"'Tis, five years ago the first day of last June. I was in Stornoway in
the Lews, and I was going to the Gairloch Preachings. It was rough,
cheerless weather, and all the fishing fleet were at anchor for the
night, with no prospect of a fishing. The fishers were sitting together
talking over the bad weather, but, indeed, without that bitterness that
I have heard from landsmen when it would be the same trouble with them.
So I gathered them into Donald Brae's cottage, and we had a very good
hour. I noticed a stranger in the corner of the room, and some one told
me he was one of those men who paint pictures, and I saw that he was
busy with a pencil and paper even while we were at the service. But the
next day I left for the Preachings, and I thought no more of him, good
or bad.
"On the first of September I was in Oban. I had walked far and was very
tired, but I went to John MacNab's cottage, and, after I had eat my
kippered herring and drank my tea, I felt better. Then I talked with
John about the resurrection of the body, for he was in a tribulation of
thoughts and doubts as to whether our Lord had a permanent humanity or
not.
"And I said to him, John, Christ redeemed our whole nature, and it is
this way: the body being ransomed, as well as the spirit, by no less a
price than the body of Christ, shall be equally cleansed and glorified.
Now, then, after I had gone to my room, I was sitting thinking of these
things, and of no other things whatever. There was not a sound but that
of the waves breaking among the rocks, and drawing the tinkling pebbles
down the beach after them. Then the ears of my spiritual body were
opened, and I heard these words, _'I will go with thee to Glasgow!'_
Instead of saying to the heavenly message, 'I am ready!' I began to
argue with myself thus: 'Whatever for should I go to Glasgow? I know not
anyone there. No one knows me. I have duties at Portsee not to be left.
I have no money for such a journey--'
"I fell asleep to such thoughts. Then I dreamed of--or I saw--a woman
fair as the daughters of God, and she said, _'I will go with thee to
Glasgow!'_ With a strange feeling of being hurried and pressed I
awoke--wide awake, and without any conscious will of my own, I answered,
'I am ready. I am ready now.'
"As I left the cottage it was striking twelve, and I wondered what means
of reaching Glasgow I should find at midnight. But I walked straight to
the pier, and there was a small steamer with her steam up. She was
blowing her whistle impatiently, and when the skipper saw me coming, he
called to me, in a passion, 'Well, then, is it all night I shall wait
for thee?'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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