WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 67 



juniors told their father more about catties and what they 

 did with them at school. And this led to talk of fights, and 

 they asked their father if he ever fought at school, and he 

 confessed to having done so and pointed to two metal teeth, 

 mark of an ancient fray or " bicker " between the Edinburgh 

 Academy boys and the boys of the Old Town on the mound. 

 It is at this point that this domestic tale becomes of national 

 interest, for the present Viscount and our Lord Chancellor 

 appears on the scene ; he was much the junior of these two 

 elder brothers, and soon after this, when they had all got 

 back to their respective schools, "Campy" and his brother 

 asked Bob, the Benjamin, if he ever had a fight, and jeered at 

 him for being at such a school where they didn't fight I 

 forget which it was, possibly Henderson's, and he replied that 

 they were taught at school that it was very wrong to fight, 

 and they referred to the two metal teeth of their father, 

 and gentle Bobby went away thinking. A few days later 

 he came home from school with two black eyes, and his 

 poor little nose pointing north by south, and Lispeth, the old 

 family nurse, was nearly broken-hearted. " Oh, wae's me, 

 puir wee lambie, wha's gaun an' made sic a sicht o' ma bonnie 

 wee bairn ? " And he explained. He was top of his class, 

 and " I thought I ought to fight, so I looked at the other 

 boys, and there was one long one, at the bottom of the class, 

 and I just gave him one on the eye and he licked me." 

 And there were poultices applied to the black eyes and his 

 nose you have seen and much pity from Lispeth for her 

 bonnie wee laddie. 



So the elder brother, R. C. Haldane, after travelling the 

 wide world o'er, has found the most quiet, most restful spot 

 in Ultima Thule, and the youngest is, we trust, still fighting 

 for universal service, we trust, in London, England. 



On this Haldane senior's property we have the land 

 station of our little whaling company, the Alexandra Com- 

 pany, which by our Government is allowed to run two small 

 whaling steamers only, and incidentally to employ many 

 Shetlanders at 23s. a week. More steamers we may not 

 have. Ask herring-fishers why we may not ! 



