iving with him in the little island of Graemsay, separated by the sea
from any place of worship, he rarely permitted her to see the inside of
a church. At one time, on the occasion of a communion Sabbath in the
neighboring parish of Stromness, he seemed to yield to her entreaties,
and got ready his yawl, apparently with the design of bringing her
across the Sound to the town. They had, however, no sooner quitted the
shore than he sailed off to a green little Ogygia of a holm in the
neighborhood, on which, reversing the old mythologic story of Calypso
and Ulysses, he incarcerated the poor woman for the rest of the day till
evening. I could see, from the broad grin with which the boatman greeted
this part of the recital, that there was, unluckily, almost fun enough
in the trick to neutralize the sense of its barbarity. The unsocial
fisherman lived on, dreaded and disliked, and yet, when his skiff was
seen boldly keeping the sea in the face of a freshening gale, when every
other was making for port, or stretching out from the land as some
stormy evening was falling, not a little admired also. At length, on a
night of fearful tempest, the skiff was marked approaching the coast,
full on an iron-bound promontory, where there could be no safe landing.
The helm, from the steadiness of her course, seemed fast lashed, and,
dimly discernible in the uncertain light, the solitary boatman could be
seen sitting erect at the bows, as if looking out for the shore. But as
his little bark came shooting inwards on the long roll of a wave, it was
found that there was no speculation in his stony glance: the
misanthropic fisherman was a cold and rigid corpse. He had died at sea,
as English juries emphatically express themselves in such cases, under
"the visitation of God."

CHAPTER XV.

Hoy--Unique Scenery--The Dwarfie Stone of Hoy--Sir Walter Scott's
Account of it--Its Associations--Inscription of Names--George
Buchanan's Consolation--The mythic Carbuncle of the Hill of Hoy--No
Fossils at Hoy--Striking Profile of Sir Walter Scott on the Hill of
Hoy--Sir Walter, and Shetland and Orkney--Originals of two
Characters in "The Pirate"--Bessie Millie--Garden of Gow, the
"Pirate"--Childhood's Scene of Byron's "Torquil"--The Author's
Introduction to his Sister--A German Visitor--German and Scotch
Sabbath-keeping habits contrasted--Mr. Watt's Specimens of Fossil
Remains--The only new Organism fo