"THAT HOLY MAN, NOAH."

Particular stories are suggested by the place where one first heard them. This profound remark is worked out in detail by Sir William Hamilton and Professor Sully. As I look at the map of the road I traversed that day, I am reminded of certain anecdotes retailed by my genial and reverend guide.

"After leaving college," said he, "I was appointed assistant to a worthy D.D. who regarded the higher critics as a species of vermin. Hell with him was not a mere unpleasant state passed in this world, but an actual raging bonfire specially prepared for everyone who could not repeat the Shorter Catechism. The parishioners of this worthy man were, in consequence, devoutly orthodox, and had, one and all, a keen nose for bad doctrine. They did not like to be fobbed off with a sermon of the spineless order; they liked bones, blood, and fire—not a mosaic of cheery quotations from Tennyson about the larger hope and about worms not being cloven in vain. They had also a great liking for the patriarchs, especially Noah. By ill luck, I spoke one Sunday on the patriarchs, and handled them pretty roughly. I felt that sacred enthusiasm which every man feels in denouncing the sins of others. I gave the Captain of the Ark a special lick of tar. This sermon caused a mighty commotion in the district. I might as well have asserted that the paraphrases were inspired, or that Sankey's hymns were canonical. I could see that the elders began to look coldly upon me. In barn and byre little groups discussed my preaching, and there was much wagging of the head and shooting out of the lip. A deputation came out of a potato-field to me one day as I was walking along the road, and the leader, an old theological crofter, said bluntly: 'Your sermons are not pleasing us, if you please, sir.' 'Is the doctrine bad?' I asked. 'Not exactly that, but the folk say it's very unseemly.' 'What special sermon do they object to?' 'They think you're not sound on that holy man, Noah.' 'Do they go the length of saying Noah was perfect?' 'They don't just go that length; but, while admitting Noah was human, they desire' (here the old man raised his head, shut his eyes, and shouted) 'to hear no more from a young inexperienced lad like you, a single word about the patriarch's shortcomings. The man was a patriarch, and therefore a saint. Talk about his virtues as much as you like, but don't fash about his trespasses, there's a good boy, I speak as your friend.'"

FLADIBISTER.

When my friend had delivered himself of this story, he pointed with his pipe to a little confused collection of low, thatched cottages which we were rapidly approaching on the left, and, oblivious of Noah, went thus musing on: "You are now in the charmed domain of Fladibisteria, of which the core or citadel, as it were, is this village of Fladibister. This is no settlement of Norsemen: no, this is a Celtic nook where second sight and such witchcraft flourished not so many years ago. Did not the minister once rebuke them for their spells and mystic whims by aptly applying to them the words of St. Paul to the Galatians: 'Oh, foolish Fladibisterians, who hath bewitched you?' There is an atmosphere of tranquillity and Arcadian peace swimming over Fladibister such as is nowhere else to be found in Shetland. The young men of the place roam far over the sea, as mariners and fishers; but like the exiled Jacobite—

'Who sighed at Arno for his lovelier Tees,'

they never feel happy till they are back home here under the roofs of thatch. And what a work their women folks make with them when they return! What feasting and merrymaking! What screwing of fiddle-pegs, nimble motion of elbows and long-sustained dancing and skipping. I don't deny that there is clink of glasses, too, at times, to aid the passage of the hours far past the noon of night."

CUNNINGSBURGH.

Cunningsburgh, the journey to which was shortened by these tales, is one of those places you might pass through without being aware of it; that is to say, there is no feature about it so startling or abrupt as to impress itself at once on the attention. The district all round is well tilled, and the houses bien and comfortable.

The minister of the place arrests the attention instantly. His genial face and hearty handshake have a more Christianising effect on the soul than a ton of sermons. I have never heard a more kindly voice or seen a face in which tenderness, merriment, and intellectual keenness, were all so harmoniously blended. He does not smoke himself, but has that wise and wide perception of things which leads him to press those who are anxious to smoke, but say they are not, to take out their pipes in his drawing-room. It was easy to see the man he was, by a hasty look at his book-shelves. All the philosophers were represented there, from Plato to the present-day mystical Germans. Lang's Odyssey was side by side with the Icelandic sagas and the Song of the Niebelungs. I did not see many books of Systematic Theology; but the Greek tragedians, the Sacred Books of the East, German and French novels, had all a place in the bookcase of this cosmopolitan clergyman of a remote Shetlandic parish.

"KEEPING OFF."

In secluded townships like Cunningsburgh where life's round has much of the monotony of fashionable society, and involves a still recurring succession of similar duties, the minister is indeed a power. If he is a man of broad and enlightened mind, his influence for good is incalculable. The Kirk-Session is a permanent Court of Justice, taking cognisance of minor matters of morality, and enforcing its decisions by religious sanctions. To be barred from participating in the communion rites might not seem a very alarming punishment to the easy-going Lowlander; but to a Shetland peasant, being keepit off, as it is technically called, is a terrible and humiliating penalty. A crofter came to the manse to complain about his wife's unruly and satirical tongue. "But what can I do to her?" said the minister, "she's your wife, and you must assert your authority." "I've tried everything," said the man, "but she still continues to be a troubler in Israel." The minister professed his inability to interfere. "I can do nothing at all," he said. "Yes you can," said the crofter, with a wink and a fearful whisper, "You can keep her off!"

THE INDIGNANT ELDER.

Since the Reformation the people have lived and thriven under the jurisdiction of the Session. In the records of the Session one finds a chronicle of the sins, eccentricities, and merriments of the people for the last two or three centuries. Several incidents based on these minutes will make what I say abundantly clear. The Quarrel of the Elder and the Minister's Housekeeper, for example, convulsed a still remoter parish in much the same overmastering way as the Dreyfus Trial agitated Paris. Herodotus is the only author I can think of who could have done justice to this northern affaire. Let me briefly summarise it. Between the minister's garden and that of one of his elders ran what was termed a hedge. The shrubs which formed the base of this hedge were so ill-grown that the minister's fowls could easily go, clucking and scraping, from one garden into the other. Evidence was given to prove that the cabbages and pot-herbs in the elder's plot were torn and spoiled in parts. Every morning he stood at a gap in the hedge and sang aloud like a skipper in a storm or Achilles at the trench of the Greeks: "I am being ruined and brought to poverty by the minister's hens." This cry grated upon the ears of the manse housekeeper, who by and by thought it her duty to go out and reason with the elder. "It's no' the minister's hens ava that's to blame, it's the craws o' the firmament." "It's the hens." "No, the craws." "Hens I declare!" "You're a deceitful impostor!" said the housekeeper. Now, no self-respecting elder could stand that. Boiling with wrath as he was, he remembered his ecclesiastical status, merely remarking that there was work for the Session at last. By nightfall he had been in every croft within the Session's jurisdiction, laying off his tale in each, and as he got practice and more vehemence with constant repetition, he attained extreme fluency and impressiveness before the day was done. An unspeakable joy came over the community at the prospect of a delicious scandal. To avoid the breach being healed by an apology, many of the crofters sought to envenom the quarrel by refusing to believe that the elder was altogether right. "Crows," they said, "had been known to play havoc with cabbage. Elders were but human, and so, hasty in laying charges on insufficient evidence. The case was certainly one for the Church courts. The housekeeper must have a good defence to make, and would no doubt make it at the proper time and in the proper place. We must hear both sides." One may see by this that the spirit which animates a great nation (the desire, namely, to divert itself with the contentions of those who come before the public eye), animates also the smallest communities in the realm. The great passion-stirring process, Hens versus Crows, lasted for some seven months. Over and over again the hedge was examined. Now the elder thought he had the best of it, only to be damped by a revulsion of feeling in favour of the housekeeper. The finding of the Session was adverse to the lady. The fact that she had practically called the elder a son of Belial could not be got over. The minister, holding the scales of justice, was forced, in spite of himself, to declare against her. Considering her position, some mildness was shown in pronouncing her condemnation and the penalty. Having regard to the dignity of the offended man, nothing less than the sentence of keeping off could meet the ends of ecclesiastical law. But one "keeping off" was deemed adequate. The elder was avenged. At the ensuing communion, he was seen to smile and rub his hands diabolically, as he glanced towards the back of the church, where sat, outside the pale of the privileged elect, the unhappy and vanquished housekeeper, who had called him an impostor.

TORQUIL HALCROW.

Torquil Halcrow's case presents features of a different order. For some reason a fama spread abroad respecting him to the effect that his language and demeanour left much to be desired, and that not even the presence, or at least proximity, of women operated to mellow the strength of his vocabulary. Nothing definite was openly formulated against him, but Torquil became aware that in certain quarters his reputation was being slowly undermined. It is precisely this vague kind of aggression on a man's character that is the most difficult to combat. He took the bull by the horns in a most heroic way. He got up a public testimonial to himself, and went round canvassing for signatures. The testimonial ran thus:—"We, the undersigned women of the parish, have pleasure in bearing witness that we have known Torquil Halcrow for twenty years, and never have we known him do an unseemly act or utter an unworthy expression." Thereafter followed a list of forty names. Furnished with this document, he strode up to the manse, fluttered it in the minister's face with a gesture of triumph, laid it down on the study table, then turned on his heel and walked away. The minister, when he examined the paper minutely, found that Torquil, in the belief that the heading of the testimonial was not sufficiently strong, had added this further clause in his own handwriting: "but many a precious word of truth and gracious spiritual comfort have we heard proceeding from his lips."

