and then he deserts it, and encloses another. This liberty is so far from inferring an invasion of the right of proprietor and tenant, that the last degree of contempt is inferred of an avaricious man, when a Zetlander says he would not hold a plantie cruive of him.

[9]

[10] A lispund is about thirty pounds English, and the value is averaged by Dr. Edmonston at ten shillings sterling.

[10]

[Pg 13]

[Pg 13]

CHAPTER II.

 ’Tis not alone the scene—the man, Anselmo, The man finds sympathies in these wild wastes, And roughly tumbling seas, which fairer views And smoother waves deny him. Ancient Arama. 

’Tis not alone the scene—the man, Anselmo,

The man finds sympathies in these wild wastes,

And roughly tumbling seas, which fairer views

And smoother waves deny him.

Ancient Arama.

The few inhabitants of the township of Jarlshof had at first heard with alarm, that a person of rank superior to their own was come to reside in the ruinous tenement, which they still called the Castle. In those days (for the present times are greatly altered for the better) the presence of a superior, in such a situation, was almost certain to be attended with additional burdens and exactions, for which, under one pretext or another, feudal customs furnished a thousand apologies. By each of these, a part of the tenants’ hard-won and precarious profits was diverted for the use of their powerful neighbour and superior, the tacksman, as he was called. But the sub-tenants speedily found that no oppression of this kind was to be apprehended at the hands of Basil Mertoun. His own means, whether large or small, were at least fully adequate to his expenses, which, so far as regarded his habits of life, were of the most frugal description. The luxuries of a few books, and some philosophical instruments, with which he was supplied from London as occasion offered, seemed to indicate a degree of wealth unusual in those islands; but, on the other hand, the 

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