14 FIELD AND PERN. 



slit or bits of tape, clout, or leather tied through a 

 hole in the ear. Each cottar has generally a few 

 ponies on the hill, and when the May and October 

 sales at the different stations are at hand, they cir- 

 cumvent them for selection by the dealers with a 

 line of forty or fifty fathoms. Still, the poor, hard- 

 working Shetlander is generally little more than the 

 nominal lord of his pony : poverty is his lot from the 

 cradle to the grave, and, as the phrase goes, he is 

 " still in tow." In his dire need the merchants become 

 his mortgagees, just as the curers are to the herring 

 fishers : they advance money on the security of his 

 foal, and he doesn't get the best of it with " halvers' 

 mares. " 



There is no need to call. " the oldest inhabitant" 

 in Unst to witness that an Indian file of forty horse 

 ponies has been seen there carrying peats. The 

 Ashley Act has changed all that, and only left 

 enough of them for sires in the island. In fact, 

 such a demand sprang up at the collieries that the 

 Shetlanders could not resist the lure of 5 10s., and 

 " ground up their saplings" at two years old. Now 

 the demand is less, and they are satisfied with. 4< 

 for them at that age. When the trade was at its height, 

 upwards of five hundred were taken annually for the 

 pits, and not thirty mares amongst them, and about 

 two hundred for general use. They were of all ages 

 from two to twelve, and for a very good one the pit 

 owners would give the dealers as high as 8 to ^10. 

 The year 1857 was a red-letter one, and a noted 



