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cart-load of timber, called the old Scotch plough, seem more strange to a Scottish farmer of this present day, than the corslets and casques of the soldiers of Cortes might seem to a regiment of our soldiers. Yet the latter conquered Mexico, and undoubtedly the former would have been a splendid improvement on the state of agriculture in Thule.

We have never been able to learn why Triptolemus preferred fixing his residence in Zetland, to becoming an inhabitant of the Orkneys. Perhaps he thought the inhabitants of the latter Archipelago the more simple and docile of the two kindred tribes; or perhaps he preferred the situation of the house and farm, which he himself was to occupy, (which was indeed a tolerable one,) as preferable to that which he had it in his power to have had upon Pomona, so the main island of the Orkneys is entitled. At Harfra, or, as it was sometimes called, Stour-Brugh, from the remains of a Pictish fort, which was almost close to the mansion-house, the factor set_ tled himself, in the plenitude of his authority,

determined to honour the name he bore by his exertions, in precept and example, to civilize the Zetlanders, and improve their very confined knowledge in the primary arts of human life.

CHAPTER V.

The wind blew keen frae north and east;

It blew upon the floor.

Quo' our goodman to our goodwife,

"Get up and bar the door."

"My hand is in my housewife skep,

Goodman, as ye may see;

If it shouldna be barr'd this hundred years,

It's no be barr'd for me."

Old Song.

WE can only hope that the gentle reader has not found the latter part of the last chapter extremely tedious; but, at any rate, his impatience will scarce equal that of young Mordaunt Mertoun, who, while the lightning came flash after flash, while the wind, veering and shifting from point to point, blew with all the fury of a hurricane, and while the rain was dashed against him in deluges, stood hammering, calling, and roaring at the door of the old Place of Harfra, impa

tient for admittance, and at a loss to conceive any position of existing circumstances, which could occasion the exclusion of a stranger, especially during such horrible weather. At length, finding his noise and vociferation were equally in vain, he fell back so far from the front of the house as was necessary to enable him to reconnoitre the chimneys; and amidst "storm and shade," could discover, to the increase of his dismay, that though noon, then the dinner hour of these islands, was now nearly arrived, there was no smoke proceeding from the tunnels of the vents to give any note of preparation within.

Mordaunt's wrathful impatience was now changed into sympathy and alarm; for so long accustomed to the exuberant hospitality of the Zetland islands, he was immediately induced to sup pose some strange and unaccountable disaster had befallen the family, and forthwith set himself to discover some place at which he could make forcible entry, in order to ascertain the situation of the inmates, as much as to obtain shelter from the still increasing storm. His present anxiety was, however, as much thrown away as his late clamor

ous importunities for admittance had been. Triptolemus and his sister had heard the whole alarm without, and had already had a sharp dispute on the propriety of opening the door.

Mrs Baby, as we have described her, was no willing renderer of the rites of hospitality. In their farm of Cauldshouthers, in the Mearns, she had been the dread and abhorrence of all gaberlunzie men, and travelling pack men, gypsies, long remembered beggars, and so forth; nor was there one of them so wily, as she used to boast, as could ever say they had heard the clink of her sneck. In Zetland, where the new settlers were yet strangers to the extreme honesty and simplicity of all classes, suspicion and fear joined with frugality in her desire to exclude all wandering guests of uncertain character; and the second of these motives had its effect on Triptolemus himself, who, though neither suspicious nor penurious, knew good people were scarce, good farmers scarcer, and had a reasonable share of that wisdom which looks towards self-preservation as the first law of nature. These hints may serve as a commentary on the following dialogue which took place betwixt the brother and sister.

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