I have already referred to the beautiful and pathetic saying of Mr. Barrie that every window-blind is the curtain of a tragedy. I thought of that dictum as the minister of Cunningsburgh pointed to one cot after another in the neighbourhood, and narrated the calamities that had fallen upon them within recent years. Here, an old widow was mourning the loss of a son who had gone to the deep-sea fishing and would never return: his bright young life had been swallowed up in the insatiable ocean, and she was left lamenting in her indigence. There, it was a father who had been engulfed in the roost; or again, the illness of a mother had cast a blight for years upon this other household. Sometimes I have seen two old people, all their sons dead, living a kind of stupefied half-life, automatically moving about, poor and wretchedly clad, unable to understand anything except the welcome heat of the sun and the animal comfort of a little food. There are many sad things in this world: none is more sad than the sight of two old people outliving their progeny and wandering about in decrepit second childhood with no more substance than a dream. The sea is mainly answerable for the great and deep tragedies of the Shetlands: it is like a pitiless monster, howling in anger at their doors and claiming its yearly prey. No native writer has as yet attempted to make vocal for us the immense dumb sorrows of these fisher folks in the way Loti has done for the seafarers of Brittany.

PHILOLOGY.

Jakobsen, the Danish philologist, spent some years recently in collecting the remains of the old Norwegian speech that still linger in the conversation and the place-names of the islanders. Perhaps the most interesting point brought out by Jakobsen is the prevalence in comparatively recent times of lucky words, which the fishermen used when at the deep-sea fishing, and only then. This practice is undoubtedly a relic of pagan ages when the sea-depths were regarded as the dominion of dread water spirits, who keenly watched those who intruded in their realms. The strange feature about this deep-sea speech is that its expressions were purely Norse, whereas the home idiom of the fishers was overwhelmingly English. The pagan beliefs respecting the hostile powers of the sea found expression in old words handed down from a pre-Christian epoch. These old words may have been originally liturgical or worship words, for the sea was an object of veneration and awe to the Norsemen who, in the conquering days, made their home on its angry waters. It was believed that the jealous powers of the ocean were vehemently hostile to Christianity, and hence the Shetland fishers, up till quite recently, carefully avoided any direct mention of church or minister when on the water: the haaf or lucky words being respectively benihoose (prayer-house) and upstander. Even the domestic animals had special haaf appellations. This conception of the sea as filled with weird mysterious beings of unspeakable malignity, ever ready to whelm the boat of an unwary intruder, carries the mind back to the old alliterative lay of Beowulf, the contest of that hero with the wallowing ocean-monsters, and the grim subterranean glow in the sea-home of Grendel's mother. The Shetlanders have only too much reason to brood over the cruelty of the sea. On July 20, 1881, during a terrific squall, sixty-three breadwinners were engulfed in the thwarting currents of the Sound of Yell.

A SANDWICK GENTLEMAN.

During all the foregoing discussion in the Cunningsburgh manse and garden, our driver had been wondering what subjects of talk could possibly be keeping us from continuing our journey to Sandwick. The two ministers—the original one and the Cunningsburgh man also—at length mounted the trap with me, and we all went joyfully on the final lap. The object of the journey was to visit Mr. Sinclair of Sandwick, a gentleman well worth going fifty miles to see. Mr. Sinclair has many qualities that make a man notorious. He went to Australia in an emigrant ship many years ago, and wrote a book upon it, in which he playfully remarks that he got the full value of his passage money, inasmuch as there was a birth, a death, and a suicide, between Plymouth and Melbourne. Another of his distinctions is great dexterity in playing the violin, his favourite pieces being "The Scalloway Lasses" and "The Auld Wife ayont the Fire." The title of the last-named piece rather staggered me, until I was informed by one of the ministers, who is a scholar and an antiquarian, that it relates to a time when the fire was in the middle of the room and when the smoke escaped by a hole in the roof, or in default of that, by the door. Mr. Sinclair rendered these pieces with infinite gusto, and, like all true artists, got as much pleasure as he gave. He had also the most diverting way of ejaculating the word hooch I have ever heard in my journey through life. It gives me pleasure to add that he wrote a poem on fifty whales that were driven from the sea by the local fishermen into Sandwick Bay. These whales were all beautifully cooped in the narrow inlet and stranded on the beach, when lo! the local landowners, citing some old statute, claimed from the fishermen a share of the spoil. Mr. Sinclair, indignant and astute at once, took upon himself the championship of the fishermen, and managed matters so admirably that the lords of the soil were completely worsted in the Edinburgh law-courts. Flushed with such signal success, he put the whole story into metre. A printed and framed copy of the poem hangs in a conspicuous place in his sitting-room. At our special request, he favoured us by singing the impassioned stanzas. It was a unique treat to hear him do so. There he was in the centre of the room holding the framed verses in his hand, gazing fondly thereat even as a mother regards her child. When the chorus came on, he laid down the poem, and lifted up his voice with glorious enthusiastic force. Inspiration was in his eye, his grey locks became dishevelled, his arms swung rhythmically to the beat of the melody. The entire interview was intense: it was one crowded hour, of which time is unable to cancel the memory.

LOCAL TALES.

The evening was a glorious one, and we walked back some miles of the way. The Cunningsburgh minister was full of stories. He alluded laughingly to one of his flock who, when under the influence of drink, was powerful in prayer. "When he gets a dram he goes to his knees at once." The anecdote seemed to me to run counter to the views of the hymnologist who says "Satan trembles when he sees, the weakest saint upon his knees." Another of his stories had reference to two old crofters, both over eighty, who began one evening to talk of the follies of the young fisher-lads when they took to dram-drinking. One of the two remarked: "I wonder now what folly we two old men would commit if we chanced to get intoxicated, say at a funeral." "Well," said the other hoary-headed and infirm octogenarian, "I have no idea what you would do, but I am certain of this, that if I ever got the least bit touched, I would go and make love to the lasses at once." Thereupon the two feeble old fellows skirled a wicked laugh, and nearly gasped out their slim residue of life in unseemly merriment.

Both ministers assured me that the belief in fairies still lingers on among the Shetland peasantry. Up on the hill-side the trow is supposed to wander about, and the little fellow can be seen skipping on the moon-light sward, by all who have eyes and the necessary faith. It is believed that he haunts the road-side even when the moon is not shining: consequently, when the crofters have to go out of doors at night, they protect themselves from his spells by carrying with them a blazing peat gripped with tongs. This smokes and sparkles in the darkness and the trow does not like it. It is easy for the electric-lighted citizens of Glasgow and Edinburgh to laugh at the simple folk-lore of fisher and crofter; but no one, however learned and sceptical, can quite escape from the mystic influence of fairy-lore if he lives through a winter among believing dalesmen. Let him look on the long silvery glimmer of a sea-voe, and hear the natives tell of trows chasing the ebbing Neptune down there on the dim sea-strand in a night of haze, before he says (with Theseus, in the Midsummer Night's Dream):

"I never may believe These antick fables, nor those fairy toys."

To the ear and eye of the philological Jakobsen, the Shetlanders both in speech and looks are remarkably like the Norwegians of the Saettersdal. In that part of Norway the trow is also a very popular terror. Children of a disobedient and obstreperous turn are afraid to venture near a wood at nightfall for fear of a little bogie with a red cap, who may suddenly slide down a pine-tree and snatch them off.

FOULAH AND FAIR ISLE.

I do not altogether envy the candidate for parliamentary honours who has to nurse a remote insular constituency like Orkney and Shetland. I met Mr. Cathcart Wason in Lerwick, and learned that he had been going the round of the islands and had even paid a visit to the isolated and mountainous rock of Foulah. Now this was a very daring feat indeed, for I have heard of a young man who went once to visit his friends there and was kept a prisoner for five months owing to the squalls. The papers complimented Mr. Wason on his intrepidity: he went over from Walls in a smack, and did not make his address too lengthy, for fear the weather might change and Westminster be deprived of his eloquence for a space. Mr. Wason is a very tall gentleman, but in Foulah he met his peers in point of stature. The islanders are a fine set of men, hardy and godly. They are adroit fowlers and nimble cragsmen. It gives one a queer sensation to hear that the face of their sheer precipices used to be (like level land elsewhere) apportioned equitably among the various families. If A did not wish to catch birds on his aerial lot, he could let it to B and claim a certain percentage of the spoil. The population of the island is about 250: owing probably to intermarriage, there are many childless homes.

