This is a work of fiction. It is a sequel to the other stories, beginning with "A Letter from America" that have appeared in adult/youth, young pals, and no sex. Not one single character is , or is based on, a real person. I have borrowed the names of places, and even of some buildings and institutions in those places, but their personnel remain fictitious. They do not represent real people. I have to point out that the story was written in 2020. The year 2020 was largely cancelled due to the Covid19 virus. You will find no reference to that emergency in this story, which represents things that might have happened if the virus hadn't.
I hope you enjoy this story. I'm grateful to Nifty for publishing it. Nifty makes no charge, neither for me to publish, nor for you to read these stories, but it does cost money to publish them. If you enjoy the stories, please consider making a donation to Nifty at http://donate.nifty.org/donate.html so that he can continue to bring these stories to you.
A Highland Fling Chapter 6 By Jonah
The dog stationed herself in the other room. I had remembered to latch the door. That meant, of course, that , when I woke on Easter Sunday morning, Luke was wrapped around me.
Janet, as usual, presented herself just before eight o'clock, with a cup of tea. I could get used to that.
The boys were soon up and showered, then dressed in their Sunday best. When they came back from the bathroom there were, apart from the porridge, three largish chocolate Easter eggs on the table.
The boys were excited. I had never bought them chocolate eggs at Easter. I usually presented each boy with a hand-made greeting card containing a personal Easter message specially for him. These I prepared at work, so that they didn't see me producing them. I should have realised that grandparents would give chocolate eggs. The porridge was eaten and I produced the cards (I had them for Fergus and Janet too). The excitement lingered, but I think it was still for the Easter eggs.
"They'll keep for later boys. It's time you were ready for Church." I didn't like being a spoilsport, but somebody had to.
"We're ready now," said Luke.
"We'll you won't be if you keep letting Lady put dog-hairs all over your trousers."
Reluctantly he moved the dogs front paws from his lap, to the floor."Are we all ready," said Fergus. "I'm taking the truck to save Janet's legs."
"Well, if you take Janet in the truck, I'll walk round with the boys. We don't want people riding in the back in their Sunday best."
"Well, if you're sure."
"Of course. It's a lovely day anyway. A walk would be good. Come on boys."
We filed out and formed an orderly procession to the Church.
The old Church looked different from how it had looked on Good Friday. There were flowers everywhere.
People recognised us and shared friendly greetings. The sevice was the formal Anglican style service, including the Eucharyst, and the boys, and I, showed these Scottish Presbyterians that Methodists could sing.
Oh we sang all right - Christ the Lord is risen today, Now the green grass rises, The head that once was crowned with thorns, and finally, Thine be the glory, Risen, conquering Son. We'd sung that a year ago in America, but we needed to test the security of this Church's roof as well. I saw it coming. As soon as the organist struck up Handel's rousing tune, all three of their faces lit up. Four bars introduction and then let fly - Simon belting out the bass line while I took the tenor. I doubt the congregation will forget that in a hurry.
It was coffee and biscuits after the service, and there was a great deal of admiration for the boys. I had to virtually drag them away.
Once back at the cottage, Janet cleared away for action.
"Will ye take lady while I make the dinner?"
"Of course Love, Are ye coming Jonah?"
"As soon as the boys get out of those Sunday things, we'll all come. "
The boys were excited. They rushed to get changed, which meant that it took twice as long as usual, The merriment spilled over from the bedrooms and filled the cottage. Janet threw up her arms in delight as the sound of childish laughter reached her ears. Lady issued a single bark, then began chasing her tail right there in the kitchen.
That did it. Three half dressed urchins had to thunder down the stairs to see what the barking was about.
"Get dressed boys," I urged. "You're not taking Lady without your trousers on Peter. Simon, your jumper's on backwards - or your head is - one or the other. Luke......."
I didn't need to say a word to Luke. The boy with his Tee-shirt round his neck, grinned a cheeky, toothy grin, then turned and fled back to the bedroom, the others following.
Fergus clipped a lead onto Lady as Janet exclaimed,
"Ach! The wee darlings. We'll miss them when ye go, Jonah."
"And there was I hoping you'd miss me." I said in mock petulance.
"Ach away with ye," she laughed.
