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 suppose 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.

"Now good be gracious to us," said Triptolemus, as he sate thumbing his old school-copy of Virgil, "here is a pure day for the bear seed!Well spoke the wise Mantuan-ventis surgentibus-and then the groans of the mountains, and the long resounding shores-but where's the woods, Baby? tell me, I say, where we shall find the nemorum murmur, sister Baby, in these new seats of ours ?"

"What's your foolish will ?" said Baby, popping her head from out of a dark recess in the kitchen, where she was busy about some nameless deed of housewifery.

Her brother, who had addressed himself to her more from habit than intention, no sooner saw her sharp red nose, keen grey eyes, with the sharp features thereunto conforming, shaded by the flaps of the loose toy which depended on each side of her eager face, than he bethought himself that query was like to find little acceptation from her, and therefore stood another volley before he would resume the topic.

his

"I say, Mr Yellowley," said sister Baby, coming into the middle of the room," what for are

ye crying on me, and me in the midst of my housewife skep ?"

"Nay, for nothing at all, Baby," answered Triptolemus, "saving that I was saying to myself, that here we had the sea, and the wind, and the rain sufficient enough, but where's the wood? where's the wood, Baby, answer me that ?"

"The wood ?" answered Baby-" Were I no to take better care of the wood than you, brother, there would soon be no more wood about the town than the barber's block that's on your own shoulders, Triptolemus. If ye be thinking of the wreckwood that the callants brought in yesterday, there was six unces of it gaed to boil your parritch this morning; though, I trow, a carefu' man wad have ta'en drammock, if breakfast he behoved to have, rather than waste baith meltith and fuel in the same morning."

"That is to say, Baby," replied Triptolemus, who was somewhat of a dry joker in his way, "that when we have fire we are not to have food, and when we have food we are not to have fire, these being too great blessings to enjoy both in the same day. Good luck, you do not propose