XXVII. THE MYSTICAL BODY OF CHRIST. Lo! in wondrous beauty rising, Light of Ages, Hope of Time; There are hands which healed the wounded, God's celestial message bore. Every hand which fought God's battle, Draws our hearts, our souls above. There are feet which scaled the mountain, To all lands their Father-God. There are hearts, O! strong and loving Theirs to nerve with strength from heaven, These are they whom sword nor faggot, Roman prætor, mitred abbot, Could not shake their faith serene. Loving hearts! if ye were wanting, Hands and feet would crippled be, Nor should earth though earnest longing, E. N. P. R. XXVIII.-LADIES' LIFE IN SHETLAND. You want to know how we ladies manage to amuse ourselves and make the time pass agreeably in Shetland. You say we have no libraries, no operas, no theatres, no railways, no schools, no markets, no lecture rooms, no "Societies," and worse than all, no society! You say you can fancy a gentleman getting on pretty well in those outlandish regions, because gentlemen, as a whole, seem to prefer being uncomfortable (?); but you think even they must find it a dull life sometimes. My dear friend, you were never so much mistaken in all your life. If there is a place in the world where a lady may have plenty to do, and plenty of amusements with which to while away her leisure hours, it is in Shetland. You look incredulous, very well-sit down there for half-an-hour-see! do a bit of this crochet for me, and I will prove what I protest so decidedly. You are willing to be bored for a little--you are all attention-very well I say again, and now, ma chere, I will commence my lecture. I will begin by supposing you to be a Shetland lady, and a "blue stocking." Ah! you think that too repulsive a title. Well! you are a lover of "literature, science, and art," as Chambers has it. You like to read books-even to write them-and study nature. You have the widest of wide fields for following those pursuits in Shetland. A very moderate sum will suffice to bring you from Mudie's all the books you wish; and the mail steamer will carry to you, every week, as goodly a supply of papers and periodicals as you choose to invest in, or as your southern friends care to send you. (You see you are not so much "out of the world" as you imagined.) You can have, as most likely you would in more civilized regions, a little room in some snug corner of your dwelling-house, where you can unpack and hoard up all manner of books, and papers, and writing materials; and you may spend hours and hours in this sanctum, dyeing your fingers with ink, and wrinkling your brows with Latin, without dread of some morning caller invading your domain with a clatter of gossip and a lap-dog, and no fear of an inquisitive casual acquaintance intruding on your privacy for the purpose of retailing to other casual acquaintances all she saw in your room, and all you said, and the conclusion she came to, that if ever a "blue stocking" lived, you are that one. I will tell you one amusement in the book line which we found very diverting and instructive. Our family was a large one, so we organized an Essay Society (what was that you said about our having no "Societies ?") among the members of our own household. Each one wrote something on a given subject, a I poem, a narrative, a biography, a tale, no matter what or how, and then we had a grand reading of the whole, once a month. Of course, most of those essays were wretched affairs, but it was a pleasant, though decidedly blue stockingish mode of amusing ourselves; never mind! it helped to beguile the long hours of the winter evenings. I knew one Shetland lady who found wondrous pleasure in keeping star-fish, and zoophytes, and sea anemones, and this was long before it became a fashion to bring cold, slimy, water creatures into elegant drawing rooms.don't say that I should care for that much, but this young Shetland lady was never tired of wandering about on the shore, with a little pail in her hand, picking up all manner of strange marine beings; and many an hour she spent in watching and tending her treasures. She has given up those pursuits now, for "her little ones at home" give her enough to do; but in the days of her maiden leisure, a ramble by the sea had charms which no city promenade could have given to this lover of nature. I have often seen most beautiful collections of sea weeds, shells, or corals, gathered by ladies in Shetland; and the zeal which they have shown in the acquisition of these things proved that the interest awaked was lasting and intense. * Perhaps you have been reading Hugh Miller, and you are desirous of having a modest little collection of mineralogical specimens. Some very rare ones are found in Shetland, and it would afford you great amusement, searching for them, though you would sometimes have to enlist your brother, or male cousin, (with a hammer) in your cause. The serpentine is found in some islands in great abundance, and I have seen exquisite paper weights, small tables, and even handles for fruit knives, cut out of that rock. The sawing and polishing of this beautiful stone forms the chief amusement of the proprietor of an island where it abounds in considerable quantities, and of the finest kind. Botany, too, is a study which a lady may follow with much success in Shetland, and her researches in that line will be rewarded by the discovery of much that is valuable and interesting. No warning to trespassers will be met to deter the rambling botanist from wandering where she will in search of graceful ferns and fairy wild flowers. Nor do you require to fill your feminine brain with learned names (unless you are like that most disagreeable person, Minerva, not satisfied with possessing all womanly accomplishments, but must add to them those of the other sex as well). You can enjoy