and there,
Perchance, a vessel skimmed the watery waste,
Like a white-winged sea-bird, but it moved
Too pale and small beneath the vail of space.
There, too, went forth the sun
Like a white angel, going down to visit
The silent, ice-washed cloisters of the Pole."

--RICHTER'S "TITAN."

More than fifty years ago this thing happened: Jan Vedder was
betrothed to Margaret Fae. It was at the beginning of the Shetland
summer, that short interval of inexpressible beauty, when the amber
sunshine lingers low in the violet skies from week to week; and the
throstle and the lark sing at midnight, and the whole land has an air
of enchantment, mystic, wonderful, and far off.

In the town of Lerwick all was still, though it was but nine o'clock;
for the men were at the ling-fishing, and the narrow flagged street
and small quays were quite deserted. Only at the public fountain there
was a little crowd of women and girls, and they sat around its broad
margin, with their water pitchers and their knitting, laughing and
chatting in the dreamlike light.

"Well, and so Margaret Fae marries at last; she, too, marries, like
the rest of the world."

"Yes, and why not?"

"As every one knows, it is easier to begin that coil than to end it;
and no one has ever thought that Margaret would marry Jan--he that is
so often at the dance, and so seldom at the kirk."

"Yes, and it is said that he is not much of a man. Magnus Yool can wag
him here; and Nicol Sinclair send him there, and if Suneva Torr but
cast her nixie-eyes on him, he leaves all to walk by her side. It is
little mind of his own he hath; besides that, he is hard to deal with,
and obstinate."

"That is what we all think, Gisla; thou alone hast uttered it. But we
will say no more of Jan, for oft ill comes of women's talk."

The speakers were middle-aged women who had husbands and sons in the
fishing fleet, and they cast an anxious glance toward it, as they
lifted their water pitchers to their heads, and walked slowly home
together, knitting as they went. Lerwick had then only one street of
importance, but it was of considerable length, extending in the form
of an amphitheater along the shore, and having numberless little lanes
or closes, intersected by stairs, running backward to an eminence
above the town. The houses were generally large and comfortable, but
they were built without the least regard to order. Some faced the sea,
and some the land, and the gabl