412 RAMBLES OP A GEOLOGIST. 



worthy covenanting minister, the Rev. Alexander Smith of 

 Colvine, banished to North Ronaldshay from the extreme 

 south of Scotland, for the offence of preaching the gospel, and 

 holding meetings for social worship in his own house j and, 

 as if to demonstrate his incorrigibility, one of the series, a 

 letter under his own hand, addressed from his island prison 

 to the Sheriff-Depute in Kirkwall, showed him as deter- 

 mined and persevering in the offence as ever. It was written 

 immediately after his arrival. " The poor inhabitants," says 

 the writer, " so many as I have yet seen, have received me 

 with much joy. / intend, if the Lord will, to preach Christ 

 to them next Lord's day, wt.out the least mixture of any- 

 thing that may smell of sedition or rebellion. If I be far- 

 ther troubled for yt, I resolve to suffer with meekness and 

 patience." The Galloway minister must have been an honest 

 man. Deeming preaching his true vocation, a vocation 

 from the exercise of which he dared not cease, lest he should 

 render himself obnoxious to the woe referred to by the apostle, 

 he yet could not steal a march on even the Sheriff, whose 

 professional duty it was to prevent him from doing his ; and 

 so he fairly warned him that he purposed breaking the law. 

 The next set of papers in the collection dated after the Re- 

 volution, and were full charged with an enthusiastic Jacobit- 

 ism, which seems to have been a prevalent sentiment in Ork- 

 ney from the death of Queen Anne, until the disastrous defeat 

 at Culloden quenched in blood the hopes of the party. There 

 is a deep cave still shown on the shores of Westray, within 

 sight of the forlorn Patmos of the poor Covenanter, in which, 

 when the sun got on the Whig side of the hedge, twelve gentle- 

 men, who had been engaged in the rebellion of 1745, con- 

 cealed themselves for a whole winter. So perseveringly were 

 they sought after, that during the whole time they dared 

 not once light a fire, nor attempt fishing from the rocks to 

 supply themselves with food ; and, though they escaped the 