I do not know if Mr. Wason has ever been to the Fair Isle, but I understand an Ex-Moderator of the Church of Scotland visited the little community there in 1903. There are two ways of getting to this islet: (1) by means of a sailing boat which leaves Grutness for Fair Isle once a fortnight with the mails; if the weather is bad, this mode of communication is suspended, as in winter no sane man would venture through the roost in such a boat; (2) by taking a passage on board the S.S. Pole Star, which calls on the first of every month with stores for the lighthouse. She is a strong, swift boat, and makes the journey from Stromness, seventy miles away. I may remark that a lecturer wishing to speak in the Fair Isle need not trouble himself about placards or handbills: the whole population will be on the shore to welcome him when he lands, and he could conveniently intimate his subject then, if he has any breath left in his body. The Fair Isle possesses a church organ and a non-surpliced choir. The islanders have a great appetite for sermons, as the following story, told by Mr. Russell, amply proves. "The minister of Dunrossness went one summer to dispense the communion in the Fair Isle, and a storm came on which detained him there for about eight days. The weather also prevented the boats from going to the fishing. As the people had no pressing work to do at the time, and as it was only on rare occasions that they enjoyed the presence of the parish minister, they were anxious to avail themselves of his services while he was among them. Accordingly, at their desire, he preached every day during his stay. In all, he preached thirteen times. He had taken the precaution of bringing a good stock of sermons with him. Before this was exhausted, the weather providentially improved, so that he was able to get home."[26]

The cherished legends of one's youth get sorely demolished in the course of travel and investigation. The school-books used to say that the Shetlanders were taught to knit by Spanish women saved from the wreck of the Armada. The islanders stoutly deny any indebtedness, and declare that there never was the slightest friendship between their ancestors and the crews of King Philip's galleons.

[26] The prayers of as many righteous men as possible are requested for the inspectors of schools who have to examine and report on the state of education in the Orkneys and Shetlands. I had the pleasure of conversing with one of these hard-worked officials in November, 1906. He spoke very warmly of the improved educational benefit of the libraries that have been sent from Paisley to the isles and skerries. This gentleman inspects the Fair Isle school once every two years. On the occasion of his last visit, he was rowed from Lerwick in a "sixern," and had a most tempestuous time going through the roost. Two of his oarsmen sickened, and were helpless. On getting ashore at last, he forgot all his sorrows and soaking, when he heard heartsome strains of welcome being played on the insular pianola.

THE FISHING SEASON.

To Lerwick, during the fishing season, thousands of women come from the island of Lewis to gut the myriad herring that are daily brought into the bay. There is an extemporised town for the strangers on the outskirts, over which float many odours, weird, pungent, and unsavoury. All the processes of gutting, curing, and kippering go on in grand style. The women, clad in a kind of oilskin, handle their dangerous implements in most dexterous fashion. It is a horrid business, but well paid. Prolific Nature is never tired supplying these women with work, for as many as 68,000 eggs have been found in the roe of one female herring. My friend, Mr. M'Kenzie of Ullapool, who is in the service of the Fishery Board, took me to see the official examination of several hundred barrels of fish, preparatory to the branding thereon of the official stamp. The owners pay for this examination, but the additional value given to each barrel by the Government mark far surpasses the fee exacted by the Board. The branding-officer selects at random a barrel here and there, extracts some dozen fish from each, and satisfies himself as to the size and quality. If the herring are puny or of inferior sort, the officer refuses to brand, and the examination fee is refunded. Mr. M'Kenzie remarked that this was the only case in which he had ever seen men reluctant to receive money. I followed that gentleman as he walked over the long lines of slippery herring barrels, lying in horizontal juxtaposition, and I cannot recommend the exercise to those who have had no training in gymnastics.

The great success of the Shetland fisheries during the last year or two has brought to Lerwick a palpable increase of business and droves of business men. In the Grand Hotel there were, in August last, thirty gentlemen resident who were in some way brought thither by the traffic in herring—among the number a young Russian, who, with his wife, sat at a little table apart, and kept jabbering their language with glib expressiveness. His name was Walk-off, and his object was the annexation of fish for Muscovite consumption. He had a flabby face and long, dark hair, which he publicly combed. She was small and pretty—doll-like, indeed—with jewels in her ears, which glittered and flashed in the gas-light. She was a very loquacious wee creature, and her intonation reminded me of the caressing way the Swedes articulate English. I heard him read the Russian newspapers to her with evident emotion, but the only word I could make out was Kouropatkin. The herring-agents at the hotel table were full of drollery. One of them, hailing from Wick, addressed a neighbour abruptly to this effect: "I am a rather expensive man to sit beside, and to one like you especially so, for you seem to be a water-drinker. When I tell you who I am, however, you will insist on standing me a bottle of champagne." He was frigidly asked to state his grounds for such a preposterous expectation. "Prepare to gasp," he replied; "you see before you one who is a model and a beacon to all the men of Caithness. I am the sire of nine sturdy sons, and they have only three birth-days among them, seeing that they came into this vale of tears three at a time."



CHAPTER VI.

COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS AND THEIR ANECDOTES.

Trials of commercials—The two-est-faced knave—Mary, the maid of the inn—Anecdotes of the smoking-room: Sonnet to Raleigh—Peelin's below the tree—"She's away!"—A mean house—One of the director's wives—Temperance hotels—A memorial window—The blasted heath—The day for it—The converted drummer—A circular ticket—A compound possessive—Sixteen medals—"She's auld, and she's thin, and she'll keep"—The will o' the dead—Sorry for London—"Raither unceevil"—An unwelcome recitation—A word in season—A Nairn critic—A grand day for it—A pro-Boer—"Falls of Bruar, only, please!"—A bad case of nerves.

TRIALS OF COMMERCIALS.

The commercial traveller (that bustling and indispensable middleman) leads a life of mingled joy and pain. He is constantly on the move, and from meeting innumerable types of men, becomes very shrewd in judging character. Resource, readiness, abundance of glib phrases must in time become his. He must not, for fear of offence, show any marked bias in politics or religion. His temper must be well under control; he must have the patience of an angel; he must smile with those that are merry, be lugubrious with those that are in the dumps, and listen, with apparent interest, to the stock stories of hoary-headed prosers. It is not enough that he should book orders. Some shaky customers are only too ready to give these. It is his business to book orders only from those that are likely to pay. A big order delivered to a scoundrel who means to fail next week, is a horrible calamity, which, if it does not result in pains and penalties, means a sharp reprimand and a loss of prestige at headquarters, that may take years to redeem.

He has to sleep in many a different bed. It is lucky for him if a damp couch has not rheumatised his limbs. No one knows better than he that what seems a bell-pull has often, owing to former violence and broken wires, no connection with the bell. Here a chimney smokes, there the flue is blocked with birds' nests. In certain country inns, the flimsy gossamer of spiders makes an undesirable fretwork over the greenish knobs of the ill-puttied panes. Mice, rats, and "such small deer" scamper uncannily the live-long night along the worn waxcloths and unspeakable carpets. As he undresses by the light of a three-inch candle, he has his soul horrified by early Victorian prints, of Paul tumbling from his horse on the way to Damascus, of the gory relief of Lucknow, or of some towsy-headed clansman smiling out of perspective. He is by no means a tourist on pleasure bent. He must face gust and surge, for he cannot choose his time and weather. His duty is to cover as much ground as he can in a given week, fill his order-book with irreproachable orders, and get home to report, preparatory to another sally in another direction. Competition stings him into feverish activity. If he sells tea, he well knows that an army of rivals is scouring the whole country with samples as good, or perhaps a great deal better, than his own.

THE TWO-EST-FACED KNAVE.

Nevertheless, the jovial facetiousness of these commercial gentlemen knows no limits, and hotel-waiters are, at all times, fair game for their stings and arrows. In one of the northern hotels, there used to be a portly and rubicund waiter who might have passed for the High Priest of the Goddess of Health. His face shone, if I may say so, with the radiance of perfect digestion. A pert commercial, one day, approached him with an affected look of deep concern and said, "Well, I hope you're keeping better," accompanying the remark with a dig in the waiter's stomach. The waiter, who had never known a minute's ill-health in his life, swore vividly for fifteen minutes without repeating himself, and among many references to the commercial's ancestry, called him the two-est-faced knave that had ever set foot on the Shetland Islands. Such a superlative was felt by all to be a masterpiece of language, and turned the laugh against the bagman.[27]

[27] As to language, one hears, especially in the Hebrides, phrases of amusing quaintness, due no doubt to the speaker handling a foreign tongue. The school in one of the Mull villages is very small, and I made a remark to that effect in the hearing of the hotel-porter. "Oh, no," said he, "it is a good deal bigger than you would wonder." The same waiter, who had a talent for confusing his language, said in reply to an irate visitor who had questioned his intelligence: "You need not talk like that; I am as good as you; I am as good as any other man put together."

MARY, THE MAID OF THE INN.

I have a great deal of sympathy with hotel-porters and waiters, and think them unduly longsuffering at times. As to Mary, the exemplary maid of the hotel alluded to, she can hold her own in repartee with any of the visitors. She is a distinct character, and Moliere could have made a "type" of her. She has no sinecure of a situation, and, after eleven at night, when the last supper is over, she has to polish the knives for the morrow's breakfast. She is young, slim, and active, and wears a string of red corals round her neck. The place is not frequented by plutocratic tourists, and so her tips are meagre. In spite of her long days and her slim perquisites, the girl is affable, smiling, and gay. She trips out and in, sylph-like, can carve fowls most dexterously by the light of nature, never spills the soup, and has a laughing and appropriate word for all. Mary, I hope, will get some decent fellow for husband, and be a stay and comfort to him all the days of his life. Meanwhile, however (to use the historic present), a nice old gentleman in the soft goods line, who hails from the flourishing village of Dundee, is paying her marked attentions. She will have none of him, for all his apostolic looks. He repeats to her, with a comically sentimental air, the lines of Omar:

"Here with a book of verse beneath the bough, A loaf of bread, a cup of wine, and thou Beside me singing in the wilderness, The wilderness were Paradise enow."