Well we were all, eventually, ready and we set off across the heather towards the burn. It was a lovely, sunny day and the Baddengorm Burn gurgled its way down the hillside, and through the trees. There was a two-tone hoot as a train rattled down the hill towards the village. That one didn't stop at Carrbridge, but clattered on its way by.
As before, we all took off our shoes and socks and stepped into the burn. It was impossible to imagine the raging torrent that had swept down between those banks on that day in 1914 - carrying away all that was in its path, including the unfortunate train. The new bridge looked substantial but then, I presumed, so had the old one once. Nobody could have predicted that it would need to withstand an inland Tsunami. Mind you, they also couldn't have known that, later that year, the young men of the nation would be away for four long years, fighting the war to end all wars.
Before we got to the bridge we clambered out onto the bank. Immediately Lady dashed off into the heather. I lay down in the long grass near the burn and stretched myself out in the sunshine. Lady began her charging game, the boys all calling her, as Fergus lay down beside me. We didn't say anything at first, but listened to the country sounds, the lowing of highland cattle, the song of the birds, the burn, singing its own song, and childish laughter, coupled with the occasional, jubilant bark. Once something licked my face, but Peter called her away.
The old man, lying beside me laughed, but it wasn't an old laugh.
"It's perfect," he said at length
"Mmmm!" I confirmed. It would have to do. I had no words that would do justice to that moment.
The lick came again. This time I reached up and ruffled her fur. She lay down beside me, but that wasn't to last.
"Lady!" was that Peter or Luke? It didn't matter anyway. My big companion issued a short bark and dashed off in the direction of the sound.
"Perfect" said Fergus again.
"Mmmmmmm!" I confirmed again, but he wasn't settling for that this time.
"We go to Church to find God, but then we meet Him out here."
"That's omnipresence for you," I replied.
"Omnipresence, omnitemporality, omnipotence, omniscience. It all makes Him too big to comprehend; but then He says, 'don't comprehend. Just lie back and enjoy my love' ".
"Mmmmm!" I confirmed again, contentedly. My part in this conversation was not going down in history, among the giants of philosophy. Voltaire, Donne, Descartes, Lion, they had nothing to fear from me.
The dog licked my bare foot this time, but did not linger. She was far too busy for that.
Suddenly there was a briskness to Fergus' manner.
"Well," he said, "we'd best be getting back. Janet will be sending out a search party."
"She hasn't got one," I replied. "We've got all the troops out here, but I'm ready for some dinner."
"Lamb casserole," he told me, "and she's done a Summer pudding, so I hope the boys aren't too disappointed that it's not roly-poly."
I couldn't help smiling.
"They're not ordinary boys," I told him. "Ordinary boys know about things like disappointment, but not these three."
"Aye, and I ken fine who they owe that to."
It wasn't easy to persuade the boys to put on socks and shoes. They had got used to being barefoot, but it only took the reminder that Janet's cooking was waiting for them back at the cottage. They raced Lady back to the road. I walked slowly behind with their grandfather, who was grinning delightedly as he watched the four of them romping in the heather. I was momentarily concerned as I remembered that he had been worried for Janet's health, but then I thought that the joy of the companionship of these boys could only have done her good.
By the time Fergus and I staggered into the cottage, they were all out the back, washing their hands for dinner. I noted, with a smile, that no shoes or socks came back from the bathroom. I tried to look stern as I sent them back and told them to gather the said garments and take them tto their bedrooms. They were not in the habit of simply dropping things where they took them off at home, and they weren't going to develop it while they were guests in somebody else's home.
"You can't be cross with them can you Jonah?" observed janet.
"Could you?"
"Ach, I wouldnae want to? It's a tonic to have them here. "
Dinner was as Fergus had promised. The mint sauce that accompanied it had not come from a shop, and the pudding won the admiration of all boys present - including the older ones. Then Janet announced that she had not been merely cooking dinner.
"Boys,", she told them, "something very serious has happened. We are having egg and cress sandwiches again for tea, and I have boiled the eggs ready, and have coloured their shells, along of it being Easter, but the mischivious wee pixies have been in and took the eggs and hidden them in the garden. You've got to find them all, or we can have no tea."
