Old John, venerable, grey-bearded, blue-eyed and benign of aspect, was not only a righteous man, he was also a patriot. He loved his native Shetland with an understanding affection and a broadminded tolerance which no mischances of fortune or shortcomings on the part of Shetland itself could dim. In the Lerwick of long ago—that is about 1950—his tall figure was familiar to everybody, and although he was poor, as to worldly possessions, his wise mind and great qualities of heart gave him a place of unique importance in the respect and esteem of his fellow citizens.
Now John knew, none better, that in the nature of things he could not live many more years, and while his approaching demise did not worry his mind in the least, the reflection that he was not able to leave to Shetland some gift of lasting value was a bitter thought to him. Had he been a millionaire, or the possessor of a great library, or of a collection of pictures, or of much land, he could have gratified his desire to bestow upon the people of his beloved Isles a gift which would enrich them and perpetuate his memory. But he had none of these things. His only priceless possessions were a good heart and a great love, and these he oould neither bequeath after death nor quieten during life.
Thus his declining years were marked by times of depression, due to frustrated generosity and to a love that could not find its desired medium of expression. He even prayed about it, for John was deeply religious, although in the simplicity of his heart and the purity of his motives he was quite prepared for some miracle to happen to make his dream come true.
One night, deep in the dark of winter, old John had retired to bed, but not to sleep. The hours walked past on white feet, and, wide-eyed, he stared at the unseen roof of his box-bed— wishing, wishing, longing, praying, hoping, and most passionately desiring. Every fibre of his being was concentrated upon his altruistic purpose, and his half-liberated spirit battered at the very walls of heaven in clamorous entreaty.
Suddenly he could see the roof of his bed and the back of it. A strange light, as of the moon newly risen, filled the small room. He turned his head and saw a beautiful bright Being standing on the floor, from whom this strange light emanated.
John was not afraid—not even surprised. He was excited, however. Suddenly the apparition spoke in a clear and kindly voice, saying, "Your prayer has been heard and your wish will be honoured. What do you wish to leave to your country? You have one wish and one wish only, so think well, for, once expressed, your wish shall come to pass."
The authority in the voice and the mien of the strange visitor were such that old John never doubted for a moment either the actuality of the promise or the certainty that his wish, when expressed, would be fulfilled.
Now the wisdom for which he was noted came to his aid, for he suddenly reflected that he had never been able to formulate any definite and precise wish, and he realized that his one permitted wish merited the most careful thought before he gave it expression.
"May I speak freely? "he asked.
"That is both permitted and desired,"replied the voice.
"Well then; do you perform my wish or are you a messenger? "
"I am but a messenger; one who cannot bear any evil message, or perform an evil wish, but who has power to perform a good wish without reporting."
"Is it permitted that I have a day in which to think of my choice? "
"Yes,"said the stranger, smiling approvingly. "That request is in keeping with your known wisdom, and is granted. Farewell until this hour to-morrow."
As the voice ceased the light began to fade and in a few moments the room was in darkness and silence, except for the sound of the wind in the chimney, and the rattle of the rain on the window. Any other man but John would have been in a fever of excitement over the visitation, but he felt his heart calmed and his mind eased. Like a happy child he turned his face to the wall and fell into a deep sleep.
Morning came and John was up betimes to make his solitary breakfast, wash, shave and "spruce up "as was his custom. He did not stir out of doors all day, but sat lost in deep thought and preparing his mind for his ghostly visitor, who, he doubted not, would appear to keep his tryst. Towards evening his thoughts took definite shape in selecting the greatest good for "his people."He did not wish to consult anybody to ask for advice as he felt sure he would be laughed at or regarded as "fey."
Night came and John went to bed again, but not to sleep. At the same hour the light began to glow, but this time John was watching the spot and he saw it beginning as a faint patch like a weak moonbeam. Presently it strengthened and the messenger rapidly took shape within the halo of light.
"Well, John, your answer,"demanded the voice.
"My mind is made up, but before giving expression to my wish I want to ask a question."
"Say on."