Mary looks in amazement at the old gentleman with the insinuating voice, anon bursts into a merry peal, and trips off with the remark, "There's nae fules like auld anes," which a listening Londoner takes to mean, "There's nothing fills like onions!"

ANECDOTES OF THE SMOKING-ROOM.

SONNET TO RALEIGH.

The conversation of an intelligent commercial traveller is, as I said, of a facetious and entertaining turn. He speaks to so many people in the course of a day and hears so many anecdotes as he rushes about, that his sense of humour becomes very keen. Old Burton, author of the Anatomy of Melancholy, used to dissipate his sombre thoughts by listening to the coarse badinage of bargemen: a modern, afflicted with Burton's complaint, might well find a cure in the smoking-room of a hotel among a company of commercial travellers. One Saturday night, in a Shetland hotel, I listened to a crowd of these merry gentlemen communicating to each other their several collections of stories. Before doing so, they all sang with great fervour the well-known hymn The Sands of Time are Sinking, a whisky-traveller officiating at the harmonium. One of the number ostentatiously beat time with his pipe. It was a very affecting scene, and certain of the singers were moved to tears at their own melody.

The company then settled down, in a pleased frame of mind, to tell stories. I noted some of these, and as they were new to me, I cherish the hope that they may not be stale to others. The following preliminary sonnet to Sir Walter Raleigh seems to be apposite and new; it is needed to give atmosphere to the tales:

Raleigh! the benefactor of thy kind, May azure undulations ever roll As incense to thee from the glowing bowl, Thy rapt disciples fume with placid mind In easy chair, by ingle-nook reclined! Next to the mage, Prometheus, who stole From Heaven's court with philanthropic soul, The wonder-working fire, thou art enshrined In mortal bosoms as a friend, for thou Did'st bring from sunset isles the magic leaf That weaves enchantment's halo round the brow, Alleviates the pang of every grief And stirs the bard, exempt from fretting cares, To wail the weird of pipeless millionaires.

And now for the stories.

"PEELIN'S BELOW THE TREE."

A Sunday School teacher in the island of Luing was giving a lesson on the disobedience of Adam and Eve, and the fruit of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste brought death into this world, and other ills. At the close of his harangue, which was rather above the heads of the children, he said, "Can any of you tell me how the Creator knew that Adam had eaten the apple?" There was silence for a time. At last one boy, with a glimmer of light in his eyes, shouted: "Please, sir, because He saw the peelin's below the tree."

"SHE'S AWAY."

An Englishman staying in Oban, wished to visit the island of Coll, and discovered, on enquiry at Macbrayne's office, that the S.S. Fingal left for that outer isle at five in the morning. He accordingly gave serious instructions to the "boots" of his hotel to rap him up at 4.30 A.M., and to show him no mercy. At six o'clock, the tourist was awakened by a noise like that of a battering-ram at his door, and a stentorian voice sternly enquiring: "Are you the gentleman that's going with the early boat?" "Yes, yes, I am," said the tourist, leaping to his feet. "Well, she's away," said the boots. (This is a story that grows on one.)

A MEAN HOUSE.

Another hotel story: Feeling somewhat thirsty in the middle of his dinner and not judging that water was sufficiently slockening, a visitor rang the bell and asked the waiter to bring him a bottle of lager. This was done. "How much do you charge for this?" enquired the traveller. "Ninepence," replied the waiter. Anger, consternation, and incredulity were all depicted, by turns, on the visitor's cheek. "What!" he shouted, "ninepence. Why, I could buy a dozen bottles for half-a-crown. It's downright robbery to ask ninepence for one bottle. You've made a mistake." "I've made no mistake," said the waiter; "I was told to ask ninepence. But," (at this point he sidled up to the traveller and whispered, with terrible accents, in his ear) "it's a damp mean house this you're in, and I'm leaving mysel' the morn!"

ONE OF THE DIRECTOR'S WIVES.

A gentleman who loved tobacco exceedingly well, went into a first-class smoking compartment, filled his pipe, and settled down, with a newspaper in front of him, to enjoy the luxury of a long and undisturbed worship of the weed. He had a journey of fifty miles before him. Just as the train was moving off, a lady, who was panting and flustered, was pushed up into the compartment by a porter. It was soon evident that pipes and tobacco were not congenial to this dame. She began to sniff in a very haughty fashion, but the smoker, utterly indifferent to her presence, continued to roll out with deliberate relish his dense tobacco fumes. Soon she lost all patience, and said with extreme bitterness: "You there, behind that paper, you have no manners. You have no right to smoke before a lady. Do you know who I am? I am one of the directors' wives, sir." Down went the journal, and "Oh, indeed," said he, "you are one of the director's wives, are you? Well, let me tell you this, that even if you were the director's only wife, I do not intend to encourage you, by any compliance of mine, in the bad habit of rushing for trains and getting into the wrong compartment!"

TEMPERANCE HOTELS.

An English clergyman—a pronounced teetotaler and temperance worker—was being driven through the streets of a Scotch town in an open machine. Looking round, with expansive benevolence, on the streets and people, he was overjoyed to see such a large number of temperance hotels. "Driver," he exclaimed, "I am delighted to see, by the hotels, that total abstinence has got such a firm hold in this place." "Indeed, sir," said the driver, "don't be too sure of that. We have two kinds of temperance hotels here: the first kind would like the licence, but can't get it; the second kind have had the licence, and lost it through bad behaviour and disorderly conduct."

A MEMORIAL WINDOW.

An inn-keeper in Ross-shire, with great enthusiasm, said to a visitor: "There's nobody I work for with more satisfaction than an English gentleman. Now, there's Sir Samuel Oatts, the wealthy Liverpool merchant that has the shootings near here. He is a fine gentleman, and so considerate. He is not very good at shooting, I must admit: he often misses the birds, and he goes through a good number of dogs. One day he shot the keeper in the right eye, and blinded it. But he gave the keeper a handsome present and a fine new glass eye. We call that eye 'Oatts' Memorial Window,' and the keeper can sleep during the sermon now without anybody knowing, provided he does not snore."

THE BLASTED HEATH.

Two English tourists—big, hearty fellows—were travelling in the same compartment with a communicative Scot, when the train stopped at Forres. "Gentlemen," said the Scot, "this is Forres, and I'm sure you've read about it; quite near Forres is the blasted heath where Macbeth was accosted by the witches." "How shocking," said one of the Englishmen; "how really shocking! Well, you see, we haven't read about that yet: we've been up North for some time, and we have'nt seen the pypers for ten dyes!"

THE DAY FOR IT.

The driver of the bus which goes through the delightful part of Argyllshire known as Hell's Glen, is often chaffed by the summer tourists rather unmercifully. One day, a nervous southern was criticising him on his furious and careless driving: "You shouldn't be on the box at all; I never saw such a wild driver." "Drive!" said Jehu, in a voice of thunder. "Why, man, once every year, I drive the mail-coach down that steep hill-side among the bracken. And this is the day for it!" So saying, the humorous fellow made as if to whip the horses down the cliff, and the terrified tourist shrieked aloud. "Seeing I've such a nervous passenger," said the driver, with a guffaw, "I had better break my own rules, and keep to the main road."

THE CONVERTED DRUMMER.

A dilapidated Scot, with a strong odour of the accursed, staggered into a Salvation Army meeting one night, and was deeply impressed by the service. He became a changed man, professed conversion, and got a thorough moral overhaul. Like many others, he had great difficulty in keeping his good resolutions, but persevered, nobly and successfully. Latterly, he was admitted into the orchestra, and got command of the big drum. He was so anxious to show his zeal, that he beat far too vehemently, and drowned all the other instruments in his ecstatic rataplan. The captain mildly remonstrated with him, and requested him to beat a little more gently. "Gently!" shouted the reformed drummer, "that's impossible. Since I've got salvation, I feel so happy, that I could ding the whole slammed thing to bits!" (or rather "slim the whole danged thing to bits").

A CIRCULAR TICKET.

Three commercials, travelling from Cork to Dublin, had a discussion on the illiteracy of the Irish railway employes. "Look here," said one of them, "the majority of the ticket collectors can't even read the tickets they are supposed to check." The other two refused to believe him, but he stoutly maintained his assertion. Taking out of his pocket the round ticket given him at the office of the Cork hotel, and containing the number of his bedroom, he said, "I intend to offer this, instead of my railway ticket, at the first station where tickets are punched." Shortly thereafter, the train stopped, and a porter came round the carriages to look at the tickets. There was silence deep as death when the commercial handed his bedroom ticket to the official. The latter looked long and carefully at the thing and muttered, "Bejabbers, I never saw one like that before!" "Don't keep the train waiting," said the commercial, in a pretended fury, "don't you see it's a circular ticket." "Oh, and in faith it's you that's right: it is a circular ticket," said the porter. So saying, he punched the hotel check and withdrew, leaving the three travellers to weep for joy all the way to Dublin.

A COMPOUND POSSESSIVE.

