5292. What did you say? Did you ask why your farm was to be let?-Yes. He told me before I had time to speak that he was forced to offer my house to another tenant. I said there was surely a cause for that, and he said that the cause was that I was selling fish to another man.
5293. To whom did he say you were selling fish?-To Robert Leslie.
5294. Was that the case?-No; I proved it not to be the case. I told him I would bring proof of that if he required it, but I was never called upon to do so.
5295. You satisfied Mr. Bruce that he was under a mistake, and you still hold the same ground?-Yes.
5296. Had you reason to believe that you would really have been turned out of your ground for selling your fish to another than Mr. Bruce if you had done so?-I had every cause to think so.
5297. Why?-Because at the commencement, when he took the fishing into his own lands, there was a letter read in my hearing, to the effect that we were to deliver our fish to him.
5298. Is that the letter which Laurence Smith spoke of to-day?- Yes, the same letter. It was read by John Harper in my hearing.
5299. Do you know whether the meal is dearer at Grutness store than you can get it elsewhere?-Yes; I have got a little there.
5300. Have you bought it cheaper elsewhere?-Yes; I have bought it in Lerwick, and I found it cheaper there than at the store. It was in 1869 that I bought a boll of meal at Lerwick, and I paid £1, 3s. for it, while their meal that season was 24s.
5301. Was there any difference in the weight of the boll at Grutness?-I could not prove that. I had a running account there, and I sometimes got a boll, sometimes half a boll, and sometimes a peck; but when I came to settle, it was all run up into bolls, and I paid 24s. a boll for it.