"Am I permitted to consult with you as to my wish or to discuss the relative merits of wishes before coming to a final decision? "
"You may tell me what you have thought or why you have rejected certain wishes, but all I can do in the matter of advice is to repeat that only a good wish will be effective. The wish must be your wish, arrived at by your own unaided volition."
"That eases my mind,"said John. "I can tell you why I do not wish certain things for my fellow-countrymen; certain easy things that would at once occur to any mind as desirable but the granting of which would be a wrong."
"That is possible,"said the visitor.
"For that reason I do not wish for wealth for my fellow-countrymen. I could have wished that every man, woman and child should have at least say ten thousand pounds; that the yield of many millions invested should pay all rents, rates and taxes and leave vast sums for all sorts of improvements."
"Why would that be a wrong P "inquired the calm voice.
"It would be a wrong because it would lead to sloth and degeneration. All the backbone would go out of the people. The struggle to live, although it is severe and could with advantage be mitigated, nevertheless brings out many of the highest qualities of mind and heart and muscle. Remove it entirely and there will be a collapse into moral and social death. If nobody had to work nobody would work. Manual and menial labour would be imported and a busy and industrious people would soon be reduced to becoming drones. Better wish them all dead, for individual physical death is preferable to racial death after a generation or two of slothful degeneration. So I decide against given wealth."
"The decision is good,"commented the stranger, who added, "A present good may become a future ill."
"I could have wished,"continued John, "for acquired wealth. I could have wished for the discovery of great coalfields in the islands or inexhaustible oil wells. The country would have become rapidly industrialized. Great industrial undertakings would have sprung up; cities would be founded and grow; docks, harbours, mills, factories and foundries would be everywhere, and much wealth would be accumulated. But with all that would grow the by-products of industrialism—slums, poverty, vice, cruelty, atheism, injustice, riot and bloodshed. Better a present relatively happy poverty than the certainty of a future unhappy poverty. So I decide against acquired wealth by industrial means."
"This decision is also good,"said the visitor in his grave, clear voice, "and I commend your foresight."
"Your approval,"answered John, "encourages me to tell you all I have in my heart and to disclose why I do not wish for health for my people."
"Health?"inquired the messenger in a tone of surprise. "Why not health? Would that not be a good wish? But explain, O wise old man."
"Well,"began John somewhat diffidently, "you cease to value what you cannot lose. To have health thrust upon one is almost as bad as to have wealth imposed—perhaps worse. There is something moral about health. Want of health is usually Nature's punishment for disregard of her laws. I know if I put my hand in the fire I get burned, or if I jump off a cliff I get hurt. Moreover, if I expose myself to infection I am likely to contract an infectious disease, or to contagion, a contagious disease. If people \new that no matter what they did they could not lose their health what would happen to our moral restraints ? Wipe out pain and you upset the balance of Nature—in fact you wipe out most of Nature itself. Punishment for evils done or knowledge neglected becomes meaningless, and, per contra, rewards for virtues or knowledge used lose their value, for ineluctable health prevails. Let health be a prize to be gained, a possession to be guarded, and ill-health an evil to be avoided, a penalty to be feared, and then health has a meaning—a moral meaning. To fling health at man is to drown his moral nature in spiritual syrup—sweet but suffocating, cloying, deadly. So I do not wish for given health, although I certainly hope that the people will retain good health and also acquire it."
"The reason is good,"said the voice. "You have shown wisdom in your abstentions. It seems to me that the power to choose right is as great as the power to grant a right choice."
"Maybe it is,"hazarded John with a twinkle in his eye. "To choose involves power to choose. Perfect power cannot choose evil and therefore the power to choose good or evil is as great as the power to grant a choice when made."
"Indeed! "said the visitor. "How strange! But proceed,"he added, shifting to the other foot.
Ensued a time of silence while John ruminated upon the power of the finite and the powerlessness of the infinite. He would have been quite happy in the discussion of problems such as this, but his bright visitor did not seem too comfortable with new ideas. In fact John was somewhat astonished at the ease with which he could surprise this simpleton of the skies.
"Neither do I choose happiness,"said John at length.