The following grammatical story will doubtless be new to most readers. A Sunday School jaunt had been arranged in an Ayrshire town, and the children were all ready to go in carts to a field, some miles away, for games and open-air junketing. Everyone was impatient to set out, but the piper was late, and the procession of carts could not start without music. The minister became impatient, and sent a youth to tell the piper to hurry up. The boy, on coming to the piper's house, saw a woman standing at the door, and addressed her in these words: "Are you the man-that-plays-the-pipes's wife?"

SIXTEEN MEDALS.

Those who doubt the efficacy of self-lauding advertisement are refuted by this story. A commercial traveller, representing a whisky firm, craved an order from a small Highland innkeeper. "Come, Donald," he said, "you must give me an order this time." "You will be getting no order from me, for your whisky is no good whatever. Dewar of Perth has got sixteen medals for his whisky; it is so good to drink, and makes people drunk so nice and quiet. But your firm never got a single medal for filling folk fou." The granting of medals for quiet and comely intoxication is a brilliant, although droll, idea.

"SHE'S AULD, AND SHE'S THIN, AND SHE'LL KEEP."

In a lone isle of the West, funerals are functions that cannot be celebrated (at least in the way consecrated tradition prescribes) without ample dispensing of whisky among the mourners. As there is no pier on the island, the steamer very frequently may not be able to call for days, during the terrific gales of winter. The legitimate stores of insular whisky thus occasionally become exhausted, and should a death occur during the period of dearth, a very regrettable situation arises. In the epigrammatic style of King James I., who used to say "No bishop, no king," we might express the difficulty by saying No whisky, no funeral. While a gale of exceptional ferocity was raging some winters ago, an old woman passed away, and there was not enough whisky on the island to bury her with credit. Her son scanned the angry sky and sea daily, in the hope that the weather would show signs of clearing up. After a week's blighted hopes, he still refused to sanction interment, remarking, "She's auld, and she's thin, and she'll keep." Next day the sea was calm, the Dunara called, and the old lady got her munera pulveris.

THE WILL O' THE DEAD.

The foregoing story suggested to one of the auditors the tale told in connection with the death of Lord Forglen, one of the Judges of the Court of Session, in 1727. After a long illness, in which he had endured the expert advice of several eminent physicians, Forglen, one morning, departed into the land of shadows. Not knowing of the fatal termination, one of the medical men, Dr. Clark, called as usual and asked David Reid, clerk to Forglen, how his master was. David's answer was: "I houp he's well,"—a gentle euphuism, indicating that all was over, and also a timid hope that Heaven had received a new inhabitant. The doctor was shown into a room where he saw two dozen of wine under the table. Other doctors arriving, David made them all take seats, while he detailed, with much pathos, the affecting incidents of his master's dying hours. As an antidote to their grief, the company took a glass or two, and thereafter the doctors rose to depart, but David detained them. "No, no, gentlemen; not so. It was the express will o' the dead that I should fill ye a' fou, and I maun fulfil the will o' the dead." All the time the tears were streaming down his cheeks. "And indeed," said Dr. Clark afterwards, when telling the story, "he did fulfil the will o' the dead, for before the end o't there was na ane of us able to bite his ain thoom."

SORRY FOR LONDON.

The following story is a good example of insular patriotism. Certain shooting tourists in the island of Mull, who hailed from London, and who were expecting important news from the capital, were greatly exasperated to find, on calling at the local post-office, that telegraphic communication with the mainland had broken down. Some very uncanonical language was indulged in, which the local postmaster deeply resented. One tourist after another, exclaimed with blank despair: "Alas, poor Mull will get no news from London to-day." "What will Mull do without the London news?" "No news from London, what a misfortune for Mull!" This harping on the forlornness of the island caused the blood of the postmaster to boil with indignation, and he shouted in ire: "It is not Mull I will be sorry for, at all, at all. Mull can do without the London news. But what will poor London do, when she finds she will not be able to get any news from Tobermory, or from Salen, or from Dervaig, or from Craignure, or from Lochdon, or from Lochbuie, or from Bunessan, the whole of this blessed day!"

"RAITHER UNCEEVIL."

A well-known boat, The Stormy Petrel, had been to Ardrossan for coal, and was conveying the precious cargo to the romantic terminus of Cairndow at the head of Loch Fyne. At St. Catherine's a great thirst took possession of the crew, and they put in there for refreshments. The conversation was most animated, and extended itself over a wide tract of political and theological topics. On setting out for Cairndow early next morning, all the crew had wistful, lustreless eyes, confused thoughts, and bad consciences. He to whom the coal was being conveyed, was awaiting them. He rowed out to The Stormy Petrel in a small boat, and on coming near assailed them, in English and Gaelic, with all the most vituperative expressions he could remember. But the crew, each and all of them, knew they had been guilty of culpable delay, and uttered not a word, good or bad, as their assailant rowed round their boat and withered them with his invective. They had no fight left in them, and sat, with bowed heads, till the storm would subside. After enduring the agony for half an hour, one of the crew looked up and said, "Do you no' think, Mr. Sanderson, that you're raither unceevil so early in the morning?" This remark, uttered in a quiet, sad, reproachful way, staggered Mr. Sanderson far more than the most thunderous abuse would have done, and brought home to him the undoubted fact that he had been defective on the score of good taste.

AN UNWELCOME RECITATION.

One of the travellers, on being asked to contribute his item to the fund of anecdotes, said that instead of telling a tale, he would give a recitation. Before doing so, he sneezed artificially six times, and then recited a poem on

Influenza.

Influenza has come like the wolf on the fold, And the duke and the ditcher are down with the cold. The doctor is smiling, for business is here, And the chink of the guinea resounds in his ear. No household is spared: both the villa and cot Their quota of swollen-nosed patients have got. The clerk of the weather is gloating on high At the lords of creation that bed-ridden lie. Each chamber resounds with the echo of sneezing, With deep-laboured coughing and bronchial wheezing. While, loading the table, the victim can spy Lotions, tonics, and ointments confusedly lie. The druggist (douce man) is thanking his stars For this nice epidemic of paying catarrhs, He's making his hay, though no sunshine is seen, And his till gleams with silver where copper has been.

A WORD IN SEASON.

This dismal piece of verse effectually cleared the smoking-room, and filled me with a great sorrow, since I had just recollected three or four stories of my own. I now take the liberty of laying these before the ingenuous reader. If he says they are dull, let me tell him (i.) that he has no perception of humour, and (ii.) that occasional dulness is the inalienable privilege of every free-born Briton. Many a spry wight thinks it his duty to be continuously funny and monotonously merry. Let a quiet and demure dulness be the foil of your side-splitting sallies. Learn to keep the peace, yea for hours at a time. If you are in a mixed company, cultivate the dictum of "give and take." Be not for ever doling out your scraps of mirth to the dyspeptic stomachs of your associates. A wise reciprocity and interplay of merriment is the best rule—a fair share among the entire party. Burns himself, sparkling talker as he was, is recorded to have been at times sunk in gloom and shadow. But anon emerging from his moodiness, he would utter such words as set the table in a roar. And now for these masterpieces of humour.

A NAIRN CRITIC.

Why is it that publishers, aye, and even booksellers, are so often out of sympathy with the poets? I spoke once to a bookseller in Nairn about a local poet's volume that was lying on the counter. "Do you personally know this bard?" I asked. "Ay, that I do," was the reply; "he's an eccentric wee chap. I've many a laugh at him as he goes along the street, muttering to himself and picking his teeth with a fountain-pen. Eccentric! bless my soul, how could a poet be anything but eccentric? Besides, he's bound to be a liar: for if he can't get the end of a line to come right with truth for a rhyme, he has got to make it clink with a whopper. Why, man, it's a great worry for an honest man like me to speak the truth in plain prose. If I were to send out my bills in metre to my customers, there would be a rise of temperature soon in the town of Nairn. No, no: the only thing that can be done with a poet's manuscript is to take it to the head of the garden, sprinkle it with paraffin, and apply a vesta."

"A GRAND DAY FOR IT."

While one of the great six-day battles of the Eastern war was going on, a country doctor, by some mistake in delivery, did not get his Herald to breakfast one morning. Anxious to get the news, he bolted his meal and sallied forth to hear the latest from the seat of war. He saw a wrinkled old churl trimming the roadside hedge with a bill-hook, and humming a tune like the gravedigger in Hamlet, Act v. "Any news of the war?" gasped the doctor. "Eh?" said the old man, without discontinuing his work. "Are you not aware," said the doctor, "that there is a great battle raging in Manchuria?" "No," said the man, "I know nothing about it, and care less." "What!" shouted the doctor. "You care nothing about it? Why, man, the Russians and Japanese are at this moment fighting for the hegemony of all Eastern Asia." "Lord, do you say so?" replied the old cock, lopping unconcernedly at his hedge; "well, all I can say is, that they're gettin' a grand day for it."

A PRO-BOER.

On one occasion, in the West Highlands, I availed myself of a lugsail ferry to cross an arm of the sea and so avoid a long detour by land. The boat was old, the sail was thick with big-stitched patches, and the ferryman was an elder. I had much edifying talk with him, and at last gliding from the Declaratory Act, of which he did not approve, I asked him if he had any family. "Yes," he replied, "I have two sons. One of them is a polissman in Glasgow, a nice lad, a very nice lad: he sends me ten shillings every month; oh! an excellent lad is he indeed. But my other son is a disgrace to me; he is bad, very bad. He is a drunkard and a card-player and a Sabbath-breaker, and what's a thousand times worse than all that, he's a Pro-Boer." This instance of patriotism in a remote Highland nook was very refreshing for me to hear, and I gave the anti-Krugerite elder a substantial fare for his trouble in ferrying me over the loch. He invoked the blessing of Heaven on me, and I hope his prayer will be answered.

