Baby  was  wrapt  up  in  the  melancholy  grief  and  sur-
prise excited  by  the  positive  conviction,  that  so  much
victuals  had  been  cooked  at  once  as  were  necessary
to  feed  all  the  mouths  which  were  clamouring  around
her  —  an  enormity  of  expense,  which,  though  she
was  no  way  concerned  in  bearing  it,  affected  her
nerves,  as  the  beholding  a  massacre  would  touch
those  of  the  most  indifferent  spectator,  however  well
assured  of  his  own  personal  safety.  She  sickened,
in  short,  at  the  sight  of  so  much  extravagance,  like
Abyssinian  Bruce,  when  he  saw  the  luckless  min-
strels of  Gondar  hacked  to  pieces  by  the  order  of


THE  PIRATE.  179

Eas  Michael.  As  for  her  brother,  they  being  now
arrived  where  the  rude  and  antique  instruments  of
Zetland  agriculture  lay  scattered  in  the  usual  con-
fusion of  a  Scottish  barn-yard,  his  thoughts  were  at
once  engrossed  in  the  deficiencies  of  the  one-stilted
plough  —  of  the  twiscar,  with  which  they-dig  peats  —
of  the  sledges,  on  which  they  transport  commodities
—  of  all  and  every  thing,  in  short,  in  which  the  usages
of  the  islands  differed  from  those  of  the  mainland  of
Scotland.  The  sight  of  these  imperfect  instruments
stirred  the  blood  of  Triptolemus  Yellowley,  as  that
of  the  bold  warrior  rises  at  seeing  the  arms  and  in-
signia of  the  enemy  he  is  about  to  combat ;  and,
faithful  to  his  high  emprise,  he  thought  less  of  the
hunger  which  his  journey  had  occasioned,  although
about  to  be  satisfied  by  such  a  dinner  as  rarely  fell
to  his  lot,  than  upon  the  task  which  he  had  under-
taken, of  civilizing  the  manners,  and  improving  the
cultivation,  of  Zetland.
