Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 February 1875 — The Bridge of Shetland. [ARTICLE]

The Bridge of Shetland.

It may not be generally known that in Shetland the cl ills are called banks, and that, in the “days when fowling was extensively practiced,” to die on the banks was looked upon as the most honorable death a man could meet with, in consequence, no doubt, of the combined profit and danger with which the fowler’s vocation was attended, insomuch that, when two people were quarreling, the crowning reproach of all sometimes took the form of the remark: “ Ay, but my father died like a the banks; yours died like a dog—in his bed.” A ludicrous rather than painful illustration of the aforesaid danger is afforded by an anecdote touching a “ would-be fowler in Unst,” who, having undertaken to climb the steep hank and, being neither very experienced nor very brave, although he boasted of being both, met with a fate similar to but leas disastrous than that of ” Hutnply Dumpty.” “He pushed upward,” we are told, very briskly without ever looking behind, till he bad got to about 150 feet, when he stopped to breathe. The pause was fatal to his self-possession, and he called out in tones of horror: “Men! men! 1 am going—l urn going!” 11c still, however, held on for a little, and it was not till he had shrieked many times, “ I am going!" that he did fall headlong. His comrades having been thus warned, moved the boat out of the way, so that the poor fellow came sheer down into the deep water. At length he rose to the surface, when of course he was instantly caught hold of and dragged into the boat. After a good many gasps, and a considerable spluttering of sea-water from his mouth, his only remark was: “Eh, men, this is a sad story —I have lost my snuff-box!” Perhaps he bad indulged in just one dram “to steady his nerves," or “in ohe single pipe of cavendish.” against botli which indulirencies he who proposes to climb is most strongly warned — Chambers' Journal.