72 The Sket lands in the 



accordingly we find a little island built up, in two 

 clearly divided and nearly equal halves, of widely 

 differing rocks. The wild western side is granite, 

 and the gentle, richly flowered eastern slopes are 

 sandstone. 



Three or four miles from Lerwick the south road 

 divides ; one branch zigzags along the coast towards 

 Fitful Head, the other strikes across the island to 

 Scalloway. On our return from Sumburgh we left 

 the carriage at the parting of the ways, and sending 

 it on to Lerwick with our baggage, walked across 

 to Scalloway. The road undulates between hills 

 covered with peat. Though it is in a way pic- 

 turesque, there is nothing very striking to be seen, 

 until, on the top of the last rise, the little port, with 

 its beautiful land-locked harbour, lakes, and ruin, 

 with the grand outlines of the hills of Foula in the 

 distance, comes suddenly into view. The castle, 

 which is unroofed, is of the common Highland 

 sixteenth century type a tall, square building, with 

 high pitched gables, oriel windows, and round 

 corner turrets. There is a coat-of-arms over the 

 doorway, and conspicuous on the highest point of the 

 western gable the iron ring from which tradition says 

 that the founder, Patrick Stuart, of infamous memory, 

 was in the habit of hanging neighbours who dis- 

 agreed with him as to the fair price for their 

 estates. 



It is not difficult, without any greater mental 

 effort than is involved in looking up the index 

 references in the published Registers of the Privy 

 Council of Scotland, to draw for oneself a fairly 

 distinct picture of the man and his times. 



Patrick was a grandson of James V. Robert 

 Stuart, his father, had been Prior of Holyrood, but 



