ministers--the original one and the Cunningsburgh man also--at length
mounted the trap with me, and we all went joyfully on the final lap. The
object of the journey was to visit Mr. Sinclair of Sandwick, a gentleman
well worth going fifty miles to see. Mr. Sinclair has many qualities
that make a man notorious. He went to Australia in an emigrant ship many
years ago, and wrote a book upon it, in which he playfully remarks that
he got the full value of his passage money, inasmuch as there was a
birth, a death, and a suicide, between Plymouth and Melbourne. Another
of his distinctions is great dexterity in playing the violin, his
favourite pieces being "The Scalloway Lasses" and "The Auld Wife ayont
the Fire." The title of the last-named piece rather staggered me, until
I was informed by one of the ministers, who is a scholar and an
antiquarian, that it relates to a time when the fire was in the middle
of the room and when the smoke escaped by a hole in the roof, or in
default of that, by the door. Mr. Sinclair rendered these pieces with
infinite gusto, and, like all true artists, got as much pleasure as he
gave. He had also the most diverting way of ejaculating the word _hooch_
I have ever heard in my journey through life. It gives me pleasure to
add that he wrote a poem on fifty whales that were driven from the sea
by the local fishermen into Sandwick Bay. These whales were all
beautifully cooped in the narrow inlet and stranded on the beach, when
lo! the local landowners, citing some old statute, claimed from the
fishermen a share of the spoil. Mr. Sinclair, indignant and astute at
once, took upon himself the championship of the fishermen, and managed
matters so admirably that the lords of the soil were completely worsted
in the Edinburgh law-courts. Flushed with such signal success, he put
the whole story into metre. A printed and framed copy of the poem hangs
in a conspicuous place in his sitting-room. At our special request, he
favoured us by singing the impassioned stanzas. It was a unique treat to
hear him do so. There he was in the centre of the room holding the
framed verses in his hand, gazing fondly thereat even as a mother
regards her child. When the chorus came on, he laid down the poem, and
lifted up his voice with glorious enthusiastic force. Inspiration was in
his eye, his grey locks became dishevelled, his arms swung rhythmically
to the beat of the melody. The entire interview was intense: it was one
crow