the good ship dropped anchor in the last-named
port on the tenth day.

There were no inns, there are none now in
Shetland, and my uncle took lodgings in the
house of Mrs. Monilees, than whom, he observes
no woman ever less deserved her name. Living
must have been cheap in those days, for Mrs.
Monilees boarded, lodged, and washed her guest
for eighteenpence a day, and declared she made
a handsome profit of him; the only "lee" of
which my uncle ever suspected her.

Fort Charlotte was not a work of any remarkable
extent, and my uncle's survey and report
of all the Dutch had left of her, were very soon
completed. His orders being to await an
answering communication, which could scarcely
be expected to arrive in less than a fortnight,
abundant leisure was afforded for making excursions
in the neighbourhood, and he resolved that
the first should be directed to the lovely bay and
ruined castle of Scalloway.

It was then the custom—if it is not still—to
walk out upon the moorland, catch the first
pony you fancied, take him whither you would,
and turn him loose when you'd done with him.
Arming himself, therefore, with a bridle and pad,
my uncle stepped upon the moor, and speedily
captured a likely-looking shelty that had an air
of pace. The pony seemed perfectly aware what
was wanted of him; and, having hastily rubbed
noses with a friend—as if requesting him to
mention at home that he had been pressed by
an obtrusive traveller, but hoped to have done
with him, and be back to supper—at once trotted
off without guidance towards Scalloway.

The day was fine overhead, but certain misty
wreaths—the skirts, as my uncle conjectured,
of an adjacent sea-fog—kept sweeping up the
valley, crystallising pilgrim and steed with a
saltish fluid, and melting away into the blue.

It was on the lifting of one of these gauzy
screens, that my uncle found that he had turned
an angle in the road, and was within sight of
the village of Scalloway, with its dismantled
keep, memorial of the oppression of evil Pate
Stewart, Earl of Orkney, hanged a century
before, but still (as The Tourist would tell us,
were he here) the Black Beast of Orkney and
Shetland.

On a fine clear summer's day the coast
scenery of this part is singularly beautiful.
From the heights overlooking the picturesque
harbour may be traced the blue outline of many
of the hundred isles forming the Shetland
Archipelago, while countless holms* and islets, green
with velvety sward, stud the rippling waters.
Far to the westward—nearly twenty miles, I
think—heaves up out of the ocean depths the
mighty Fughloe, now Foula, Island—Agricola's
"Ultima Thule"—whose threatening bounds
the most daring mariner approaches with
reluctance.

* The "holm," at low tide, is connected with the
main.

As my uncle expected, a mist was hanging to
seaward, and shut out all the nearer holms and
headlands. He therefore devoted the first
half-hour to a visit to the castle, being
accompanied in his progress by four young ladies,
carrying baskets of woollen-work—the produce
of island-industry—of which, he was sternly
informed, it was the custom of every traveller of
distinction to purchase about a ton.

The mist had, by this time, cleared
considerably. Not a sail of any kind was visible
on the calm blue sea, but so many coasting and
fishing craft lay at anchor in the roadstead,
as to have all the appearance of a wind-bound
fleet. Excepting when a small boat moved
occasionally between ship and shore, complete
inactivity appeared to prevail; and this was the
more remarkable, since the herring-season was
near its close, and my uncle was aware that, on
the opposite—the eastern—shore, every hour of
propitious weather was being turned to the best
account.

Here, however, though there were many
sailors and fishermen about the beach and quay
—lounging, sleeping, or chatting in groups—
there was clearly neither preparation, nor
thought of it. What made this state of things
still more unaccountable was that the bay, even
to my uncle's inexperienced eye, was absolutely
alive with "shoals" of herring and mackerel,
clouds of sea-fowl pursuing them and feasting
at their will.

The goodwives, if, having their work in their
hands, they did not partake of their husbands'
idleness, certainly abetted it, since it seemed as
if four-fifths of them had assembled on the shore
and the little quay.

Curious to elucidate the mystery, my uncle
drew near to a man who had just come ashore
from a herring-smack, and seemed to be its
master, and, with some difficulty, for the sea-
going Shetlanders are neither polished nor
communicative, drew him into conversation.

Would it be possible, he presently asked, to
visit Fughloe; and on what terms could a smack
—the skipper's, for instance—be chartered for
the purpose?

"Fughloe!" repeated the man, with a grin
on his bronzed features, "why—fifty pounds."

"Fifty what?" shouted my uncle. "For a
four hours' sail?"

"You won't get one of us for less," said the
man, sullenly, and probably in a different
dialect from that into which my uncle has
rendered it. "And I wouldn't tempt you to
try it."

"You have done so well with the cod and the
herrings this season, that money's no object, I
suppose?"

The man's face grew dark.

"We have done bad" he said; " and we're
doing worser."

"With miles of fish yonder waiting to jump
into your nets?"

"Waiting to do what? Why, sir, they knows
it just as well as we, perhaps "better," was the
oracular reply.

"Know what?"

"Eh! don't you know?" said the man, turning