"GUIDE! Where are we?"

"I can't say for certain."

"Have you lost your way?"

The guide looks slowly all round him, and then looks at me. Thatis his answer to my question. And that is enough.

The lost persons are three in number. My traveling companion,myself, and the guide. We are seated on three Shetland ponies--sosmall in stature, that we two strangers were at first literallyashamed to get on their backs. We are surrounded by drippingwhite mist so dense that we become invisible to one another at adistance of half a dozen yards. We know that we are somewhere onthe mainland of the Shetland Isles. We see under the feet of ourponies a mixture of moorland and bog--here, the strip of firmground that we are standing on, and there, a few feet off, thestrip of watery peat-bog, which is deep enough to suffocate us ifwe step into it. Thus far, and no further, our knowledge extends.This question of the moment is, What are we to do next?

The guide lights his pipe, and reminds me that he warned usagainst the weather before we started for our ride. My travelingcompanion looks at me resignedly, with an expression of mildreproach. I deserve it. My rashness is to blame for thedisastrous position in which we now find ourselves.

In writing to my mother, I have been careful to report favorablyof my health and spirits. But I have not confessed that I stillremember the day when I parted with the one hope and renouncedthe one love which made life precious to me. My torpid conditionof mind, at home, has simply given place to a perpetualrestlessness, produced by the excitement of my new life. I mustnow always be doing something--no matter what, so long as itdiverts me from my own thoughts. Inaction is unendurable;solitude has become horrible to me. While the other members ofthe party which has accompanied Sir James on his voyage ofinspection among the lighthouses are content to wait in theharbor of Lerwick for a favorable change in the weather, I amobstinately bent on leaving the comfortable shelter of the vesselto explore some inland ruin of prehistoric times, of which Inever heard, and for which I care nothing. The movement is all Iwant; the ride will fill the hateful void of time. I go, indefiance of sound advice offered to me on all sides. The youngestmember of our party catches the infection of my recklessness (invirtue of his youth) and goes with me. And what has come of it?We are blinded by mist; we are lost on a moor; and the treacherous peat-bogs are round us in every direction!

What is to be done?

"Just leave it to the pownies," the guide says.

"Do you mean leave the ponies to find the way?"

"That's it," says the guide. "Drop the bridle, and leave it tothe pownies. See for yourselves. I'm away on _my_ powny."

He drops his bridle on the pommel of his saddle, whistles to hispony, and disappears in the mist; riding with his hands in hispockets, and his pipe in his mouth, as composedly as if he weresitting by his own fireside at home.

We have no choice but to follow his example, or to be left aloneon the moor. The intelligent little animals, relieved from ourstupid supervision, trot off with their noses to the ground, likehounds on the scent. Where the intersecting tract of bog is wide,they skirt round it. Where it is narrow enough to be leaped over,they cross it by a jump. Trot! trot!--away the hardy littlecreatures go; never stopping, never hesitating. Our "superiorintelligence," perfectly useless in the emergency, wonders how itwill end. Our guide, in front of us, answers that it will end inthe ponies finding their way certainly to the nearest village orthe nearest house. "Let the bridles be," is his one warning tous. "Come what may of it, let the bridles be!"

It is easy for the guide to let his bridle be--he is accustomedto place himself in that helpless position under stress ofcircumstances, and he knows exactly what his pony can do.

To us, however, the situation is a new one; and it looksdangerous in the extreme. More than once I check myself, notwithout an effort, in the act of resuming the command of my ponyon passing the more dangerous points in the journey. The timegoes on; and no sign of an inhabited dwelling looms through themist. I begin to get fidgety and irritable; I find myselfsecretly doubting the trustworthiness of the guide. While I am inthis unsettled frame of mind, my pony approaches a dim, black,winding line, where the bog must be crossed for the hundredthtime at least. The breadth of it (deceptively enlarged inappearance by the mist) looks to my eyes beyond the reach of aleap by any pony that ever was foaled. I lose my presence ofmind. At the critical moment before the jump is taken, I amfoolish enough to seize the bridle, and suddenly check the pony.He starts, throws up his head, and falls instantly as if he hadbeen shot. My right hand, as we drop on the ground together, getstwisted under me, and I feel that I have sprained my wrist.

