edge of it. He crept up a little nearer, aud then took aim and fired. The eagle, after balancing and tottering a moment on his perch, fell heavily over, down the face of the cliff, and disappeared. Halco climbed out to the place of the nest, and there he found his little child, safe and sound, and playing with the young eagles."

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'Why, Grimkie !" said John, as soon as Grimkie had finished reading his narrative, “I found a story a little like that, about an eagle carrying off a child, but there was not half as much in it as you have told."

"I thought I would embellish it a little," said Grimkie. "I presume it is just as true after I embellished it, as it was before."

John's composition was very short. It was as follows:

"THE HOLE IN THE STONE:

"In one of the stones of Stennis, is a round hole passing directly through the stone, not far from the edge. Nobody knows what this hole was made for by the people who set up the stone, but for a great many ages past it has been considered sacred for engagements. Whenever two persons wish to make any solemn agreement

they go to Stennis and put their hands through this hole, and clasp them together in the center of it and then make the promise. If they do this they consider themselves solemnly bound.

"Lovers used to do this when they engaged themselves to each other. And it is said they do so now sometimes. Grimkie and I wanted to try it, but we could not think of anything to promise each other."

Instead of a composition Mrs. Morelle wrote a letter to America, giving an account of the journey and voyage to the Orkney Islands. She read this letter to the children after they had finished reading their compositions, and then, though it was yet very light, they all went to bed.

20*

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE EMBARKATION.

AFTER remaining for some time in the islands, and making many excursions, sometimes by land and sometimes by water, in one of which Grimkie and John went out in one of the fishing boats, and had an excellent time fishing, the party began to look forward with some interest to the time for setting out on their return. The question arose how they should return. John was very eager to go by the mail boat across the Pentland Firth, instead of returning by the steamer, as they came.

The steamer made the trip only once a week. It started from Edinburgh, touched at Aberdeen and at Wick, then, after going to Kirkwall in the Orkneys, proceeded to the Shetland Islands, sixty miles or more farther north. Then returning by the same way, she went back to Edinburgh. This voyage, with the necessary detentions at the different ports, occupied six days, so that there was no opportunity of returning tc

Scotland by the Prince Consort, except once a week.

It was necessary to send the mail to the Orkneys, however, every day, and John had found out that a special service had been organized for this purpose over the islands toward the south by some sort of mail-cart, and thence across the Pentland Firth, at the narrowest place, to the coast of Scotland, in a sail boat. Thence by coach or mail-cart to Wick, and so south toward England.

There were three reasons why John wished to go by this route. First, he wished to see what sort of travelling riding in a mail cart would be. Next he had a great desire to see the Pentland Firth, and to cross it in a sail boat. He had heard wonderful accounts of this famous channel-of the furious tides and currents that swept through it, producing whirlpools, and boiling surges, and roaring breakers of the most wonderful character, and he was very curious to see them. Then, lastly, by this route he had hoped to go and see John O'Groat's house.

John O'Groat's house, the name of which has become so famous all the world over, stands, or rather stood, upon the very extremity of Scotland, toward the northeast, and as the opposite corner of the island toward the southwest, is

called Land's End, there arose the expression from the Land's End to John O'Groat's, to denote the whole territory of Great Britain.

But inasmuch as the British territory extended to the southwest to several islands the most remote of which in that direction is Jersey, and as it also includes on the north the Shetland Islands, the most northern point of which is called Ska, the expression would more fully comprehend all that is intended, if instead of being "from Land's End to John O'Groat's," it was "from Jersey to Ska."

The story of John O'Groat is, that he had six relatives or friends who when they came to see him quarreled in respect to which should take precedence in going out at the door, and in order to settle the question, he built a six-sided house, with a door in each side, and made a sixsided table within, with a side toward each door, so that each of his guests might have a seat of honor, and seem to be first in going out when the feast was over.

John O'Groat's house is now nothing but a name, as all traces of the building-if any such ever existed—have long since disappeared. Nothing marks the spot but a little green mound, which tradition says is the one which the building formerly occupied.