ABERDEEN TO THE SHETLANDS. 9 



and with head and horns like the pictures of the 

 Evil One. 



As the day wore on, the silence would have been, 

 terrible even to a seasoned Crusoe. For two hours 

 and a quarter we met no one save a minister, who 

 asked for the news by the packet, and was told of the 

 death of Lord Clyde. There was no bleat, no nicker 

 in the drowsy distance, no cry of the curlew, no 

 " wild birds gossiping overhead" in that peaty, tree- 

 less waste. A solitary rane goose was sailing in one 

 of the vast chain of lochs, just tipped by the evening 

 sun. The murmur of a little brook across the road 

 was quite a joyful thing; and when we nadir 5 1 that 

 solace, we wakened up the nearest sheep group with 

 a "view halloo/'' just to keep life in us. Then our 

 patience began to fail sorely. Why had we ever 

 loved a shorthorn and nursed our love at Towneley 

 and Athelstaneford ? What had we done that we 

 were paying this fearful penance by walking "eighteen 

 miles on end" to an unknown Voe or a remorseless 

 Pa- Pa ? Shall we ever again join in those merry sales 

 at Blenkiron's, and the annual call for Dundee? 

 Why had we given up our herd rambles to Eng- 

 lish farm-houses, peeping out coyly among bee- 

 hives and apple-blossoms, and redolent of fat bullocks 

 and wedders, to roam in these ancient silences with 

 three-year-old mutton at 4lbs. a quarter? Why, in- 

 deed ! There was no lodge in this wilderness, Twice 

 over we stretched away to what seemed one, at the 

 turn of the road, but it faded into a greywacke rock. 



