VIII 

 THE NORTHERN ISLES 



ONE morning, I landed at Lerwick. 

 My destination was the far north of 

 the island some twenty-five miles 

 away which I must reach ere night- 

 fall. There was a talk of a half-way house, and 

 that was hopeful in case of accident. The walk 

 was at once depressing and interesting. It was 

 depressing because of the almost universal pall 

 of peat resting on the landscape ; the ragged, 

 marshlike lakes, and the generally uninhabited 

 look. Over long stretches, with the same dark 

 environment, I passed no one. 



An old woman came from a miserable hovel- 

 she called it a "peerie," meaning a small house. 

 Her "peerie" cow, allied to the native longhorn, 

 was grazing on the rough herbage of the roadside. 

 It was a scene Dante might have included in his 

 Inferno. Yet she was happy, as she led her sole 

 companion back to their common home, where 

 they lived under one roof, and coughed together 

 in the smoke that found its way, so lazily, through 

 a hole in the roof. 



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