"And wherefore not happiness? A happy people must surely have all that their hearts could desire, else would they be unhappy."
"I hope they will be happy, but I do not choose happiness as my gift because I want them to earn their happiness. How tragic to have happiness imposed upon one. One would have to be happy whether there were grounds for happiness or not, and that would be imbecility. What could be worse than a fatuous happiness in the face of unhappy facts? Besides, does everyone deserve to be happy? Certainly not—no more than everyone deserves to be healthy or wealthy. If a man deliberately squanders his health does he deserve to be healthy, or his wealth, wealthy ?
"Aristotle said that happiness was the greatest human good. But happiness is a result, a by-product, a synthesis, and I doubt whether it can be an end in itself. Think you is God happy? Do not the sins and general foolishness of humans make Him unhappy or is He merely amused? Do people really value a personal good which they have not earned and for which they have not sacrificed? The greatest minds in human history have not been conspicuously happy. Could one say that Homer, Socrates, Aristotle, Paul, Augustine, Shakespeare, Darwin, Carlyle and Lincoln were examples of supreme happiness? Perhaps the experience of happiness is in inverse ratio to the strength of the mentality experiencing it. Mostly to be happy is to be bovine. If one considers only one's circumstances it is no doubt possible for one to be perfectly happy occasionally. But can the cultured mind, as it surveys the world, be satisfied with a happiness that is only subjective? It knows that there is slavery still in the dark places of the earth; that cruelty and vice and superstition still exist. It knows that multitudes of little children are hungry and that they suffer untold cruelties and neglect in many a reeking slum. It knows that in the name of freedom millions die under tryannies darker than those that arose from the reactionaries of the past. Can such a mind be happy? Happiness is to be found only in forgetfulness or in ignorance.
"Besides, to be perfectly happy is to stop all progress. If ' everything in the garden is lovely ' why bother? Out of unhappiness (or its bedfellow, discontent) has arisen that desire for ' something better ' which lies at the root of all invention, exploration, discovery, social betterment and, it might with equal truth be said, at the root of all art and literature and statesmanship. Discontent is a divine gift; happiness an opiate of the gods."
John ceased to speak and looked rather fearfully at his patient visitor, for he thought that perhaps he had overdone it on this occasion. The bright one did not immediately reply, but seemed to be reflecting on what he had heard.
"A wise decision,"was the spectral comment. "What then do you choose?"
"I choose climate,"said John.
"Climate! "exclaimed the bright one.
"Climate,"said John, nodding.
"But you have a climate,"objected the visitor.
"Yes, we have a climate, but I want a perfect climate! "
"What's wrong with it? It is better than your latitude entitles you to."
"Yes, I know. Shetland lies on 6o° north, the same latitude as St. Petersburg, Petrograd, Leningrad, or whatever its name is this week, and in the same latitude as Cape Farewell in Greenland, but I wish for a better climate, a climate the details of which I shall explain presently. Mind, I do not desire my wish to become operative until I have explained it."
"I await your pleasure,"said his courteous auditor.
"At present our wet and windy winter climate lies at the root of most of the poverty, ill-health and unhappiness in the country. A better climate would abolish most of the poverty, ill-health and unhappiness, so that in getting this wish I get also the wishes I rejected, viz., wealth, health and happiness, but I get them by a better way than just giving them.
"We are afflicted,"continued John, "with scouring sea winds. Laden as they are with salt and rain, these winds make the climate rather rigorous. Trees grow with difficulty; fruit trees will not grow freely, nor will wheat. A cold, late season sometimes prevents crops ripening, and often before the remains of it can be reaped winter is upon the land and the crofter sees his labour as almost in vain. His cattle are sometimes almost starved and his sheep die. He has few or no surplus products to sell and he can just make a bare living.
"Moreover, the cold, wet climate makes peaty soil and sweeps the high hills almost bare of all but the rankest and bitterest grasses. In some places the hills are little better than stony wastes with hard grasses growing amongst the stones. Tempestuous seas rave upon the outer coast and fling themselves in fury upon cliff and beach, and the harvest of the sea is often as difficult to reap as the harvest of the field, and the reaping is much more dangerous. The wet and cold affect the health of the people and are certainly accountable for most of the illnesses of an otherwise healthy people."
