These Gaelic Christians, we were informed, are of a very old pattern;and some of them cling more closely to religious observances than to morality.Sunday is nowhere observed with more strictness.The community seems to be a very orderly and thrifty one, except upon solemn and stated occasions.One of these occasions is the celebration of the Lord's Supper; and in this the ancient Highland traditions are preserved.The rite is celebrated not oftener than once a year by any church.It then invites the neighboring churches to partake with it,--the celebration being usually in the summer and early fall months.It has some of the characteristics of a "camp-meeting." People come from long distances, and as many as two thousand and three thousand assemble together.They quarter themselves without special invitation upon the members of the inviting church.Sometimes fifty people will pounce upon one farmer, overflowing his house and his barn and swarming all about his premises, consuming all the provisions he has laid up for his family, and all he can raise money to buy, and literally eating him out of house and home.Not seldom a man is almost ruined by one of these religious raids,--at least he is left with a debt of hundreds of dollars.The multitude assembles on Thursday and remains over Sunday.There is preaching every day, but there is something besides.Whatever may be the devotion of a part of the assembly, the four days are, in general, days of license, of carousing, of drinking, and of other excesses, which our informant said he would not particularize; we could understand what they were by reading St.
Paul's rebuke of the Corinthians for similar offenses.The evil has become so great and burdensome that the celebration of this sacred rite will have to be reformed altogether.
Such a Sabbath quiet pervaded the street of Baddeck, that the fast driving of the Gaels in their rattling, one-horse wagons, crowded full of men, women, and children,--released from their long sanctuary privileges, and going home,--was a sort of profanation of the day;and we gladly turned aside to visit the rural jail of the town.
Upon the principal street or road of Baddeck stands the dreadful prison-house.It is a story and a quarter edifice, built of stone and substantially whitewashed; retired a little from the road, with a square of green turf in front of it, I should have taken it for the residence of the Dairyman's Daughter, but for the iron gratings at the lower windows.A more inviting place to spend the summer in, a vicious person could not have.The Scotch keeper of it is an old, garrulous, obliging man, and keeps codfish tackle to loan.I think that if he had a prisoner who was fond of fishing, he would take him with him on the bay in pursuit of the mackerel and the cod.If the prisoner were to take advantage of his freedom and attempt to escape, the jailer's feelings would be hurt, and public opinion would hardly approve the prisoner's conduct.
The jail door was hospitably open, and the keeper invited us to enter.Having seen the inside of a good many prisons in our own country (officially), we were interested in inspecting this.It was a favorable time for doing so, for there happened to be a man confined there, a circumstance which seemed to increase the keeper's feeling of responsibility in his office.The edifice had four rooms on the ground-floor, and an attic sleeping-room above.Three of these rooms, which were perhaps twelve feet by fifteen feet, were cells; the third was occupied by the jailer's family.The family were now also occupying the front cell,--a cheerful room commanding a view of the village street and of the bay.A prisoner of a philosophic turn of mind, who had committed some crime of sufficient magnitude to make him willing to retire from the world for a season and rest, might enjoy himself here very well.
The jailer exhibited his premises with an air of modesty.In the rear was a small yard, surrounded by a board fence, in which the prisoner took his exercise.An active boy could climb over it, and an enterprising pig could go through it almost anywhere.The keeper said that he intended at the next court to ask the commissioners to build the fence higher and stop up the holes.Otherwise the jail was in good condition.Its inmates were few; in fact, it was rather apt to be empty: its occupants were usually prisoners for debt, or for some trifling breach of the peace, committed under the influence of the liquor that makes one "unco happy." Whether or not the people of the region have a high moral standard, crime is almost unknown; the jail itself is an evidence of primeval simplicity.The great incident in the old jailer's life had been the rescue of a well-known citizen who was confined on a charge of misuse of public money.The keeper showed me a place in the outer wall of the front cell, where an attempt had been made to batter a hole through.The Highland clan and kinsfolk of the alleged defaulter came one night and threatened to knock the jail in pieces if he was not given up.They bruised the wall, broke the windows, and finally smashed in the door and took their man away.The jailer was greatly excited at this rudeness, and went almost immediately and purchased a pistol.He said that for a time he did n't feel safe in the jail without it.The mob had thrown stones at the upper windows, in order to awaken him, and had insulted him with cursing and offensive language.