wealthy, and no one could tell how he became possessed of such
riches. He began to cut a dash amongst the lasses, making them
presents of strings of diamonds of vast value, the gifts of the fair
sea nymph. By and by he began to forget the day of his appointment;
and when he did come to see her, money and jewels were his constant
request. The mermaid lectured him pretty sharply on his love of gold,
and, exasperated at his perfidy in bestowing her presents on his
earthly fair ones, enticed him one evening rather farther than usual,
and at length showed him a beautiful boat, in which she said she
would convey him to a cave in Darwick Head, where she had all the
wealth of all the ships that ever were lost in the Pentland Firth and
on the sands of Dunnet. He hesitated at first, but the love of gold
prevailed, and off they set to the cave in question. And here, says
the legend, he is confined with a chain of gold, sufficiently long to
admit of his walking at times on a small piece of sand under the
western side of the Head; and here, too, the fair siren laves herself
in the tiny waves on fine summer evenings, but no consideration will
induce her to loose his fetters of gold, or trust him one hour out of
her sight.

We walked on at a good pace and in high spirits, but, after having
knocked about for nine days and four nights and having travelled seven
or eight hundred miles by land and sea, the weight of our extra burden
began to tell upon us, and we felt rather tired and longed for a rest
both for mind and body in some quiet spot over the week's end,
especially as we had decided to begin our long walk on the Monday
morning.

Visions of a good hotel which we felt sure we should find at John o'
Groat's began to haunt us, and the more hungry we became the brighter