If I escape with no worse injury than this, I may consider myselfwell off. But no such good fortune is reserved for me. In hisstruggles to rise, before I have completely extricated myselffrom him, the pony kicks me; and, as my ill-luck will have it,his hoof strikes just where the poisoned spear struck me in thepast days of my service in India. The old wound opens again--andthere I lie bleeding on the barren Shetland moor!

This time my strength has not been exhausted in attempting tobreast the current of a swift-flowing river with a drowning womanto support. I preserve my senses; and I am able to give thenecessary directions for bandaging the wound with the bestmaterials which we have at our disposal. To mount my pony againis simply out of the question. I must remain where I am, with mytraveling companion to look after me; and the guide must trusthis pony to discover the nearest place of shelter to which I canbe removed.

Before he abandons us on the moor, the man (at my suggestion)takes our " bearings," as correctly as he can by the help of mypocket-compass. This done, he disappears in the mist, with thebridle hanging loose, and the pony's nose to the ground, asbefore. I am left, under my young friend's care, with a cloak tolie on, and a saddle for a pillow. Our ponies composedly helpthemselves to such grass as they can find on the moor; keepingalways near us as companionably as if they were a couple of dogs.In this position we wait events, while the dripping mist hangsthicker than ever all round us.

The slow minutes follow each other wearily in the majesticsilence of the moor. We neither of us acknowledge it in words,but we both feel that hours may pass before the guide discoversus again. The penetrating damp slowly strengthens its clammy holdon me. My companion's pocket-flask of sherry has about ateaspoonful of wine left in the bottom of it. We look at oneanother--having nothing else to look at in the present state ofthe weather--and we try to make the best of it. So the slowminutes follow each other, until our watches tell us that fortyminutes have elapsed since the guide and his pony vanished fromour view.

My friend suggests that we may as well try what our voices can dotoward proclaiming our situation to any living creature who may,by the barest possibility, be within hearing of us. I leave himto try the experiment, having no strength to spare for vocalefforts of any sort. My companion shouts at the highest pitch ofhis voice. Silence follows his first attempt. He tries again;and, this time, an answering hail reaches us faintly through thewhite fog. A fellow-creature of some sort, guide or stranger, isnear us--help is coming at last!

An interval passes; and voices reach our ears--the voices of twomen. Then the shadowy appearance of the two becomes visible inthe mist. Then the guide advances near enough to be identified.He is followed by a sturdy fellow in a composite dress, whichpresents him under the double aspect of a groom and a gardener.The guide speaks a few words of rough sympathy. The composite manstands by impenetrably silent; the sight of a disabled strangerfails entirely either to surprise or to interest thegardener-groom.

After a little private consultation, the two men decide to crosstheir hands, and thus make a seat for me between them. My armsrest on their shoulders; and so they carry me off. My friendtrudges behind them, with the saddle and the cloak. The poniescaper and kick, in unrestrained enjoyment of their freedom; andsometimes follow, sometimes precede us, as the humor of themoment inclines them. I am, fortunately for my bearers, a lightweight. After twice resting, they stop altogether, and set medown on the driest place they can find. I look eagerly throughthe mist for some signs of a dwelling-house--and I see nothingbut a little shelving beach, and a sheet of dark water beyond.Where are we?

The gardener-groom vanishes, and appears again on the water,looming large in a boat. I am laid down in the bottom of theboat, with my saddle-pillow; and we shove off, leaving the poniesto the desolate freedom of the moor. They will pick up plenty toeat (the guide says); and when night comes on they will findtheir own way to shelter in a village hard by. The last I see ofthe hardy little creatures they are taking a drink of water, sideby side, and biting each other sportively in higher spirits thanever!