"FALLS OF BRUAR, ONLY, PLEASE!"

Some years ago, I had occasion to spend a day at Blair Athol, where I was dosed with nothing but kindness by a genial son of the famous Clan Macdonald. He put his trap and driver at my disposal, in order that I might, with comfort and expedition, go and view the Falls of Bruar, immortalised in one of Burns's cleverest poems. No sooner had we set off than the driver began to calumniate Burns in unmeasured language, and to throw withering scorn on the Falls, which, he declared, were utterly unworthy of being visited by any sane man. "If you want to see real falls," said he, "I'll take you to the Falls of Tummel, which could knock those of Bruar into a cocked hat!" (such was the curious metaphor he employed). I told him he could take me to both if there was time, but Bruar I must see. He landed me at the Tummel, and drove on recklessly himself a mile further to see his sweetheart. The desire to pay a visit to his Bonnie Jean was the sole cause of his gibes at the poet. Back he came in an hour, chanting merrily, and we drove to Bruar. I found the varlet had lied most expansively: the Falls are gloriously fine, and worth walking a good many miles to see. On the homeward road, I could see he was ill at ease: he was dreadfully afraid that his amorous flight would be discovered by his master. He said to me once every minute, "Falls of Bruar, only, please: keep your thumb on Tummel!" Latterly he set these words to a kind of rough music, and sang them continuously in my ear, winking the while and smiling roguishly. I obeyed him.

A BAD CASE OF NERVES.

While I was sitting alone in the smoking-room of the hotel, a tall, thin, restless-eyed, aristocratic young fellow came quietly in. He went up to the sideboard, poured out half a tumbler of water, and carefully measured out about ten drops of phospherine therein. He swallowed the mixture, smacked his lips, and sighed. He then remarked that it was a nice evening and that he was very ill with a nervous complaint. "I suppose, now," he said, "you would actually tell me not to worry, to take everything easy, and, above all, to firmly believe there is nothing whatever the matter with me?" "Most certainly," I said, "you ought to consider yourself in perfectly good health; by and by you would come to be so in reality. The Christian Scientists say you might even learn to hold fire in your hand by thinking of the frosty Caucasus." "I suppose, too, you would recommend me to have a hobby, such as golf, or gardening, or amateur photography." "Yes, I believe a harmless hobby such as you mention would relieve the mental strain and take you out of yourself." "Well, I essayed golf, but, alas! I massacred a ram; I tried gardening, and tired of it before the flowers began to show; and as to photography, it only increased the number of my enemies." "What about cycling or horse-riding?" "These won't do—I can think at both of them. Now, I don't want to think: in fact, I mustn't." "Fishing? wouldn't that be a reposeful diversion?" "No, no," he said, "I could not stand the sight of an animal enduring pain." "Well, you surely might try a little light reading." "The strange thing about my reading is this," said he, "I look at a sentence and understand it, but I am aware of something, either at the back of my head or behind me, which says, 'All this is futile stuff and nonsense: give it up, it's not for you; you are condemned to everlasting emptiness, and your life will never know any more fulness or joy.'

"Immense vacuity of intellect! I lift a volume, but a sentence tires; Even a flimsy magazine requires From me more concentration and direct Volition than my vagrant wits elect To give the pages. All my soul desires Is to gaze without purpose on the fire's Crackle of glowing cinders, and detect Weird shapes of beasts and palaces and men In the red mass of photographic coal; Perchance my lazy mind may, now and then, Without exertion, read as on a scroll (While the glede sinks to ashes in the grate) The dust and nothingness of mortal state."

"Well," I said, "your case is a queer one, and I am at a loss to suggest anything further." At this, the young man burst into a loud peal of laughter. He was supremely delighted at finding himself so unique, so singular. He took me by the hand, shook it most heartily, saying, "I haven't enjoyed myself so much for a long time. If I were oftener in the company of men like you, I might regain hope."

The improvement was, unfortunately, of very short duration. He continued his observations thus:

"And yet, and yet: Sunt lacrimae rerum. What is this world but a succession of fleeting images chasing each other across a background of joy or pain! Now we quaff the sour cup of misery, by and by we drink the intoxicating vintage of hope. Heaven alone stands firm, gemmed with the pitiless stars. The day breaks, rises to its glory in the shimmering height of noon, and dies away in the west: so does the utmost pride of man's career fade away to nothing, a harvest for Time's scythe. On all this growth and decay the stars gaze with their unpitying and eternal eyes. I think I'll have a little more phospherine."



CHAPTER VII.

LEGENDS AND LITERARY NOTABILIA.

Gairloch folk-lore: Prince Olaf and his bride—A laird who had seen a fairy—Tales from Loch Broom: The dance of death—The Kildonan midwife—The magic herring—Taisch—Antiquities of Dunvegan—Miscellaneous terrors—St. Kilda—Lady Grange—Pierless Tiree—Lochbuie in Mull—Inveraray Castle—The sacred isle—Appin—Macdonald's gratitude—Notes on the Trossachs—Lochfyneside: Macivors, Macvicars, and Macallisters—Red Hector—Macphail of Colonsay—Tales from Speyside: Tom Eunan!—Shaws and Grants—The wishing well—Ossian and Macpherson—At the foot o' Bennachie—Harlaw—Lochaber reivers—Reay and Twickenham—Rob Donn—Rev. Mr. Mill of Dunrossness.

GAIRLOCH FOLK-LORE.

I do not think anyone interested in local history and antiquities could find a greater treat than that furnished by Mr. Dixon's Account of the Parish of Gairloch. That romantic and lovely district is fortunate in having found a historian of unlimited enthusiasm and untiring industry. There is not a single dry page in his long and detailed narrative. Many of the legends he tells are known to me from other sources, but I am certain that no Scotch compiler (Mr. Dixon, let me say, is English) has written of them with such enjoyable sympathy and poetical ardour. I have been assured by local authorities that the facts adduced by Mr. Dixon are invariably reliable. That I can well believe; but what is still more rare, Mr. Dixon's facts are everywhere made to gleam and glitter in the radiance of romance. Let me narrate, in concentrated form, one of the legends which this clever writer has alluded to in more than one of his chapters.

PRINCE OLAF AND HIS BRIDE.

In the ninth century of the Christian era, one of the islands that in such picturesque fashion dot the surface of Loch Maree, was honoured by being the abode of a pious hermit, despatched thither from the sacred isle of Iona. His presence there, implying as it did austerity, perpetual worship of Heaven, and the reading of devout treatises, inspired veneration in the minds of the obstreperous tribes around. They felt themselves better from having such a good man near them. Wherever in these old times of war and gore, a saintly pioneer established himself, the kingdom of chaos and night was pushed back for miles around his cell.

The Picts of the ninth century revered this man, and his fame was known also to the predatory seamen who came buccaneering among the islands of the West. A Viking of royal blood, Prince Olaf, in the intervals of his sea-roving, hied sometimes to the hermit's retreat, for instruction and spiritual blessing. The young man, as tradition alleges, was not beyond the need of guidance, for his temper was of the most fiery violence, and, at the slightest provocation, his hand was on the hilt of his sword. No doubt the saint of Isle Maree managed to moderate the Prince's vehemence, and draw him somewhat away from wrath which (as Homer puts it), waxeth like smoke in the breasts of warriors, and is far sweeter to them than trickling honey.

By and by, this youth fell in love, and in characteristic fashion he loved with a whole-souled and overwhelming passion. The hot-tempered Viking became a new man, and he thus communed with himself: "How can I ask this maid to share my life on the stormy sea? She is too tender and gentle to go under the dark clouds in a war-galley with me and my rude mates, when we sail to meet the enemy. Nor, were she my wife, could I leave her behind and unprotected. Marry her I must, but I can neither take her with me thereafter, nor defend her in my absence. Go to, I'll e'en visit the monk of Isle Maree and get counsel from him."

It is pleasant to note that the holy father found a way out of the difficulty. "Marry her, my son," said he, "and build a tower of strength as her abode on this isle of mine. When you are away, she will be near me. Old man as I am, the natives respect me for my devotion and my hoary hairs." The prince's scruples, so honourable to his love, were overcome. The marriage was celebrated with great pomp and rejoicing. The green pathways of the isle were thronged with feasters; tents were erected beside the thickets of oak and holly, and the Loch had little rest from the plashing of oars. The hermit blessed the couple and blessed the castle too in which the twain were for a time to reside.

Prince Olaf and his lady were perfectly happy, and the golden hours of their wedlock sped merrily by. But the hours that were short to them, were long and dreary to the Norse rovers, lying inactive in the ships anchored hard by in the waters of Loch Ewe. Murmurs, growing at length in volume, were muttered by the men as they reflected, day by day, on the soft uxoriousness of their leader. They wished to be at sea on an expedition that had been planned aforetime ere the marriage had taken place. These murmurs reached the prince's ears, and, with many tears, he tore himself away from the bridal tower to take his place at the head of the squadron. It was a bitter severance, but tempered by the expectation of a speedy reunion. The prince took with him two pennons, a black and a white. "If I am successful in my expedition," he said, "I will display the white pennon on my galley; if misfortune befalls me (which God avert) the black will be flying on the prow. Do you come to meet my returning fleet and let a similar indication be visible on your barge to tell of your safety or your misfortune. A lover feels his excitement growing, the nearer he comes to his home: let us abridge, by such a device, the length of our anxiety."

