On that far-off island, Steele wrote, Selkirk's "life grew so exquisitely pleasant that he never had a moment heavy upon his hands. His nights were untroubled and his days joyous from the practice of temperance and exercise.... His life was one continual feast."
Selkirk's story took up the entire December 1–3, 1713, issue of The Englishman.
Watching the glum mariner sip coffee, Steele realized what troubled the former castaway: He yearned for his island home.
Wearing a handsome blue waistcoat with white cuffs and lapels
and a cocked hat, the new lieutenant boarded his ship.
SEVEN
Largo and Beyond
In the spring of 1714 Selkirk left London for Largo. He hadn't seen his mother and father in ten, almost eleven years. Were they still alive?
The trip in a rattling coach was about 400 miles over rutted roads, so he most likely took passage on a coastal trader. At Edinburgh he would have changed to a ferry to cross the fifteen-mile-wide mouth of the Firth of Forth.
Herring boats bobbing in the quiet water of Largo Bay, same as when he was a boy, was probably his first sight of home. The seaside village on that Sunday morning had not changed. The same stone houses with thatched roofs; stairways to second floors on outside walls; iron weathervanes, mostly fish, pointing nowhere. Behind the houses, sheep grazed on sloping hills.
For his homecoming, Selkirk wore a new coat with gold trim. He was barbered and groomed. He walked up the path to the family cottage. The longed-for moment was finally here. He opened the door, stepped into the kitchen, ready to hug his old mother, give his dad a manly embrace.
But the kitchen was empty. A low fire probably flickered in the hearth and fresh bread and cake waited on the table. But the house was still. Then he remembered: The day was Sunday.
Up the path he strode past the churchyard, where stood headstones of departed grandparents, aunts, and cousins. He stepped into the Presbyterian church, still stone cool. The congregation was singing a hymn. He knew the words. He had sung the same in this church as a boy and on a far-off island as a man.
What happened next became part of the family legend. It was retold years later by his cousin John Howell.
"As soon as he sat down, all eyes were upon him, for such a personage perhaps had seldom been seen within the church at Largo. He was elegantly dressed in gold-laced clothes. Besides, he was a stranger, which in a country church is a matter of attention at all times.
"After remaining some time engaged in devotion, his eyes were ever turning to where his parents and brothers sat, while theirs as often met his gaze. Still, they did not know him.
"At length, his mother recognized him and, uttering a cry of joy, could contain herself no longer. Even in the house of God she rushed to his arms, unconscious of the impropriety of her conduct and the interruption of the service.
"Alexander and the family's friends immediately retired to his father's house to give free scope to their joy and congratulations."
The gathering must have been typical of the day: aunts, uncles, cousins crowding the door; neighbors who remembered Alexander as a wee lad peering through windows; fishermen he had gone sailing with stopping by; boys he had played with, now men, sitting with wives, sipping tea, eating buttered bread. His old teacher, bent with age, who remembered him as a bright but at times unruly pupil, telling all who would listen that Alexander had shown little interest in his books except for mathematics and geometry. The rooms loud with the babble of talk and sudden whoops of laughter.
There were brother John and his wife, Margaret, and brother David. There was also Andrew, his feeble-minded brother, now a grown man.
Euphan, his mother, lingered nearby. For the celebration she most likely served haggis, a special pudding for holidays, made from the heart, liver, and other organs of a sheep.
***
But for Alexander the joy of homecoming lasted only a few days. The questions, the stares, the hearty slaps on the back soon began to get on his nerves. He became uncomfortable with hovering cousins, aunts, old school chums, well-meaning neighbors.
He tried to be polite, to listen. In all likelihood his family and friends talked about matters of little interest to him—the herring catch, the church's need for a new roof, squabbles with the next village over grass for the sheep. This was their world, the world of Largo.
To escape the press of company, he spent days along Largo Bay talking with fishermen. He bought a boat and went sailing. On the open water he was alone. At Kingscraig Point, under the cliff at low tide, he caught lobsters and brought them home for the evening meal.
Worried about his moody son, his father probed gently. Was he ready to settle down, join him in the shop—leather tanning and shoemaking—perhaps take a village girl to wife?