Nature's treasures without the help of unpronounceable words, and you will prize your flowers, and ferns, shells, and sea weeds, quite as much as if you had waded through innumerable nomenclators. *Instance, hydrate of magnesia, and others. Then, supposing you to be imaginative, and slightly tinged with a healthful hankering after the superstitious and ideal, why an hour's conversation with a Shetlander, or a ten minutes' walk, will send you to pen and paper in double-quick time, for every spot is linked with weird-like legends and poetical associations, and the natives of those islands are for the most part endowed with an eloquence and education far above that of their class in other countries. The lover of the antique and romantic has but to stroll to the ancient cairn among the rocks, and seated on some sea-washed crag, bid the boy who guided her there to repeat some story connected with the place. No fear such a tale will not be forthcoming-and what matters it if the reciter draw a little on his imagination for the filling up of gaps in the time-ruined wall of his discourse? Take all you hear in good faith, and go home and fill your scrap-book with "Sketches and Tales of Shetland." But you say, "only a fer ladies are fond of those scientific and literary pursuits." I am glad to believe that that is the truth, and I was but showing how even those "few" may find my beloved fatherland a spot of interest and delight. Now I am going to suppose (taking for granted that all ladies are fond of doing something) that you are housewifely inclined. You scorn the help of cookery books, and you triumph in the conquest over trifling household difficulties. To be sure you have no markets to run to for everything you want, but all the more cause to draw upon your own resources, and prove yourself the thoughtful, foreseeing, prudent housekeeper, which you profess to be. In the summer season, you find no lack of fresh lamb and mutton (and both of a peculiarly delicate kind), and plenty of fish, for which a London epicure would give fabulous sums. A lady in Shetland, however, may procure any amount of ling, or cod, or mackerel, or herring, fresh from their parent element, if she will exchange a pound of meal or an ounce of tea for the same! The ling, and cod, and herring, have of course a market price; but mackerel and eels, with shell-fish, are only used as bait for the deep-sea fishing. The wives of the fishermen bring the produce of the deep to the gentlefolks as "presents"-which word, however, you must interpret "barter." An old woman will come and say she wishes to see "the lady." You go to the kitchen, and you find she has brought "twa bonnie codlings for the maister's dinner." You say,-"Oh, thank you, what shall I give you for them?" "I! mem, na, na! I wadna sell sic a trifle." You reply," Shall it be a little oatmeal?" "Weel, since ye are sa guid, a makin' o' tae wid do as weel!"-so you get your fish, and so you pay for your "present." In the same way you may buy dozens of new-laid eggs and fine young fowls-any thing the country yields in short; but if you would rather pay money at once for your purchases, sixpence will procure eighteen fine mackerel or a dozen herrings (fresh). A full-grown hen will cost sixpence, a pair of young fowls eightpence, a dozen eggs fivepence. A shilling will pay for a fat goose, but that you can only procure at one particular time of the year. But perhaps you, being such a good housekeeper, would like better to rear your own poultry. All Shetland houses have, more or less, some ground attached to them; and geese (swangeese if you choose,) and all kinds of ducks are easily kept and managed. Turkeys, pea-fowl, and guinea-fowl, can also be reared; and all the varieties of Cochin, game, Spanish, and other fowls, are managed in our islands quite as well as in more southern latitudes. Of course, if you are the laird's wife, you may have your fresh beef at any season, killed on your home-farm, or brought from the insular metropolis, Lerwick; but if you don't chance to be a lady of very extensive means, and therefore cannot afford to provide your household with butcher's meat in such an expensive manner, you must put up with having beef unsalted and unsmoked just one fortnight in the year, that is at Martinmas, when there is a general slaughter of all the animals which have been in course of fatting during the summer, and when stores are being laid in for the long winter and for the spring to come. You are a careful prudent housewife, so you must see that in October you salt and smoke as much beef, and mutton, and fish, as will last during the six ensuing months. After all you won't much miss roast beef and steaks when you can have mutton, lamb, poultry, rabbits, fish-from loch*-locked trout to deep-sea cod -and game, such as plover and snipe. Then your dairy will yield you the richest cream, butter, and cheese; and the laying in of stores, and the foraging for varieties of provisions, and the inventing of new dishes, will employ every moment of the time which you choose to devote to such matters. In all the islands there are shops where you may procure the most needful of common groceries, earthenware, and cotton; and in Lerwick (which is situated about the centre of the island called Mainland,) you may procure any thing you wish, from a concertina to a print gown. There are capital shops in this little wave-washed town, and sloops leave the metropolitan harbour every week on their way to the different places of any importance throughout Shetland. Not so much out of the world, you see, after all! But you have wearied already of playing the housewife, and you want to see what employment I will find for you in some other character. Suppose you try being the minister's sister, • Loch, pronounced gutteral, as in Scotland. |