Love did not make Olaf a worse fighter: rather, indeed, it improved his prowess. The thought of the fair young wife in the lonely tower, protected mainly by the sanctity of an old hermit, nerved his arm, and he speedily got through the expedition with great applause. He swept everything before him, and turned homeward in the expectation of a cordial and meet welcome. During his absence, the lady had been fretting. Finally, as the days passed, she became downright angry. "He is neglecting me," she cried; "he goes away from my arms to the society of rough seamen. I am a mere bauble, a plaything for his leisure. He is tired of me, and perhaps on some distant coast he is dallying with a newer sweetheart. But I will try his heart. When I hear of his homecoming, I will go forth on my barge and have the black flag of desolation flying from the prow. In this way I may obtain some hint of his real feelings."

Olaf came homeward in great glee, and on entering Loch Ewe from the outer sea, the white pennon of success flapped gaily in the wind. The princess, on the other hand, let prepare her boat, and, clothed in the weeds of death, lay down on the deck, while simulated sobs of woe and lamentation were raised by all her attendants. Slowly the boat, with its ill-omened signal, moved to meet the conquering hero. Olaf, the impetuous, was chilled to the heart, when he saw what he thought the sure indication of his lady's misfortune. What a sight met his eyes when he leapt on board! The princess stretched out in apparent death, and robed in the garments of the grave! He could not endure the torment and disillusion. He drove a dirk into his bosom with such passionate might that he fell down, bereft of life, mighty and mightily fallen, on the deck beside her.

She had not expected such a tragic conclusion to her blamable artifice. Remorse, of course, got hold of her, and drawing the gory weapon from her dead lord's breast, she plunged it into her own. Too late was she convinced of his true love for her: she had only one duty, and that was to die with him. It is said in the legend that her life was not extinct when the barge, with its weird freight, returned to the hermit's isle. The old man, holding in his quaking hand the cross before her dying eyes, strove to comfort her somewhat as her blood ebbed quickly away.

"The bodies of the unhappy pair," says Mr. Dixon, "were buried within the inclosure on the island, beneath the shade of the sacred hollies; they were laid with their feet towards each other, and smooth stones with outlines of mediaeval crosses were placed over the graves, and there they remain to this day. A few stones still indicate the site of the hermit's cell, and a considerable mound marks where the tower stood."

The last time I stood beside the little pier on Loch Maree, I noticed many indications of the advent of southern tourists. Empty bottles were floating on the waves, and the tiny steamer that plies on the loch was getting ready for the summer traffic. Visitors from the Lowlands do not suspect that such tales as I have narrated still live on the lips of the Gairloch natives, and help to pass the hours at many an evening reunion. How the centuries meet in such nooks of Ross! Steamers on Loch Maree, and Olaf's cross still standing on the hermit's isle! The driver of the mail-coach from Achnasheen to Gairloch will discuss creeds and schisms with you, and tell you he does not believe in modern religious developments at all; anon, as the coach passes the Gairloch Church, he will point with extended whip to a grassy hollow on the left, and say: "That is where the Free Church used to have its open-air Communion Service: the place is called Leabaidh na Ba Bhaine, because Fingal scooped it out as a bed where his white cow might calve." "But did Fingal lodge in this neighbourhood?" you ask. "Oh yes, he did whatever," the driver will reply, "and the best proof of it is, that if you go to the north end of Loch Maree, you will see the sweetheart's stepping-stones, placed there by Fingal to keep his feet dry when he went that way to court Malvina."

A LAIRD WHO HAD SEEN A FAIRY.

Bailie Nicol Jarvie, whom we all know so well, confessed that when he heard the wild stories of the North, he felt his blood tingle and his pulses leap. This fact, which as a sober man of business he felt bound to apologize for, was probably due to heredity, his mother having been a Macgregor. The Bailie lived at a time when rumours of witchcraft and fairydom were more common than now, and when there was less dissemination of Scripture truth. It is a saying in some parts of the North that the profuse spread of the Shorter Catechism has been the means of driving witches and fairies out of their old haunts. For my own part, I know of nothing more likely to make them decamp.[28]

I was lucky enough to meet a gentleman who declared, not with an oath, but with a pretty strong asseveration, that he had once seen a fairy. It was in a railway train that I knit conversation with him. He was a kilted country squire, tall, thin, and soulful: on his head was a glengarry with a pair of flying ribbons. He spoke in rapt sentences, as if he were looking on a vision. This is the substance of his remarks:—

One autumn morning, when the world lay fair Under the radiant blue, I musing lay By a green knoll, beside a rippling bay, When, suddenly, gliding through the silent air, A green-clad apparition, wrinkled, spare, Angry, and grieving, passed along the way Before me for a moment's space. The fay Was old and did not see me lying there. I grieved to see her sob in fretful mood, And often since I marvel in my mind What grievous heart-pang drove her from the wood To ease her heart away from her own kind. Strange, that these tiny, soulless beings should, Like us, be grieved and be with passion blind!

These are the words of a man who speaks with conviction. I ought to mention that, ecclesiastically (and I hope in other ways, too,) he was a Moderate. Two things annoyed him greatly: (1) that the fairy did not deign to look at him; (2) that nobody but his little grand-daughter of eight would believe he had seen a fairy at all. "Why," he said, "I could draw that fairy now, if I had pencil and paper. I see her as plain as I see you. Her little bosom was heaving, and she wore a necklace of twisted corn-stalks. I am sorry I did not offer her some refreshment."

[28] A very similar account is given, of the dearth of the little folk in England, by the poet Chaucer; only, that eminent writer declares that the phenomenon is due to the zeal and prayers of the monks and begging-friars, who paced about the country muttering blessings and exorcistic paragraphs.

TALES FROM LOCH BROOM.

The enquirer will find a specially abundant crop of old stories if he stays long on Loch Broom side. The bard of Ullapool, Mr. Roderick Mackenzie, has made an excellent collection of romantic incidents associated with the neighbourhood, and has told them in a very quaint and effective fashion. From his collection I now cite a specimen or two. I by no means recommend them as reading for the small hours of the morning.

THE DANCE OF DEATH.

Three young fellows belonging to Strathmore, in the parish of Loch Broom, were returning from the Low Country, where they had been living for some time. It was long before the days of Watt and Macadam; roads were not good, progress was slow, and rain was frequent. When they, in the final lap of their journey, arrived at the green hillside of Lochdrom, the weather was extremely inclement. Seeing a commodious shieling on the braeface, the young men entered, and one of them, with the object of driving dull care away, struck up a lightsome tune on his pipes. His two comrades at once began to fling their legs about and caper merrily. Soon, having succeeded in dancing themselves dry, they all agreed that female partners would be a great acquisition. The wish was at once gratified. Three women mysteriously glided into the shieling, and the dancing began in earnest. One of the women stood close by the piper, while the other two skipped about, with their partners, all round the building. Outside it thundered and lightened in terrific fashion. Tired and sweating, the two couples were at length fain to stop, and they sat down to rest on seats of turf and heather. The piper stopped too: he felt some malign influence coming over him; he was certain some devilish deed was a-doing. Stealing a glance at his two friends, he perceived that they were both stark dead, and that the two infernal huzzies were smiling a hideous smile of triumph. Action, he felt, was immediately necessary: he flung the still groaning bagpipes full in the face of the witch near him, stunned her thus for an instant, and with one wild leap cleared the threshold. And now began a hot race and hot pursuit. Like another Tam o' Shanter, but without the mare, the piper sped over the moor and through the rain, plying a foot as good as wings. Not till they came in sight of the clachan of Fasagrianach, did the witches relinquish the chase. The exhausted piper had a sad tale to tell to the mothers of his two hapless friends. Next day a company of mourners went to the scene of the infernal dance, and, amid much mourning, they sang a weird wail with the sad refrain, Airidh mo Dhubhaich, which, being interpreted, means "Shieling of my Sorrow."

Let me give another tale, but of less sombre issue, culled from the folk-lore of the same locality.

THE KILDONAN MIDWIFE.

A woman living at Kildonan, on the north shore of Little Loch Broom, and exercising the useful profession of howdie, or midwife, had been summoned to attend a case at Keppoch. She did not arrive at her destination, although she left home after telling her neighbours where she was going. It was on Christmas eve that Fair Sarah, as she was called, left Kildonan, and for the space of an entire year, not a word, good or bad, was heard of her. Search parties were organized, but all to no purpose. Exactly twelve months after her disappearance—the next Christmas eve, namely—back came the errant midwife to her home, not a hair the worse for her long absence. She was immensely astonished to find she had been so long away, her own impression being that only an hour or two had elapsed. It was evident to all the natives of Kildonan that Fair Sarah had been among the fairies, in whose company, as every one knows, months and years slip past as quickly as hours and days. Sarah was asked to speak out and tell her experiences. "It seems to me," said the flustered howdie, "that it was but last night that I left for Keppoch. Just as I passed the White Knoll, between Strathmore and Strathbeg, I came upon a company of little folk, who would have me with them, right reason or none. I accepted their hospitality, and what drinking, skipping, revelry, and glee my eyes beheld! At last I grew sick of their cantrips and capers. Remembering I was a Christian and a communicant, I blessed myself in the name of the Glorious Trinity, with the result that I was unceremoniously bundled out of the place."

