooks. And, even in the pleasantest company, we cannot
see anything very desirable in sitting in a boat, all the floor of
which is covered by unhappy whitings and codlings flapping about
in their last agony. Many young ladies row with great vigour and
adroitness. And as we walk along the shore in the fading twilight,
we often hear, from boats invisible in the gathering shadows, music
mellowed by the distance into something very soft and sweet. The
lords of the creation have come back by the late boats; and we
meet Pater-familias enjoying his evening walk, surrounded by his
children, shouting with delight at having their governor among them
once more. No wonder that, after a day amid the hard matter-of-fact
of business life, he should like to hasten away to the quiet fireside
and the loving hearts by the sea.
Few are the hard-wrought men who cannot snatch an entire day from
business sometimes: and then there is a pic-nic. Glasgow folk
have even more, we believe, than the average share of stiff dinner
parties when in town: we never saw people who seemed so completely
to enjoy the freshness and absence of formality which characterize
the well-assorted entertainment al fresco. We were at one
or two of these; and we cannot describe the universal gaiety and
light-heartedness, extending to grave Presbyterian divines and
learned Glasgow professors; the blue sea and the smiling sky; the
rocky promontory where our feast was spread; its abundance and
variety; the champagne which flowed like water; the joviality and
cleverness of many of the men; the frankness and pretty faces of
all of the women. [Footnote: We do not think, from what we hare
seen, that Glasgow is rich in beauties; though pretty faces are
very common. Times are improved, however, since the days of the lady
who said, on being asked if there were many beauties in Glasgow,
'Oh no; very few; there are only THREE OF US.'] We had a pleasant
yachting excursion one day; and the delight of a new sensation was
well exemplified in the intense enjoyment of dinner in the cramped
little cabin where one could hardly turn, And great was the sight
when our host, with irrepressible pride, produced his preserved
meats and vegetables, as for an Arctic voyage, although a messenger
sent in the boat which was towing behind could have procured them
fresh in ten minutes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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