20 FIELD AND FERN. 



bulls from Chillingham Park, or the old Forest of 

 Caledon. 



One of those hopeless afternoons " which wets the 

 puir Scotchman to his sark, the Englishman to 

 his skin" did not improve the aspect of the " scat- 

 talds" or undivided commons, as we trudged back 

 from Voe long before the signal-gun boomed out its 

 naif-hour warning over Bressay. The deck was quite 

 a Shetland cattle market, and it was elysium to be 

 once more among the busy band of farmers giving 

 orders about their stock and getting a few last words 

 with the captain . The reports of our mercurial friend 

 were conflicting, but on the whole favourable. He 

 had rung his bell at short intervals all the first night, 

 and got up rather low-spirited on the morrow, but 

 had ultimately gone shares in a pony gig, and de- 

 parted into the interior with a cattle dealer, who was 

 anxious to show him life. The lights of Lerwick 

 were soon far on our lee. Once more stretched in the 

 stern, and with nearly " forty miles in us," we revisit 

 the Fair Isle only in dreams. The sun is up and 

 bright when we reach Kirkwall, and the Shapinsey 

 mail is cleaving her way through the long seaweed 

 tangle. 



