The Screaming Gull by Angus MacVicar

Author:Angus MacVicar [MacVicar, Angus]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Published: 2016-01-19T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

For the most part the musical service in Castlebrae Church was very much according to the general plan of such events in small country towns in Scotland. There was an anthem or two by Mendelssohn, a delicate little hymn by Purcell, an organ piece by Handel. At intervals the tall, clean-shaven, cadaverous minister, whose plentiful hair was of a rusty grey colour, would read a short Scriptural passage or intone a prayer.

The choir, I thought, was an excellent one in its way, and when it came to soft singing, such as in the Purcell hymn, the blending of the voices was quite lovely. The young organist, too, was clearly well trained in his instrument; and I was stirred more than I cared to admit by his rendering of the ‘March from Scipio’.

Maureen, I think, liked best the Mendelssohn music; and once or twice, while the choir sang the haunting melodies, I looked across to see her eyes glazed in distant vision. But it made me unaccountably glad to notice that no sooner had I half-turned than her eyes would light up again, and she would smile over at me very slowly and in so intimate a fashion that my heart would jump to my throat.

Towards the end of the service, while the lean minister was reading a passage from the Old Testament, I noticed that Lawson had become unaccountably restless. Several times his dark eyes flashed in my direction as if he were trying to send a message. I must have been extraordinarily dense, for I could make neither head nor tail of his behaviour. And neither Maureen nor Peter, I saw, seemed to have observed anything amiss. The minister, I remember, was reciting part of the hundred-and-fourth psalm in a kind of dreary monotone; and I could perceive nothing remarkable about the fact, save that the particular portion of Scripture was an unusual one for pulpit reading.

And then, as the closing item of praise was announced, I realized that something rather curious was afoot. For we stood up to sing metrical psalm number one hundred and four, to the tune of Colchester — the very psalm which the minister had just finished reading in its prose version. We sang four stanzas, beginning at the seventeenth verse.

‘Birds of the air upon their boughs do chuse their nests to make;

As for the stork the fir-tree she doth for her dwelling take.’

I continued to sing, not without some difficulty; for my heart was going in my breast like the spring of a stop-watch. I saw now the reason for Lawson’s excitement. I saw now — or so I thought — the reason for the young organist’s first queer note. It had suddenly struck me that when the lean minister had been reading from the Old Testament he had used the word ‘gulls’ instead of ‘birds’ at the beginning of verse seventeen. Lawson, with his Bible open before him and his wits as sharp as a needle, must immediately have noticed the apparent error.

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