The White Knoll had long had the repute of harbouring fairies; Sarah's experiences put the matter beyond all doubt. That worthy female continued to ply her vocation for many years after, with unvarying dexterity and signal success. She was certainly a more prosperous woman after her year's excursion into Fairy-land.

THE MAGIC HERRING.

There is an interesting legend told of the device by which shoals of herring were first induced to come into Loch Broom.

It seems that long ago (the precise date is unessential) the lochs round the island of Lewis were invariably, at the herring season, visited by magnificent shoals of fish, while not a tail was ever seen to twinkle in the spacious waters of Loch Broom. Abundance on one side of the Minch, destitution (for no earthly or apparent reason) on the other! After mature consideration, the dwellers by Loch Broom came to the conclusion that the anomaly could only be explained by the malignant operation of the Lews witches. Query: How best neutralise the spells of these partial harridans? A remedy, both unique and effective, was at length devised. A silver herring was made and given into the hands of a sturdy crew, who set sail with it over the water to Lewis. On arriving there, the men partook of an adequate amount of refreshment, let down the silver fish (attached to a cord) among the jostling shoals in one of the lochs, and then, with the metallic animal trailing in the sea behind them, they turned the prow of the boat in the direction of home. The ruse was successful beyond all belief: glimmering clouds of phosphorence followed through the seas below in the wake of the boat and its silver lure. Under the stars of night, in all the rapture of excitement and success, the Loch Broom fishers led the droves of herring right up to the farthest reach of their loch. The metallic herring was then allowed to sink to the bottom: there it remains, and so long as it is there, an abundant harvest of the deep will be the portion of the resourceful toilers of these shores. Perhaps I ought to mention that the famous boat which did the feat was painted black on one side and red on the other. I am not sufficiently versed in the niceties of grammarye to be able to render a reason for this piebald device.

Of late years, as I have been told, the prosperity of Ullapool is not as high as it was. Can it be that the Lews witches are at their old tricks again? Or has the silver herring been borne, by the wash of retreating surges, out into the Hebridean deep. Every visitor who walks through the sea-facing, white-washed little town, must be struck by the silence of the streets and the utter lack of business animation.

TAISCH.

The most interesting place in the island of Skye is, beyond question, the neighbourhood of Dunvegan. It was of surly, superstitious, loyal-hearted Samuel Johnson that I chiefly thought when I leapt out of the trap that landed me at the Hotel of Dunvegan, for I had just been reading his famous Journey, with its diverting remarks on second-sight. It would not, I confess, have surprised me over much, in my tired and wind-beaten condition, to see the Doctor and the Auchinleck laird, walking arm in arm along the road. I should have put it down to a kind of inverted taisch, certainly to nothing stronger.

It may surprise many southerners to know that the belief in taisch is not by any means extinct. I have met educated Skyemen who firmly believed in the mysterious visual gifts of the seventh son of a seventh son. In old days, the Highlanders were wont to attribute the gift to none but those of an austere and devout cast, who, living a solitary life in the eye of nature, were thought to be specially prepared for receiving supernatural impressions. I am afraid the vast majority of taisch tales are dreadful nonsense. Mr. MacCulloch, in his recent work on Skye, has usefully summarized the various types of second-sight as expounded by the very credulous Macleod of Hamera: (1) The seer is aware of a phantom winding-sheet enwrapping the doomed person; (2) he may see the corpse of some one still in life; (3) he may behold a drowning or accidental death; (4) he may hear noises as of a coffin being hammered; (5) he may see a living person dwindle to the size of a child, and anon expand to normal bulk. As Johnson remarks, many of the seers declared themselves poignantly afflicted by what they saw. Aubrey tells of a clairvoyant who asked the presbytery to pray that the gift (or curse) might be taken away. Instant prayer removed the obsession.

The extraordinary futility and droll language of the sentences uttered by some of the seers are very mirth-provoking. Here are one or two prophecies of the Brahan Seer:—

"The heir of the Mackenzies will take A white rook out of the wood, And will take a wife from a music-house With his people against him. And the heir will be great In deeds, and as an orator, When the Pope in Rome Will be cast off his throne, Over opposite Creagh-a'-chon Will dwell a little lean tailor," etc.

The following is excellent: "When the big-thumbed sheriff-officer and the blind man of the twenty-four fingers shall be together in Barra, Macneill may be making ready for the flitting." It is said that the same seer prophesied thus of the Strathpeffer wells: "The day will come when this disagreeable spring, with thick-crusted surface and unpleasant smell, shall be put under lock and key, so great will be the crowd of people pressing to drink the waters."

Belief in clairvoyance and prophecy was quite common among the Lowland Covenanters; and I believe Peden's Prophecies may still be found among the lumber of the book-shops. An old lady, in Irvine, once repeated to me the following couplet, as having been uttered by Peden:—

"Between Segton and the sea A bloody battle there shall be."

Now, as Segton is the old name for Kilwinning, it would seem that the locale of the battle (probably, as the lady, indeed, thought, the battle of Armageddon) will be in the immediate neighbourhood of the site at present occupied by Nobell's Dynamite Factory.

ANTIQUITIES OF DUNVEGAN.

Taisch has taken me a long way from Dunvegan, of which I meant to say something. No souvenir is to me more delicious than that of some days spent there, on one of which I visited the fine old castle of the Macleods, stablished on its rocks, and filled with romance from base to topmost turret. On the landward side are lawns, flowers, and abundance of eye-gladdening leafage, while, seaward, there is the unspeakable glory of isle-dotted loch and distant sea. By the kindness of Macleod of Macleod (you must not call that grand and most genial gentleman by any more garish title: he is the Macleod; he typifies the clan—that is his highest glory), I visited the delightful old castle and saw every room, relic, and dirk of importance. What gave me the most pleasure was the illuminating commentary of Macleod himself and of his charming daughters. One cannot hear the history of some of the rooms without a feeling of terror. In the drawing-room of the castle (the room now used for prayers, and well it may be,) a horrible outrage was planned to take place by Black Ian, a usurping chief. The atrocious deed happened in the middle of the sixteenth century, and was due to Ian's fear that the Campbells, who had landed with a large force in Skye, would expel him from Dunvegan castle. Ian, pretending that he wished to discuss terms, invited eleven of the leading Campbells to a banquet. At table, Macleods and Campbells were seated side by side; and, at a given signal, which consisted in placing a cup of blood in front of each guest, all the Campbells were simultaneously stabbed to death, each Macleod exterminating his man. I was glad to get out of that drawing-room.

The main relics in the castle are: (1) The Fairy Flag; (2) Rory Mor's Drinking-horn; and (3) the Dunvegan Cup.

It is not as well known as it should be that one of the mediaeval chiefs of the Macleods married a fairy. This dainty little woman presented her lord with a yellow silk flag, dotted here and there with red spots. The virtue of the flag, she told him, resided in its efficacy to save the chief of the Macleods on three different occasions. After the third employment of the flag, it would flutter away to fairy-land. The flag has twice saved a chief out of a particularly awkward predicament, and it is still in Dunvegan, though sadly grimed and rent. The present chief, who has served his country nobly, is quite fit, in soldierly fashion, to grapple single-handed with any difficulty he may encounter; but he is in hopes that the flag may yield its residual virtue to the contentment of some one or other of his successors.

Rory Mor's drinking-horn, which could contain, I should think, between two and three bottles of wine, is an interesting indication of pre-Reformation thirst. Of old, each chief as he came of age, was expected to drink off its contents at one draught as a proof that he had arrived at years of discretion.

The cup is made of dark wood, and is finely adorned with silver work. It is dated 1493, and contains a Latin inscription.

The Fairy Tower in Dunvegan Castle contains the room in which Dr. Johnson and Sir Walter Scott slept during their respective visits to the castle. The burly lexicographer would have little wind left for argument after he had toiled up the steep and narrow spiral stairway leading to the room. Formerly, so the smiling chief told me, the young lady chosen by the Macleod to be his wife, had to pass a night alone in this haunted chamber, in order that the fairies might have an opportunity of seeing her, and formally approving the choice.

MISCELLANEOUS TERRORS.

He who investigates Celtic demonology will hear a good deal about a gruesome and insidious animal called the Water Horse. This fell beast, though able at need to transform itself into the shape of a human being, is normally like a horse, though much bulkier and fiercer. Its usual abode is in the deep lochs, but it may occasionally be seen, with wreck or sea-weed clinging to its hoof or mane, feeding on the hill-side among earthly horses. The detestable feature about the brute is its fondness for human beings. There is no hope for any man, woman, or child, who gets upon its back: at a furious gallop, the animal bounds off by the nearest road to the loch, and leaps under the waves to devour its prey. Foals of a specially vicious turn are believed to have this brute for their sire: in some such way the furious nature of the horse called "Kelpy" in George Macdonald's story might be explained.