“Some of ye are from the Isles, I know—and from the North. So ye’ll ken what lined singing is.”
I saw Hiram Crombie glance down the bench at his assembled family, and felt the interested stir of others in the crowd who did indeed know.
“For those of ye who’ve come lately from other parts—it’s nay bother; only a way of dealing wi’ things like Psalms and hymns, when ye havena got more than one prayer book amongst ye. Or most of one.” He held up his own battered hymnal, a coverless wodge of tattered pages that Jamie had found in a tavern in Salisbury and bought for threepence and two pig’s trotters, the latter having been recently acquired in a card game.
“Today, we’re going to sing Psalm One Thirty-three. It’s a short one, but one I like. I’ll sing—or chant, maybe”—he smiled at them and cleared his throat again, but shortly—“the first line, and then ye sing it back to me. I’ll do the next, and so on we go, aye?”
He opened the book to his marked page and managed—in a voice that was at least powerful enough to be heard and rhythmic enough to follow—the first phrase:
“Behold how good!”
An instant’s pause, and several voices, confident, took it up:
“Behold how good!”
A look of joy rose up in his face, and it was only then that I realized he hadn’t been sure it would work.
“And how pleasant it is …”
“And how pleasant it is!”
More voices, a spreading confidence, and by the third phrase, we were sharing Roger’s happiness, moving into the words and their meaning.
It was a fairly short psalm, but they were having such a good time that he went through it twice, and stopped, finally, wringing with sweat and flushed with heat and effort, “Even life for evermore!” still ringing in the air.
“That was good,” he said, in a croak, and they laughed, though kindly. “Jamie—will ye come read to us from the Old Testament?”
I glanced at Jamie in surprise, but apparently he was ready for this, for he picked up his small green Bible, which he’d brought along with him, and came to the front of the room. He was wearing the best of his two kilts, with the only sober-looking coat he possessed, and taking his spectacles from the pocket, put them on and looked sternly over the tops of them at the boys in the back, who instantly ceased their whispering.
Evidently satisfied that the stern look would suffice, he opened the book and read from Genesis the story of the angels who visited Abraham, and in receipt of his hospitality, assured him that by the time they came again, his wife, Sarah, would have borne him a son, “Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?”
He glanced up briefly at that line, and his eyes met mine. He said, “Mmphm,” in the back of his throat and ended with “Is any thing too hard for the Lord? At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.”
I heard a tiny snigger from somewhere behind me, but it was instantly drowned by the final verse: “Then Sarah denied, saying I laughed not: for she was afraid. And he said, Nay; but thou didst laugh.”
Jamie closed the book with neat decision, handed it to Roger, and sat down beside me, folding away his spectacles.
“I dinna ken how people can think God doesna have a wicked sense o’ humor,” he whispered to me.
I was saved from reply by Roger, announcing that they would try a brief hymn, and how many here were familiar with “Jesus Shall Reign”？ Seeing a satisfactory show of hands, he started them off, and while his voice cracked like a broken cup in the midst of the first line, enough of them did know the hymn to keep them going, with Roger measuring the pitch with a flattened hand, and managing the first few words of each verse.
Even if it hadn’t been ninety degrees and a thousand percent humidity in the small room, I would have been wringing wet in sheer sympathy with Roger.
Bree had brought a canteen, and now rose and handed it to him. He drank deeply, breathed, and wiped a sleeve across his face.
“Aye,” he said, voice still very rough, but working. “I’ve asked my wife to read a bit from the New Testament for ye.” He gestured to Brianna, who was flushed from the warmth of the room, but now went significantly pinker. She looked gravely round the room, though, making eye contact, and then without preliminary opened Jamie’s small green Bible and read the passage describing the wedding feast at Cana, where Jesus, at the behest of his mother, had saved the bridegroom from humiliation by changing water into wine.