'But who are you? and what are you doing in number twenty-nine?'
'Number twenty-nine! Surely this is not twenty-nine, but twenty-seven,' doubtingly returned my aunt, as the idea suddenly flashed upon her that she might have mistaken the one room for the other. 'I think I can explain it all.'
'Explain it all! Of course you'll explain it all, and something more than that, before I've done with you, you good-for-nothing impudent hussy that you are!'
'For heaven's sake, be calm, my good woman, or you'll rouse the whole house,' expostulated my aunt in the gentlest manner possible.
'Don't "good-woman" me!' shouted Mrs Scrubbs at the top of her voice, as springing from the bed, she seized the bell-rope and pulled at it with a violence that threatened to carry everything with it. Amid this terrific uproar, Mr Scrubbs and his bedfellow Mr Brown, who had been vainly trying to make themselves heard from the adjoining room, suddenly appeared candle in hand upon the scene.
As oil cast upon the troubled sea will instantly reduce that element to a state of the profoundest calm, so did the sudden appearance of Mr Scrubbs act as if by a charm to allay in one moment all the angry feelings of Bella Scrubbs, and where only a few moments before all was violence and discord, there now reigned perfect peace and good-will.
The mutual explanations that ensued, it is needless to say, were perfectly satisfactory to all the parties concerned; and after a readjustment of partners, the two families once more took possession of their respective chambers, where I need hardly say they were not again molested during the remaining part of that memorable November night.
[ROCKBOUND.]
Of the thousands of tourists who flock every year from all parts of the civilised world to gaze upon the picturesque beauties of the Highlands, to muse among the ruined aisles of Iona, or to listen to the diapason of the sea, as it sinks and swells through the pillared caves of Staffa, few, comparatively speaking, care to go so far north as the Shetlands; yet these islands, though generally bare, have a beauty of their own—the breezy, ever-changeful beauty of the sea.