Well, there were suddenly no boys in the house. No Jonah either. I was appointed guardian of the eggs, and positioned on the settle at the bottom of the garden. Whenever a boy found a gaily coloured egg, he would bring it to me, and then return to the hunt. Lady joined in the search too. Searching was not her forte, but if there was bustling about and generally getting in the way to be done - well that was what she was bestest at. Fergus and Janet were able to take a well-earned nap while I kept the boys busy outside.
Eventually all were found, and Janet came from the cottage just in time to take them from us.
Luke volunteered to help Janet prepare the tea, while Simon set the table for us.
"Jonah, can you and Peter give me a wee hand while they're getting tea ready?"
It transpired that Fergus wanted to prepare an entertainment for after tea. We dragged the big piano stool from underneath the old upright piano in the corner. It contained a veritable treasure trove of sheet music.
"I don't need all this stuff," he confided. "I play by ear, but Janet plays it with her fingers in the usual way."
That merry quip went right over Peter's head, but I smiled. We set to with a will sorting out suitable pieces that we could easily sing, or that Fergus could play. We had only just finished when Simon called us in for tea.
Tea was egg and cress sandwiches, as promised, followed with strawberries, and cream. Simon made tea for all while Fergus took his place at the piano.
He had spoken truly. He didn't need sheet music to play from, so that could be used by whomsoever needed to read the words.
"Ye banks and braes o' Bonny Doon," was hotly followed by "the Bonny, bonny banks o' Loch Lomond." a couple of Easter hymns crept into the repertoire - "Hail the day that sees him rise," and "Low in the grave He lay", and they were followed with "Scotland the Brave".
Fergus undertook to give us a piano piece. He dived into the stool and brought out a Chapell vocal score that I recognised. He turned to the overture, singing to himself as he did so,
"There was a soldier,
A Scottish soldier;
O how he did perspire,
The day his kilt caught fire:
That was it. A roll on the left hand, then the crashing opening chords from Sir Arthur Sullivan's overture for "The Yeomen of the Guard".
My love for that piece went right back to chldhood. Long before I produced the show at Jesus College, Cambridge, and long before I left St. John's Wood, my father always said that Gilbert and Sullivan was inferior stuff. Perhaps that's why I liked it. If he disliked it, it must be good.
Unconsciously I had been conducting Fergus behind his back. Not one of the boys smiled at this. They were mesmerised by the music. Janet beamed contentedly. The trumpet fanfair sounded for the last time and brought in a series of majesterial chords to which I automatically fitted words - "With happiness her soul is cloyed, This is her joy day unalloyed", then a fast snatch of "A private buffon" led into the four bars of marching quavers, followed by a cadence which an orchestra would have performed on the timpani, then the four crashing final chords. It was splendid, and we all applauded, except Janet, who rose to take his place at the piano.
She had her sheet music ready and waited for silence before before commencing a competent, and beautiful, rendition of Debussy's "Clair de Lune". It was impossible to believe that it was the same piano. People were holding their breath. Under Janet's old fingers each note tumbled from its predecessor as if by gravity. The music flowed so gently, and so naturally. Debussy captured moonlight far better than Beethoven did - at least when Janet played his work. Moonbeams had been stored in the old piano, waiting for Janet to release them. No crashing chords to end this piece. A single note played with one finger of the right hand and then silence. The silence seemed to last an eternity, but suddenly erupted into spontaneous applause. Janet gathered up her music, performed a self-conscious bow and gave way to Fergus.
Fergus immediately began a random medley starting with, "It's a long way to Tipperary". We immediately joined in. The songs followed on from each other, The drinking song from "The Student Prince," and "Bless 'em all", followed by "Annie Laurie", and "Pretty little Polly Perkins". It was nearly bedtime, but Peter asked Fergus if he knew Flanders and Swann's "Hippopotamus Song." Did he know it? Honestly? Did he know it. The opening vamp crashed out and Fergus burst into song, "A bold hippopotamus was standing one day, On the banks of the cool Shalimar......" That was it, and we all joined in the chorus, "Mud! mud! Glorious mud!" then it was bedtime.
Janet and the boys dragged their weary bodies up the stairs while Fergus asked if I wanted a nightcap.
Did I want a nightcap? Well it didn't sit well with my Methodist principles, but I'd come to look forward to our few minutes alone. Fergus, the Glenlivet and I. It was the perfect way to end the day.
TO BE CONTINUE