324 THE FISHERS OF STOTFIELO. 



tural force out of the boat. The father was afraid that, if, when his 

 daughter was so warmly opposed to his going to sea, he should dis- 

 regard her wishes, the first thing he should hear on his return would 

 be her bereavement of reason, or perhaps that she had committed 

 the crime of self-destruction. He therefore left the boat, intimat- 

 ing to his fellow-fishermen that he would that day remain at 

 home. 



The dummie — the name by which the young woman was usually 

 designated — then expressed, by every sign she could employ for the 

 purpose, her anxiety that none of the other fishermen should put to 

 sea on this occasion. Among other methods by which she conveyed 

 to them this anxiety, and forewarned them of the danger of persisting 

 in the resolution to fish which they had th<-t morning formed, she 

 took her father's hat off his head, and, laying it down on the ground, 

 shook it backwards and forwards, and then upset it. All the specta- 

 tors understood perfectly that the impression which had somehow or 

 other been produced in her mind, and which she meant to convey to 

 theirs, was that the loss of the boats would be the consequence 

 of the short voyage they were about to make. Regarding it, 

 however, in no other light than as the consequence of some tem- 

 porary mental hallucination, they sneered at the dismal forebodings 

 of the dummie, and with joyful hearts left the shore for their fishing 

 occupations on the face of the deep. 



The dummie and her father, and all the other persons who had 

 witnessed the departure of the fishermen, returned to their homes, 

 after wishing them an abundant " take, and weel back again," 



The village of Stotfield is situated on the northern section of a hill of 

 great circumference, and of considerable altitude. It commands a 

 most extensive prospect both of land and sea, particularly of the 

 latter. In an eastern direction no object whatever occurs to limit 

 your vision. The eye is literally lost in the immensity of distance 

 while trying to take in as much as possible of the German Ocean. 

 Casting your eye in a south-east direction, along the margin of the 

 world of waters, you will, in a clear atmosphere, distinctly recognize 

 the town of Peterhead, although more than fifty miles distant, jutting 

 out, promontory like, into the mighty deep. Directly northward 

 your vision rests on an extensive ridge of mountains in Sutherland- 

 shire, a distance of upwards of twenty miles. In a north-westerly 

 direction, again, your eye glides over a surface of water until it is 

 interrupted by the hills of Caithness and Cromarty shires, the nearest 

 of which is at least little short of thirty miles' distance. The eye may 

 range through this vast extent of space without one's moving from the 

 threshold of any of the doors of Stotfield ; but, if you ascend the 

 most elevated spot on the hill, you have a landscape spread as it were 

 beneath your feet, which for its extent, its strikingly diversified as- 

 pect, and general beauty, can be surpassed by few similar prospects 

 in Britain. In regard to the extent of what may not perhaps be in- 

 appropriately designated ^erraj^rwa space, which the vision of the as- 

 tonished beholder grasps from the eminence in question, it were not 

 easy to form an accurate estimate ; but, while situated on it, I have 

 more than once imagined that I then realized in miniature that 



