Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1878-04-10
ofkhhey and ths orc.aian..

etiNcc, IL Iot MY
are peculiarly radical in their notions,
and think the world should be governed
on the principles OF equality and fratern-
ity. In many of the shops the air they
assume seems to intimate that they
confer an honor upon you by serving
YOU A gentleman living near Kirk
wall had occasion TO ask several ques-
tions of the Postmaster, and received a
reply intimating in polite terms that he
was to mind his own business. As it
happened to be his business, as much
as it was the Postmaster's duty TO give
the required Information, the gentle
man in question referred the matter to
the chief office in Scotland, and the
Postmaster was brought to his senses.
But this peculiar condescension, this
Idea of equality, was very much more
apparent in Shetland. There it became
occasionally offensive; in Orkney. never.
And there is an elementin the Orcadian
shopkeepers, as in the Scotch, that Is
generally lacking further southwark.
Everyone among them seems to be a
gentleman in his own way, and after
his own fashion. Many of them would
not be out of place in any society in
which they might find themselves.
There is an absence of vulgarity about
them; of that element which CRATES
upon the refined senses of more ethereal
mortals. All have received some educa-
tiOn, many an advanced one; and they
guage. The greatest kindness / received
in the town of kirkwall was from a
shopkeeper; a man who was in every
sense a gentleman; a member of the
Antiquarian Society, who lent me Curl
Gus old books connected with the
islands, and showed me every possible
attention in pointing out every object
of interest, and in making me acquainted
with the place. On the other hand. one
of the chief magnates Of the town, hear
ing tina. l was staying at the hotel, sent
message through the medium of a
third person that he should be happy if
would call to see him; but neglected the
courtesy of first calling upon stranger.
The loss of this acquaintance was mine
undoubtedly. The aspect of the whole
town of kirkwall is dreary and melan-
choly in the extreme. Many of the
houses are very old, and their gable
ends face the street after the Danish
fashion. This is the distinction between
the old and the new houses. The gables
of the old heuses face the road, the new
ones are at the side. The houses are
most of them ugly and Unlocking. You
see a plain, very unadorned looking
tenement, and are surprised TO hear that
it is Inhabited by one of the chief peo
pie of the island. Poverty-stricken as
the outside may look TO LondOner, the
inside is made warm and comfortable.
The poorer class use peat for fuel. Much
of the land is good for nothing else.
though every year sees an improvement
in the drainage and cultivation of the
islands. This peat smell goes out into
the air with delicious incense. In the
interior of the huts scattered over the
islands it becomes too strong to be
pleasant. Very frequently the smoke
has to find its way out in the same way
that the people find their way in-by
the door. Yet, desolate as the huts are
TO look at, except among the poorest
and lowest, they are comfortable and
quaint in their interiors. In the town
of hirkwall itself coal is more fire.
quently used than peat. But the coal
is not a very cheap commodity, as it all
has to be brought by boat. Thus there
is less smell of peat in the town than as
you pass a cottage on a country road.
The one street of kirkwall, which
forms, as it were, two sides of a tri-
angle, is narrow and ill-paved. Opposite
the cathedral it opens out, and here
comes the only little bit of cheerfulness
that exits in the town. In front of this
noble edifice, which would be an orna-
ment to any town in the world, rising
on gentle eminence, and surrounded
by grave-stones which perhaps add
nothing to its beauty, you forget your
self for the moment. You are carried
back in spirit to the days of the Morse
men and the Sea Kings, to the Jarls of
Orkney who held sway for so many
centuries; to Magnus of Norway and
Ronald, to Sgurd the first Jarl or Earl;
to Magnus the martyr, whose heart is
inclosed in one of the pillars of the
choir; and to that Ronald who first
founded the cathedral and dedicated il
TO his martyred uncle. You trace the
two styles of architecture-the Norman
and the early English-and are some
what puzzled at the manner in which
they seem TO be interlaced. You come
down in Imagination to the time of
Bishop Reid, who added the four most
westerly pillars, and you gaze in ad-
miration at the beautiful west doorway.
Turning upward you pass on to the
ruins of the Earl's and the Bishops
palaces, ruins which ought to have been
so much better priced and preserved
than they are. You bemoan the bad
taste which has just built a law-court
or town-hall in closest proximity to
these ruins, when acres of land hard by
might be had almost for the asking
But it is much to be feared that the
Orcadians, though in advance of the
Dutch in the art of trying, are like the
Dutch In their passion for thrift. And
when thrift becomes passion, it has to
be distinguished by another name.
Every landed proprietor, small or great,
in Orkney Or Shetland is styled
"iaird,T and laird's son the "young
laird" This, to English ears. sounds
somewhat comical and pretentious; and
if 'young laird" were to go to Eton,
and received one kick for himself and
one for the ''old laird" he would proba-
bly, return to his possessions with less
exalted notions of the importance of his
Hardship" 1t must, however, in