32 The Birds of the 



campion, and spotted at all sorts of corners with 

 patches of another white, poetical only in the tale it 

 tells of the domestic happiness of jackdaws and 

 starlings beyond the reach of boys' fingers. The 

 square central keep, when not occupied as a summer 

 residence by some happy trustee, is let by the week 

 for the benefit of the charity, and in the eastern wing 

 thirty or forty orphan girls are housed and taught. 



The Farne Islands, on which their bedroom 

 windows look out, have a long history, too, of their 

 own, scarcely second in interest to that of Lindisfarne 

 or lona itself. It was to the Farne, the principal 

 island which gives to the group its name (one 

 derivation makes it the "Place of Rest") that 

 St. Cuthbert retired. It was here that he taught 

 the eider duck the lesson of tameness during the 

 breeding season, which she still remembers, though 

 the drake, in common with most birds, has long 

 since forgotten it ; and here that Egfrid, King of 

 Northumbria, and his nobles found the Saint, and on 

 their bended knees, "with tears and entreaties," 

 offered him the Bishopric of Hexham. It was on a 

 rock on the Fames that the Forfarshire went to 

 pieces, and it is in the churchyard under the Castle 

 on the mainland opposite that Grace Darling and 

 her father sleep. 



But for those whose calling obliges them to live 

 more in the work-a-day present than in the past, the 

 chief charm of the Farne Islands is that they are one 

 of the principal breeding-places of sea birds on the 

 English coast, and easily accessible from London. 

 With the help of the Great Northern night express, 

 a sleeping carnage, and fine weather, it is not 

 difficult, at a pinch, to see all that is best worth 

 seeing, and store one's memory with pictures not 



