INGATirS VOOER. 335 



entially to his every Sunday. He found no lady 

 teacher so patient with his dull scholars — no visiter so 

 indefatigable in attendance upon the sick and the sad 

 — no housewife so blythe and busy in spite of poverty 

 — no woman in all his parish so like his ideal of a 

 minister's wife ; and so Mr. Nicolson wooed and won 

 Miss Osla. He was brotherly enough to invite his 

 wife's sister to make the manse her home ; but Ingath 

 could not endure the thought of leaving Orgert, and 

 clung to its mouldering walls with a faithfulness that 

 would have been sentimentally silly if it had not been 

 pathetically earnest. 



By-and-by boys and girls began to appear at the 

 manse with that astounding rapidity which charac- 

 terises the growth of clergymen's families, and the 

 minister, having no means beyond his meagre stipend, 

 did not often find it convenient to lay his hand on a 

 five pound note. To be plain, Mr, Nicolson was often 

 driven to his wit's end to know how to keep out of 

 debt, and yet maintain his family according to their 

 rank. 



Now, it happened that an elderly and somewhat 

 eccentric gentleman, desirous of leading a recluse life, 

 and hearing that the Shetland Isles were very suitable 

 as a home for such a person as himself, visited the 

 Isle of Sweena, and immediately fixed his covetous 

 eyes upon the old picturesque house of Orgert, standing 

 quite away from all other dwellings, on a green ness 

 almost surrounded by high cliffs and the sea. 



The would-be hermit felt that no other spot on 