"So you think that a change of climate will alter that state of things? "inquired the voice.
"I'm sure of it, and that is why my one wish is to wish 'a climate to order.' Let me state my wish in terms so that it is clearly understood by the clerk of the weather, for while I do not have the pleasure of his personal acquaintance, I know enough about him to know that sometimes he blots his copy-book pretty badly.
"I wish that for all time in future, inside a distance of twenty miles from the coasts of Shedand there shall be (a) a temperature never less than 60 ° and never more than 85°; (b) bright sunshine every day of the year; (c) no wind to exceed twenty miles per hour in strength; (d) gentle rain for two hours every day, such rain always to occur between the hours of 1 a.m. and 3 a.m., and (<?) that these conditions would begin right now."
"It is well; the wish has been spoken. It shall be accomplished even as desired,"said the messenger, and as he spoke his form began to dim.
John sprang out of bed with the idea of having further speech with him and possibly checking over the details of the wish, but before his feet touched the floor the spot on which the bright guest had stood was in darkness and John was alone.
He returned to bed, but could not sleep. The rain continued to beat upon the window, but its force was less and the wind seemed to have dropped to a breeze. He wondered if the wish would take effect, not realizing that the gentle rain and softened wind were already evidences of its operation.
Presently he began to feel warm, which was most unusual, for he was old and his blood was thin. He finally threw off his quilt as he was in a sweat under the mountain of bedclothes which he always affected. Suddenly the rain stopped—as suddenly as if it had been turned off at a tap. He struck a match and saw that the time was precisely three o'clock. Then it dawned upon him that the gentled wind, the ceased rain and the raised temperature were all indisputable evidences that his wish was working like mad, and a kind of joyful fear possessed him. He rose, clad himself, lit his fire, and, after a frugal snack, went outside to view the face of Nature with which he had interfered so much.
Darkness lay upon the land save for the faint light of a thin crescent of a moon that sailed high in the sky. The wind was soft and caressing as on a soft summer's day; the voice of the waves in the harbour in front of his house had sunk to a soft lapping, even if a harsher note came echoing from the turmoil around the seaward cliffs. Long and patiently he waited for the dawn, and at last it came, in a cloudless sky, flooding in from the east, the harbinger of a new era.
He saw the evidences of the people awakening to the toils of the day in smoke from his neighbours' chimneys, and soon folks began to clatter through the streets and lanes of the town, greeting each other cheerily in the fine warm morning.
"It's a braw fine mornin', Tom,"said one to a friend as they met not far from John's door.
"Yis, it is trooly dat, Mansie. It's ower guid to be true. I'm tinkin' dis is afore somethin'."
"Dat's what I'm tinkin' too, Tom. He'll come a crack oot o' da nort efter dis, dat's my opeenion."
"Saw doo da thermometer on da Esplanade dis mornin' ? "
"Man, I did dat. It's at 60. Wha ever heard da laek dis time o' year. It's no canny, I'm tellin' dee. An' dere's no a clood ida sky edder. What's happened ta da wadder— dat's what I wid laek ta ken."
"I tink we'll no go aff ta da haddocks dis day till we see what he does."
"Bit da gless is high an' risin' too,"objected Mansie. "No dat da wadder peys much attention ta da gless here-aboots, onywye,"he hastened to add.
"Man, it's dis het dat fair caps me. It wis a perisher only yisterday an' dere's sdll snaw up by the paets."
"Weel if dis haads oot dy'll be nae snaw left be denner-time. Feth, A'm swettin', an' if dis keeps on I'll no wait for May ta cast my cloots."
John heard this dialogue with amusement and exaltation. His wish was working—in fact, it was working overtime, and he felt so happy about it all. His neighbour, one Sarah by name, greeted him in her hearty way :
"Good mornin', John; it's a pritty mornin'."
"Yes, Sarah; it is a fine morning, and every morning for the rest of our days will be just as fine."
