arts of agriculture were in Scotland, they were far superior to those known and practised in the regions of Thule, and Triptolemus Yellowley conceited himself to be possessed of a degree of insight into these mysteries, far superior to what was possessed or practised in the Mearns. The improvement, therefore, which was to be expected, would bear a double proportion, and the Lord Chamberlain was to reap all the profit, deducting a handsome salary for his steward, Yellowley, together with the accommodation of a house and domestic farm, for the support of his family. Joy seized the heart of Mistress Barbara, at hearing this happy termination of what threatened to be so very bad an affair as their lease of Cauldshouthers.

«If we cannot," she said, «provide for our own house, when all is coming in, and nothing going out, surely we must be worse than infidels."

Triptolemus was a busy man for some time, huffing and puffing, and eating and drinking in every change-house, while he ordered and collected together proper implements of agriculture, to be used by the natives of these devoted islands, whose destinies were menaced with this formidable change. Strange tools these would be, if presented before a modern agricultural society; but every thing is relative, nor could the heavy eart-load of timber, called the old Scotch plough, seem more strange to a Scottish farmer of this present day, than the corslets and casques of the

soldiers of Cortes might seem to a regiment of our soldiers. Yet the latter conquered Mexico, and undoubtedly the former would have been a splendid improvement on the state of agriculture in Thule.

We have never been able to learn why Triptolemus preferred fixing his residence in Zetland, to becoming an inhabitant of the Orkneys. Perhaps he thought the inhabitants of the latter Archipelago the more simple and docile of the two kindred tribes; or perhaps he preferred the situation of the house and farm, which he himself was to occupy, (which was indeed a tolerable one,) as preferable to that which he had it in his power to have had upon Pomona, so the main island of the Orkneys is entitled. At Harfra, or, as it was sometimes called, Stour-Brugh, from the remains of a Pictish fort, which was almost close to the mansion-house, the factor settled himself, in the plenitude of his authority, determined to honour the name he bore by his exertions, in precept and example, to civilize the Zetlanders, and improve their very confined knowledge in the primary arts of human life.

WE can only hope that the gentle reader has -not found the latter part of the last chapter extremely tedious, but, at any rate, his impatience will scarce equal that of young Mordaunt Mertoun, who, while the lightning came flash after flash, while the wind, veering and shifting from point to point, blew with all the fury of a hurricane, and while the rain was dashed against him in deluges, stood hammering, calling, and roaring at the door of the old Place of Harfra, impatient for admittance, and at a loss to conceive any position of existing circumstances, which could occasion the exclusion of a stranger, especially during such horrible weather. At

length, finding his noise and vociferation were equally in vain, he fell back so far from the front of the house as was necessary to enable him to reconnoitre the chimneys; and amidst «storm and shade, could discover, to the increase of his dismay, that though noon, then the dinner hour of the islands, was now nearly arrived, there was no smoke proceeding from the tunnels of the vents to give any note of preparation within.

Mordaunt's wrathful impatience was now changed into sympathy and alarm; for so long accustomed to the exuberant hospitality of the Zetland islands, he was immediately induced to suppose some strange and unaccountable disaster had befallen the family, and forthwith set himself to discover some place at which he could make forcible entry, in order to ascertain the situation of the inmates, as much as to obtain shelter from the still increasing storm. His present anxiety was, however, as much thrown away as his late clamorous importunities for admittance had been. Triptolemus and his sister had heard the whole alarm without, and had already had a sharp dispute on the propriety of opening the door.

Mrs Baby, as we have described her, was no willing renderer of the rites of hospitality. In their farm of Cauldshouthers, in the Mearns, she had been the dread and abhorrence of all gaberlunzie men, and travelling packmen, gypsies, long remembered beggars and so forth; nor

was there one of them so wily, as she used to boast, as could ever say they had heard the clink of her sneck. In Zetland, where the new settlers were yet strangers to the extreme honesty and simplicity of all classes, suspicion and fear joined with frugality in her desire to exclude all wandering guests of uncertain character; and the second of these motives had its effect on Triptolemus himself, who, though neither suspicious nor penurious, knew good people were scarce, good farmers scarcer, and had a reasonable share of that wisdom which looks towards self-preservation as the first law of nature. These hints may serve as a commentary on the following dialogue which took place betwixt the brother and sister.

« Now good be gracious to us,» said Triptolemus, as he sate thumbing his old school-copy of Virgil, «here is a pure day for the bear seed! Well spoke the wise Mantuan-ventis surgentibus-and then the groans of the mountains; and the long resounding shores- but where's the woods, Baby? tell me, I say, where we shall find the nemorum murmur, sister Baby, in these new seats of ours ?»

« What's your foolish will?» said Baby, popping her head from out of a dark recess in the kitchen, where she was busy about some nameless deed of housewifery.

Her brother, who had addressed himself to her more from habit than intention, no sooner saw her sharp red nose, keen grey eyes, with the