Slowly we float over the dark water--not a river, as I had atfirst supposed, but a lake--until we reach the shores of a littleisland; a flat, lonely, barren patch of ground. I am carriedalong a rough pathway made of great flat stones, until we reachthe firmer earth, and discover a human dwelling-place at last. Itis a long, low house of one story high; forming (as well as I cansee) three sides of a square. The door stands hospitably open.The hall within is bare and cold and dreary. The men open aninner door, and we enter a long corridor, comfortably warmed by apeat fire. On one wall I notice the closed oaken doors of rooms;on the other, rows on rows of well-filled book-shelves meet myeye. Advancing to the end of the first passage, we turn at rightangles into a second. Here a door is opened at last: I findmyself in a spacious room, completely and tastefully furnished,having two beds in it, and a large fire burning in the grate. Thechange to this warm and cheerful place of shelter from the chillyand misty solitude of the moor is so luxuriously delightful thatI am quite content, for the first few minutes, to stretch myselfon a bed, in lazy enjoyment of my new position; without caring toinquire into whose house we have intruded; without even wonderingat the strange absence of master, mistress, or member of thefamily to welcome our arrival under their hospitable roof.

After a while, the first sense of relief passes away. My dormantcuriosity revives. I begin to look about me.

The gardener-groom has disappeared. I discover my travelingcompanion at the further end of the room, evidently occupied inquestioning the guide. A word from me brings him to my bedside.What discoveries has he made? whose is the house in which we aresheltered; and how is it that no member of the family appears towelcome us?

My friend relates his discoveries. The guide listens asattentively to the second-hand narrative as if it were quite newto him.

The house that shelters us belongs to a gentleman of ancientNorthern lineage, whose name is Dunross. He has lived in unbrokenretirement on the barren island for twenty years past, with noother companion than a daughter, who is his only child. He isgenerally believed to be one of the most learned men living. Theinhabitants of Shetland know him far and wide, under a name intheir dialect which means, being interpreted, "The Master ofBooks." The one occasion on which he and his daughter have beenknown to leave their island retreat was at a past time when aterrible epidemic disease broke out among the villages in theneighborhood. Father and daughter labored day and night amongtheir poor and afflicted neighbors, with a courage which nodanger could shake, with a tender care which no fatigue couldexhaust. The father had escaped infection, and the violence ofthe epidemic was beginning to wear itself out, when the daughtercaught the disease. Her life had been preserved, but she nevercompletely recovered her health. She is now an incurable suffererfrom some mysterious nervous disorder which nobody understands,and which has kept her a prisoner on the island, self-withdrawnfrom all human observation, for years past. Among the poorinhabitants of the district, the father and daughter areworshiped as semi-divine beings. Their names come after theSacred Name in the prayers which the parents teach to theirchildren.

Such is the household (so far as the guide's story goes) on whoseprivacy we have intruded ourselves! The narrative has a certaininterest of its own, no doubt, but it has one defect--it failsentirely to explain the continued absence of Mr. Dunross. Is itpossible that he is not aware of our presence in the house? Weapply the guide, and make a few further inquiries of him.

"Are we here," I ask, "by permission of Mr. Dunross?"

The guide stares. If I had spoken to him in Greek or Hebrew, Icould hardly have puzzled him more effectually. My friend trieshim with a simpler form of words.

"Did you ask leave to bring us here when you found your way tothe house?"

The guide stares harder than ever, with every appearance offeeling perfectly scandalized by the question.

"Do you think," he asks, sternly, "'that I am fool enough todisturb the Master over his books for such a little matter asbringing you and your friend into this house?"

"Do you mean that you have brought us here without first askingleave?" I exclaim in amazement.

The guide's face brightens; he has beaten the true state of thecase into our stupid heads at last! "That's just what I mean!" hesays, with an air of infinite relief.

The door opens before we have recovered the shock inflicted on usby this extraordinary discovery. A little, lean, old gentleman,shrouded in a long black dressing-gown, quietly enters the room.The guide steps forward, and respectfully closes the door forhim. We are evidently in the presence of The Master of Books!