THE LOVER'S STONE. 37 



the music of the pij)es ; for whenever Sandy Camp- 

 bell, the factor's gillie, started a refrain u})on an 

 instrument — which, by the way, had been heard 

 by many a dying- Russian on the heights of Alma 

 — the people scuttled out of our cottage like rats 

 from a doomed ship. It is, I believe, an affecta- 

 tion in the South to cry down the sound of the 

 pibroch ; but to my hill-bred Yorkshire ears its stir- 

 ring refrains when heard across a Highland loch or 

 floating up a wild, craggy glen are simply grand, 

 and I cannot imagine any man with a heart as 

 big as a hay-seed who couldn't flght anything 

 or anyl)ody to its music. I don't think it is 

 generally known that, on the authority of Shake- 

 speare, the bagpipes were at one time played in 

 England. 



In olden times, pluck was considered even a 

 o-reater virtue than it is to-dav in St. Kilda. This 

 is proved by the fact that ever}^ young man who 

 considered himself brave enough to deserve the fair, 

 was obliged to give a public exhibition of his daring 

 on the Lover's Stone — a projecting piece of rock 

 with nothing except two hundred feet or so of thin 

 air betwixt it and the waves below. As soon as 

 all the islanders had assembled at the invitation of 

 the love- sick youth, he walked out on to the very 

 end of the crag, and standing upon the outer edge 

 of it on his left heel i)ut his right to the toes of 

 his left, and then stooped until he touched the toes 

 of his right foot with the finger-tips of both hands. 

 In this perilous position he was obliged to remain 

 until those around him expressed themselves satisfied 

 that he had vindicated his claim to manhood and 

 fitness for a wife. 



At this period, an old writer says, the women 

 married very young — about thirteen or fourteen 