"What say ye, John? Hev ye lost your judgement aatagidder? "
John proceeded to confide his momentous secret to the astonished Sarah. She, poor soul, soon came to the conclusion that John was going mad, and as his recital continued she kept backing away from him with a look of dread dawning in her eyes. He told her of his decision against wealth and health and happiness, and when Sarah heard this all her lingering doubts as to John's sanity fled, and she was now convinced that she had to deal with a madman. She backed farther away, and before she finally turned to flee she said: "Heth, I tink I wid a hed da money."
John's wish was made and granted as long ago as 1950. It is now, needless to say, the year of grace 2200, and the present veracious chronicler shall narrate what befell, as a result of the wish, by reporting a conversation between one of old John's"direct descendants and his litde son.
"Father, how is it that you are the Permanent Grand Jarl of Shetland, and how is it that we have to live in this Palace? The boys at school do not treat me as one of themselves; they seem to fear me or respect me—anyhow they don't play with me the same as with the other boys."
"Well, the reason is that I am the direct descendant of the Great John and you are my son, d'you see? "
"No, I don't. What has the Great John to do with it, and who was he, anyhow? "
"He wished ' The Wish ' and it made all this possible. Each succeeding head of the family is made the uncrowned king of Shetland, and it is as much honoured as Mohammedans honour the descendants of the Prophet."
"What was ' The Wish ' ? "
So John told the boy of the great wish and how it came about, just as already recorded. He told how John—the Great John—wrote his account of how the wish was made, and how the document was presented to the Provost to be deposited in the archives of the town. He told of the condition of Shetland before the great change—of how there were less than thirty thousand people in the islands at the time, and gave the boy a clear account of the condition of the country at that far-off time.
"What a place! "exclaimed the boy.
"I dare say they were happy enough, but they had to face climatic conditions of which modern Shetland knows nothing*
"To-day there is a population of over half a million. Lerwick is bigger than Aberdeen and is the third city in Scotland.
The Lerwick of John's day has disappeared entirely except for the small Town Hall above the Botanical Gardens. The city has grown until it stretches from Quarff to Dales Voe, and has almost joined Scalloway, which now fills the valley of Ting-wall. The esplanade stretches as far as Gulberwick. There is no finer city in the modern world than Lerwick. Its matchless boulevards and squares are both admired and envied. As you know, it has a Cathedral, a fine Art Gallery, a Museum, a great Library, two theatres, an Opera House and twelve cinemas. It has two daily newspapers, both of which publish five editions daily; two weekly newspapers and half a dozen monthly periodicals of various kinds. Twice a day the ten thousand ton liners arrive from the south. One a week arrives from Stockholm, Copenhagen, Oslo and Bergen, while there are frequent sailings direct to London and to France and Germany as well as to the Mediterranean and to America.
"In the days of the Great John, Sandwick, Skeld, Walls, Voe, Baltasound, Hillswick and a dozen other places were only villages. Now they are all flourishing towns bigger than the Lerwick of John's day. The growth of all has been steady, and as town-planning was put in operation immediately growth began, each town is splendidly designed and planned, and there are no slums. All these towns have direct sailings of up-to-date electric liners to southern ports."
"But what has made all the difference? "asked the boy.
"The weather,"was the answer. "As soon as it was seen that the wish continued to work, the press of the world took it up, and Shetland became the astonishment of the world, as indeed it remains to-day. This sun-drenched oasis in the northern seas attracted legions of visitors from all over the civilized world. Meteorologists came in shoals to study the phenomenon. All sorts of scientists—physicists, astronomers, biologists, botanists, oceanographers, chemists and statesmen, as well as cranks, came in herds to speculate and argue and gape at something which simply couldn't be true but which nevertheless obviously was true. The Daily Mail screamed itself hoarse about it and The Times condescended to a leader on it. Every nation in the world became excited about it, and soon the warm, smooth waters within the magic twenty-mile ring were alive with yachts, liners and units of every navy under the sun. The British Association met in Lerwick, and more than half its discussions were devoted to the unprecedented situation.
