CHAPTER V 



THE BIRDS OF THE OUTER FARNES 



' Thy tower, proud Bamborough, marked they there 

 King Ida's castle huge and square 

 From its tall rock look grimly down, 

 And on the swelling ocean frown.' SCOTT. 



MILLIONS of years ago, when the earth was still cooling 

 and shrinking, and its crust every now and then 

 wrinkling, like the scum on a saucepan of boiled milk 

 not long taken off the fire, a great bubble rose from 

 the depths and burst where Northumberland and 

 Durham now lie. The explosion was felt from shore 

 to shore on the mainland, as it now exists, and far out 

 into the North Sea, and has left, among other memorials 

 of its violence, the headland of once molten rock which 

 has carried for centuries the magnificent pile of Bam- 

 borough Castle and the group of volcanic islands on 

 which it looks down. 



The Castle, after standing sieges innumerable and 

 playing an important part in the turbulent politics 

 of the Border, like Charles v. retiring to a monastery, 

 has passed to a charitable trust. The fire-scarred 

 basalt rocks from which its walls rise are in spring 

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