Series 1 > Diary of the Reverend John Mill, minister of the parishes of Dunrossness Sandwick and Cunningsburgh in Shetland, 1740-1803. With selections from local records and original documents relating to the district

52
MILL’S DIARY
[1777
worthy name, for all his undeserved favours. The bear [here]
is all cut down, and upwards of 15 thrave1 of oats, when
few have come that length, the heavens still lowering and
threatening: but O how is mercy mixed with judgment when
all was in danger of being lost.
October 13th. The hay stack gathered heat through the
carelessness of a servant who had thrown in wet hay mixed
with the dry, and occasioned a vehement smoak, which obliged
me to cause pull it down forthwith, and put it again in small
screws,2 which, to great astonishment, recovered in four days’
time, and was re-stacked upon the 18th day, the driest and
best day we have got this harvest, as severals observed ; the
corns cutt down and mostly taken in, wherefore I intend to go
out to catechising work in the parish upon the 20th inst.
November 20th. My daughter Nell, the eldest, was married
at Culleaster,3 by the minister of Lerwick, to George Tocher,
Merchant in Aberdeen, contrary to my inclinations. He came
here under a pretence of settling a correspondence for traffick
with this countrey, June 1776. It appeared they had then been
mutually engaged, and were carrying on a secret correspondence
by letters, and she had the impudence to desire him to come
over at this dangerous season to be joined to her in marriage;
and no means essayed could dissuade them from it, which
made me passive in the affair, as there seemed to be a hand of
Providence in it; and though he could afford her no settlement
for life, yet as he appears to be a Sincere Christian I was afraid
she might do worse. Sho waa too forward in drawing up with
young in on [erased, but legible]. The late storms have brought
several wrecks on this parish.
December 5th. The second packet sailed with the married
couple as passengers ; they had fine weather. Captain Robinson,
a smuggler from Gottenburgh, sold quantities of tea; but the
1 Thrave : Old Northern Threfi, 24 sheaves.
2 In the native tongue Skru is the term for a stack, or rick, of corn or hay.
Icelandic, or Old Northern, Skruf, the same. The word occurs as early as in
the Edda.
8 Culleaster, in the parish of Sandwick. The marriage did not take place
in her father’s house, but at a place five to seven miles distant.