"This invasion was regarded as temporary, but soon a tide of immigration set in. People poured into the country and settled down to enjoy the most perfect weather in the world. A large proportion of these people were wealthy, and they forthwith began to build palatial homes. Land values soared—in fact all values sky-rocketed. There never was such a building boom since Rome was burned. Fine buildings sprang up everywhere, from Sumburgh to Flugga and from the Skerries to Foul a.
"Coincidentally with this staggering influx every native industry leapt into unheard-of prosperity. Fabulous prices were paid for all sorts of fish, hosiery and every sort of agricultural produce. As the immigration continued the indigenous population became wealthy. Shetland could not grow, for example, half the potatoes required and thousands of tons were imported. There was a milk famine. The crofters could have sold their supply four times over at a shilling a pint. The hens couldn't lay fast enough—they never did, for that matter! Eggs were selling at four shillings a dozen until Egypt found out about it.
"But all that was only at the beginning and represented a time of hecticism and disorganization. Gradually things settled down. Factories began to spring up to supply the rapidly increasing local demand for all sorts of commodities. Where there is both money and demand there is no trouble about production. Both demand and money were increasing daily. Many of the thousands of newcomers were retired business men who had made their pile in the south in all sorts of businesses and professions. The stimulating conditions galvanized them into renewed business activity, and the result was that the new industries did not lack for money, initiative, experience, enterprise or directional ability.
"The permanently glorious weather made an unbelievable difference to the countryside. Every crofter could get three complete crops a year. They stopped growing so much cereals and concentrated upon root crops, market gardening, and milk and egg production. Soon they pulled down their houses and built fine residences, each standing in a garden ' with roses round the door.' Most of these houses were of the modern villa type of eight rooms and bathroom. A little later they all had electric light, the telephone, wireless and a motor-car.
"One unforeseen result of the new conditions was that Shetlanders from all over the world came trooping back by every boat. New Zealand was half emptied. Every sailor returned home, and soon it was difficult to find a ship with a Shetlander in the crew. Far more money was to be found at home than anywhere else. In fact Shetland had become a Bonanza. There was a regular blizzard of weddings. The old bachelors, of whom Shetland had such a crop, began to realize that time was passing and that prosperity warms the coldest blood. The result was the total abolition of the old maid. Nobody mourned her passing, not even the erstwhile old maid herself—she perhaps least of all.
"The King sold Balmoral Castle and built his Scottish home in Shedand—at Tresta, to be exact. Several European kings also built their residences in the country which had the absolute certainty of continuous good weather. A descendant of the German Kaiser asked for permission to erect a mansion. He was offered the Ve Skerries as a gift, and he wrote a courteous reply which pointed out that he was not a limpet. Earls and Dukes built palatial mansions for seasonal residences, not only to enjoy the weather, but to be near the Court during its annual stay in Shetland.
"But perhaps the most wonderful thing that happened and upon which, after the weather, all the prosperity of Shetland depended, was the tremendous rush of tourists and holiday-makers. This tide of visitors began in a relatively small way as the world naturally expected that the fine weather was only a passing aberration of the climate. During the first few years the total number of visitors never exceeded twenty thousand a year. Thereafter the number rose by leaps and bounds, and at the end of the first decade after the wish the annual influx was half a million. To-day, as you know, the number is well over three millions and is rapidly growing each year. In the early days a crop of small hotels sprang up like mushrooms, but these proved quite inadequate to deal with the tremendous inflow of people. Boarding-houses of all sorts and sizes catered for many thousands, but the crying need was for more and more hotels—bigger and better hotels. The result was the creation of scores of vast hotels scattered all over the country. The water fronts of Lerwick, Scalloway, Walls, etc., are composed of lines of great hotels, with the esplanades and promenades in front, these latter lined with palm trees and mimosa in bloom.
"All this meant, of course, millions of pounds of new money for Shetland. All sorts of supplies were required in enormous quantities, and Shetland at that time could supply only a small fraction of the demand. Many hundreds of boats put to sea every day of the year for white fish which commanded a ready and rising market. The thousands of returned Shetlanders threw themselves into the task of meeting the demand for fish, but their utmost efforts failed to do so. Trawlers began to land their catches at a dozen Shetland ports, and only then was the demand met. You see three and a half millions of people eat a whole lot of fish.
