Also, he was not forgetful of the human interest of his journey. His father had always felt himself to be a stranger and an exile in Skye, and in his later years the "homing" instinct for the Shetlands had been a passionate longing, which had communicated itself to David. He had been glad to leave Uig, for he had not a single happy memory of the little hut in which they two had dwelt and suffered together. As for the bleak kirkyard, over which the great winds blew the sea-foam, it made his heart ache to remember it. He felt an unspeakable pity when he thought of one of its solitary graves, and he promised himself to sail back to Uig some day, and bring home the dust of his father, and lay it among his kindred. Indeed, it was thoughts of home and kindred which made this long, lonely voyage happy and hopeful to David. He believed himself to be going home. Though his father at the last had not spoken much of his cousin Paul Borson, and though David had not found the letter which was to be his introduction to him, yet he had not a doubt of his welcome. Time might wither friendship and slay love, but his kindred were always his kindred; they were bound to him by the ineffaceable and imperishable ties of blood and race. David approached Lerwick in that divine twilight which in the Shetland summer links day unto day; and in its glory the ancient homes of gray and white sandstone appeared splendid habitations. The town was very quiet; even the houses seemed to be asleep. He saw no living thing but a solitary sea-gull skimming the surface of the sea; he heard nothing but a drunken sailor fitfully singing a stave of "The Skaalds of Foula." The clear air, the serene seas, the tranquil grandeur of the caverned rocks which guard the lonely isles, charmed him. And when the sun rose and he saw their mural fronts of porphyry, carved by storms into ten thousand castles in the air, and cloud-like palaces still more fantastic, he felt his heart glow for the land of his birth and the home of his forefathers. To the tumult of almost impossible hopes, he brought in his little craft. He had felt certain that his appearance would awaken at once interest and speculation; that Paul Borson would hear of his arrival and come running to meet him; that his father's old friends, catching the news, would stop him on the quay and the street, and ask him questions and give him welcome. He had also told himself that it was likely his father's cousin would have sons and daughters, and if so, that they would certainly be glad to see him; besides which there was his mother's family--the old Icelandic Sabistons. He was resolved to seek them all out, rich or poor, far or near; in his heart there was love enough and to spare, however distant the kinship might be.