lt an
unspeakable pity when he thought of one of its solitary graves,
and he promised himself to sail back to Uig some day, and bring
home the dust of his father, and lay it among his kindred.

Indeed, it was thoughts of home and kindred which made this long,
lonely voyage happy and hopeful to David. He believed himself to be
going home. Though his father at the last had not spoken much of
his cousin Paul Borson, and though David had not found the letter
which was to be his introduction to him, yet he had not a doubt
of his welcome. Time might wither friendship and slay love, but
his kindred were always his kindred; they were bound to him by the
ineffaceable and imperishable ties of blood and race.

David approached Lerwick in that divine twilight which in the
Shetland summer links day unto day; and in its glory the ancient
homes of gray and white sandstone appeared splendid habitations.
The town was very quiet; even the houses seemed to be asleep. He
saw no living thing but a solitary sea-gull skimming the surface
of the sea; he heard nothing but a drunken sailor fitfully singing a
stave of "The Skaalds of Foula." The clear air, the serene seas, the
tranquil grandeur of the caverned rocks which guard the lonely
isles, charmed him. And when the sun rose and he saw their mural
fronts of porphyry, carved by storms into ten thousand castles
in the air, and cloud-like palaces still more fantastic, he felt his
heart glow for the land of his birth and the home of his forefathers.

To the tumult of almost impossible hopes, he brought in his little
craft. He had felt certain that his appearance would awaken at
once interest and speculation; that Paul Borson would hear of his
arrival and come running to meet him; that his father's old friends,
catching the news, would stop him on the quay and the street, and ask
him questions and give him welcome. He had also told himself that
it was likely his father's cousin would have sons and daughters,
and if so, that they would certainly be glad to see him; besides
which there was his mother's family--the old Icelandic Sabistons. He
was resolved to seek them all out, rich or poor, far or near; in
his heart there was love enough and to spare, however distant the
kinship might be.

For David's conceptions of the family and racial tie were not
only founded upon the wide Hebraic ideals, but his singularly
lonely youth and affectionate nature had disposed him to make an
exaggerated estima