"The next great problem was agriculture. There were wide-spreading peat moors that were ' a drug on the market ' because firstly they were sterile from a crop point of view, and secondly peats were no longer required, as people could easily afford coal and had no time to bother with casting and curing peats. They could earn twenty times the value of the peats in the time taken to provide them. I told you that scientists of every cult and ilk descended uopn Shetland to study the conditions. The only scientists who ever did really permanent good were the chemists. After repeated failures they at last perfected a chemical preparation for converting peat moors into fertile arable ground, and from that day Shetland went right ahead economically.
"The continued fine weather had clothed the hills with a luscious growth of grass and other vegetation. Gradually the bare, stony nature of many hills disappeared as a deep rich soil was deposited, due to the warm weather, the regular early morning gende rain and the decay of the vegetable mande each year.
"In fifty years' time the whole face of the country was absolutely changed. Most of the old crops had passed away. In their place had come fruit, tea, tobacco and coffee growing as well as market gardening upon the most intensive and scientific lines. Orange groves were common. Apples, lemons, pineapple, pomegranates, nectarines, peaches, grapes and melons grew freely. There was no banana in the world to touch the Northmavine banana! Trees of all kinds grew everywhere— not only fruit and flowering trees, but hardwoods as well, such as teak, mahogany, lignumvitae, rosewood, sandalwood and dye-wood. The Whalsay peach was a prize, while the Bressay pippin was in a class by itself. The growing towns of Yell and Unst were surrounded by coffee fields and tea gardens, while all the isles along the western seaboard grew fruit and tobacco. Burra and Trondra were flowery gardens of delight—hibiscus, hydrangea and rhododendrons hanging their heavy blooms right to the water's edge. The vineyards of Walls were famous, as were also those of Weisdale and Dunrossness.
"The value of the land continued to soar. Every crofter (how strange that word sounds to-day) in the old days had a right of tenure. This was superseded by every crofter buying his own land. The landlords came out of the deal well enough as they got on the average twelve times more for the land than they paid for it. In those days that represented a small profit, for the crofter's income had increased a hundredfold. New land was constantly being brought under cultivation, and rich crops, with three distinct harvests a year, grew to the top of every hill.
"Farming of all sorts had become mechanized. Few horses were used, as electric machinery did all the hard and dirty work.
"Some went in for dairy farming, and five hundred milch cows in a byre was not uncommon. Of course the total milk demand could not be met locally, and chilled milk had to be imported daily in the refrigerators of the liners.
"Broad, smooth, macadamized roads radiated from every town throughout the land. There was no house without a road to the door within a hundred years of the wish. Motor traffic was excessively heavy until light electric railways came, when the congestion on the roads was relieved. But many transport problems remained and the sea became a busy highway for inter-city traffic.
"As there is no clay, or very little, in Shetland, bricks could not be made. Millions of bricks were imported for building purposes but most of the buildings were of solid stone—chiefly granite. A vast quarry undertaking sprang up at Ronas Hill, and in two hundred years the hill was as flat as a pancake and its site occupied by farms. To cut short the sea passage from the east side to the west, and vice versa, two canals were dug— one through the Scoord of Quarff and one through the neck of land at Mavinsgrind, and much of the stone from the Ronas quarry passed through those two canals.
"I could tell you more, for there is so much more to tell. On the side of education the story of the founding and growth of the Thule University is a romance. So is that of the Royal Hospital and the General Infirmary. Schools abound, as do technical colleges and schools of art. Literature has been cultivated and there has been an astonishing renaissance of letters in all departments of literature.
"Poverty has practically disappeared except in the cases of those who would still be poor if they lived in the Mint. Disease has been vanquished except for deserved illnesses, and happiness is perhaps more general than in any community on earth."
"But, father, what was the weather really like before the Wish? I cannot seem to imagine it."
"My son, when people want to know what the weather was like in the days of the Great John they simply take the boat to Orkney! "