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OSLA'S WEDDING. 



CHAPTER I. 



To one whose memory can go back half a century 

 or thereby, and who knows what Shetland then was, 

 that period seems fairly to merit being called * the 

 olden time.' These remote islands of the northern 

 sea were then almost completely isolated from inter- 

 course with the busy world, and little known. Most 

 people had a hazy idea of their being in some way 

 connected with Skye or the outer Hebrides ! Scarcely 

 any tourists ever thought of visiting them, and for the 

 very good reason, that if any venturesome explorer 

 succeeded in penetrating so far into the wild and 

 stormy north, the chances were he would become an 

 involuntary prisoner, and it would be weeks, or 

 possibly months, before he got an opportunity of 

 finding his way back again. Mails were brought 

 from the south at irregular intervals by a small sloop, 

 which made six or seven voyages in the year from the 

 Scotch coast. A letter sometimes took two or three 

 months to reach its destination in Edinburgh or 

 London. There were no roads, and of course no 



