gave them his benediction; and he was invited to sit down among them and to share their hurried repast, with which he gladly complied.  They were freebooters, who lived by plunder and robbery, and this Columba soon discovered.  He advised them to forsake that course, and to be converted to his doctrines, to which they all assented, and in the morning they accompanied the Saint on his voyage homeward.  This circumstance created a high veneration for the cave among the disciples and successors of Columba, and that veneration still continues, in some degree.  In one side of it there was a cleft of the rock, where lay the water with which the freebooters had been baptized; and this was afterwards formed by art into a basin, which is supplied with water by drops from the roof of the cave.  It is alleged never to be empty or to overflow, and the most salubrious qualities are ascribed to it.  To obtain the benefit of it, however, the votaries must undergo a very severe ordeal.  They must be in the cave before daylight; they stand on the spot where the Saint first landed his boat, and nine waves must dash over their heads; they must afterwards pass through nine openings in the walls of the cave; and, lastly, they must swallow nine mouthfuls out of the holy basin.  After invoking the aid of the Saint, the votaries within three weeks are either relieved by death or by recovery.  Offerings are left in a certain place appropriated for that purpose; and these are sometimes of considerable value, nor are they ever abstracted.  Strangers are always informed that a young man, who had wantonly taken away some of these not many years since, broke his leg before he got home, and this affords the property of the Saint ample protection.

THE MERMAID WIFE.

A story is told of an inhabitant of Unst, who, in walking on the sandy margin of a voe, saw a number of mermen and mermaids dancing by moonlight, and several seal-skins strewed beside them on the ground.  At his approach they immediately fled to secure their garbs, and, taking upon themselves the form of seals, plunged immediately into the sea.  But as the Shetlander perceived that one skin lay close to his feet, he snatched it up, bore it swiftly away, and placed it in concealment.  On returning to the shore he met the fairest damsel that was ever gazed upon by mortal eyes, lamenting the robbery, by which she had become an exile from her submarine friends, and a tenant of the upper world.  Vainly she implored the restitution of her property; the man had drunk deeply of love, and was inexorable; but he offered her protection beneath his roof as his betrothed spouse.  The merlady, perceiving that she must become an inhabitant of the earth, found that she could not do better than accept of the offer.  This strange attachment subsisted for many years, and the couple had several children.  The Shetlander’s love for his merwife was unbounded, but his affection was coldly